Re: Objective research on Barrel Break-in procedures
damn just lost all this and had to re type it.
For me i think all this comes down to a few points (please note this is just my personal thoughts on the matter)
1:what dose barrel break in do?
2:do i need a barrel break in procedure?
3:how do i do a barel break in procedure?
4:what else might be going on here?
1:from what i have read above and seen online a barrel break in procedure has only one purpose, to wear down the barrel and remove any dings burs that might be in there. wether is be just firing round, hand lapping, fire lapping or shooting a clean bore. and with these processes this happens faster or slower depending on what process you do.
2:i dont think custom barrels need a break in because of there over all quality and hand lapping, as for factory barrels it would be hit or miss and the only way is to use a bore scope to see how bad the internals of a bore realy is, but dose it realy matter if the rifle shoots accurate?
3:how i do barel break in is quite simple, i dont do one. i just load up 20 or so rounds to sight in the rifle and to get a feel for it and just pull a dry clean bore snake through after every 5>10 rounds just to get rid of any excess copper/ carbon that is in that awefull dinged and bured up factory barrel.
then i go on to my laod development (50 or so rounds) and by the time im done, somoth or rough bore i have nice accurate rifle.
4/1
ersonaly i think between the sighing shots and load development any burrs dings ect will be smothed over and if not ive developed my loads around that anyway. ive done this with my current factory tikka t3 and savage and have no issues and both are .5moa or less to 100 and under 1 moa at 350 yards.
4/2: what i realy think is happening with most "average" shooters is that have been brought up hearing and seeing shoot and clean and not realising that most rifels expecialy mine take a few fouling shot to find there accuracy node (mine take up around 20 rounds), so in shooting 5, 10, 15 rounds and seeing there groups changing they go and scrub the thing clean and start again not realising in doing so there bring back more of that metal to metal contat in the bore and just wearing out the barrel faster. and it to be an issue of clen vs dirty bore and possible bad shooter/ bad load development.
me personaly i just shoot and when im done, typicaly after 5>25 shots i just pull a dry clean bore snake through it, just removing any of the larger carbon and copper but leaving enough there to act as a dry lube and not wear the barrel as much.
4/3: so yes i do believe a barel break in occurs on FACTORY barrels, but it occurs during the inital zeroing and load development phase. yes there is always the exception to the rule, but in my experiance i have never PERSONALY see it. also i think the term "barrel break in" to be a shit one, me i like "barrel errosion" so what barrel errosion procedure do you like best?
appoligies for the rant and spelling and drifting a bit left of topic
-end rant-