I’m curious here on this one. I was talking with some guys at the gunshop last week about my new 22 trainer and i was saying how I haven’t shot it yet and was going to this past weekend. anyways he went on to say the old timers he shoots match’s with say a 22lr usually don’t shoot to there max potential till after 200rds. So I’m wondering is this true, does the barrel need broke in? I know first hand Centerfire barrels speed up around 160-200 rounds and I’ve seen a lot of factory barrels shoot better after a 100 rounds ran thru them. I’m wondering if 22s are the same or if it’s a noticeable difference like it is with center fire barrels?
- Thread starter Hattrick
- Start date
My Ruger Precision rimfire got more accurate as I got rounds through it. But that was the factory barrel and I think custom barrels don’t take as much if any rounds through them to group better. I think it depends a lot on the rifle and manufacture.
I wish I had a picture of the first group from my proof barreled vudoo when i got it put together. It was 1/4” or so at 50yds with the very first 5rds down the tube. It’s always been extremely accurate. I wouldn’t say that additional rounds down the barrel have made much difference. YMMV
A lot of people talk about it taking a few rounds to build up a wax/lube layer in a new or freshly cleaned barrel and it also taking a few rounds to come good when changing ammo because of different wax.
Some say 5-10 to get it running good, others say a few hundred. I don’t think there’s any actual “barrel break in” though because your projectiles ride on a cushion of wax the whole way down the tube.
Some say 5-10 to get it running good, others say a few hundred. I don’t think there’s any actual “barrel break in” though because your projectiles ride on a cushion of wax the whole way down the tube.
A high end barrel which has been hand lapped to glossy perfection
requires no break in. It's already as good as it will be.
A factory hammer forged production barrel will require about
1000 shots fired to polish out the bore and fill the imperfections left by the machining.
The glass/silica in the burnt primer residue left in the barrel after each shot
is picked up by the next bullet and dragged along the bore, doing the polishing.
It's a small amount of silica and it takes a while to grind down the tooling marks and micro burrs.
A new factory barrel with it's less than perfect rifling
actually removes material from the bullet, making it asymmetric.
You won't obtain consistent trajectories from an out of balance projectile.
Each successive shot fired improves the bore and does less damage to the bullet surface.
After about 2 bricks downrange, most production barrels are as good as they'll get.
requires no break in. It's already as good as it will be.
A factory hammer forged production barrel will require about
1000 shots fired to polish out the bore and fill the imperfections left by the machining.
The glass/silica in the burnt primer residue left in the barrel after each shot
is picked up by the next bullet and dragged along the bore, doing the polishing.
It's a small amount of silica and it takes a while to grind down the tooling marks and micro burrs.
A new factory barrel with it's less than perfect rifling
actually removes material from the bullet, making it asymmetric.
You won't obtain consistent trajectories from an out of balance projectile.
Each successive shot fired improves the bore and does less damage to the bullet surface.
After about 2 bricks downrange, most production barrels are as good as they'll get.
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With my Vudoo and custom T1x they both shot amazing from the beginning. I didn’t see any significant change in the way they shot after several hundred rounds. Those are however premium barrels. What I did notice however is it did take a little while for the bolt to get broken in on the Vudoo. The more I shoot it the smoother the action runs. This is pretty common though. I usually run my bolt a little until I can identify the areas where the bolt is rubbing then buff those areas out with jewelers compound and a muslin wheel to speed the process up.
This is what I was told by BR National Level shooter several years ago when they were testing barrels. I might still have the file on my laptop but it involved hundreds of borescope images, charting round count and group size from start to completion. They shot half a dozen different barrels from a variety of manufacturers from cheap to uber $$$. Results were pretty much in line with cost except for a few blips along the way. In the end they said 1k rounds down a pipe should be the end of deviations. They do have barrels mind you with over 100k round count still producing match winning groups out of a mechanical rest.
