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Hi ladies and gents, I just bought a Savage 10 FP chambered in .308 and I need to know the best way to break in a new barrel. I have heard many ideas, but I need to do this right, you guys are the pros, can you give me any ideas? I have put 5 rounds through the barrel already to test the feed and it's ok. I've heard stories about the Savage feed problems but they appear to be corrected. armouredtrooper |
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One way: Break-in Procedure
For an effective break-in the barrel should be cleaned after every shot for the first 10-12 rounds or until copper fouling stops. Our procedure is to push a cotton patch that is wet with solvent through the barrel. This will remove much of the powder fouling and wet the inside of the barrel with solvent. Next, wet a bronze brush with solvent and stroke the barrel 5-10 times. Follow this by another wet patch and then one dry patch. Now soak the barrel with a strong copper removing solvent until all of the blue mess is removed from the barrel. The copper fouling will be heavy for a few rounds and then taper off quickly in just one or two shots. Once it has stopped or diminished significantly it is time to start shooting 5 shot groups, cleaning after each one. After 25-30 rounds clean at a normal interval of 10-25 rounds. Your barrel is now broken-in.
Normal cleaning
For a normal cleaning (after a string of 10-25 shots) after break-in, the above procedure should be used, but stop short of soaking the barrel with the strong copper remover. A good rule of thumb is to stroke the barrel with a brush, one cycle for every shot fired.
Periodic cleaning
It is probably a good idea to use a strong copper removing solvent every 200 rounds, or so, to check the barrel for copper fouling. We do not recommend the routine use of abrasive cleaners for normal cleaning. However they can be used every 500-1000 rounds to remove the carbon build-up (caused by powder fouling) in the throat area of the barrel. To use, wrap a cotton patch around a worn out brush or a cleaning jag and liberally apply the abrasive cleaner to the patch. Short stroke the abrasive for 6" or so in the throat area and one or two full length passes through the barrel. Do not clean the barrel like this for more than 1-2 minutes.
Suggested equipment and solvents
It is important to use an action rod guide when cleaning. The guide aligns the rod with the bore and helps prevent uneven wear in the throat area. Be careful not to raise the handle end of the rod while stroking. This will put a "belly" in the rod that will wear the barrel. We suggest that plastic coated rods, like the Dewey and Parker-Hale, be used.
Our preferred cleaning solvent is Butch's Bore Shine made by BBS Industries (406-652-2495). This solvent is excellent at attacking both powder and copper fouling. We recommend it for both break-in and regular cleaning.
For occasional use only, abrasives like J-B paste, Flitz, or RemClean can be used.
Do not use a stainless steel brush in your barrel under any circumstances.
Do not apply a strong copper remover, like Sweets, on a bronze brush. It will ruin the brush and give the false indication that the barrel has copper in it.
For shooters wishing to use moly-coated bullets we do not recommend shooting more than 25 rounds or so without using the normal cleaning procedure outlined above. |
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Another way:
The purpose of breaking-in the new barrel is to try and squeeze every bit of accuracy potential out of the barrel. The break-in shots will help smooth the rough surfaces of the barrel, while the frequent cleaning will remove the fouling that fills in or builds up on the rough surfaces needing smoothed out, so that each shot will smooth out the barrel, instead of just building up excess fouling with each consecutive shot. A properly broken-in barrel will not only be more accurate, but will foul less and clean easier than a barrel that has not been properly broken-in
.
If it is a particularly rough barrel, one might consider first using one of the various barrel lapping kits from Brownells or Midway USA.
Give the gun a thorough cleaning before shooting it for the first time. This will remove any dirt, preservative, fouling from factory test shots, lapping compound not removed from the factory, etc.
Before shooting, run a dry patch down the bore to remove any oil or rust preventative.
It will take about 20 shots to break the bore in. Use only copper jacketed bullets for this procedure. Do not use any bullets with special coatings such as Moly, Lubalox, or other proprietary coatings, no matter if it's black, blue, green, purple, orange, polka-dot, houndstooth, or black-watch tartan.
For the first 10 shots, clean the bore with a good copper solvent between each shot. Allow the solvent to work for several minutes before swabbing the bore dry. Make sure you clean the barrel well enough each time that no traces of copper fouling are present.
For the next 10 shots, repeat the same procedure, except clean the bore every other shot.
Once all twenty shots have been fired, give the gun a thorough cleaning and now the rifle's barrel should be broken in and ready for duty.
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One more:
Also called burnishing, this admittedly tedious procedure is neccesary if one is to get the best accuracy possible from one's new rifle.
The idea is to burnish or smoothen out the bore of the rifle by having the residual copper material fill in all the microscopic imperfections on the surface of the bore. Even mirror smooth bores have tiny imperfections that is invisible to the naked eye. It is better to have these imperfections smoothed out by getting filled with the copper jacketing of your bullet rather than it get filled with assorted gunk like bore cleaner, carbon deposits and copper or lead residue. This procedure is only needed for new barrels and need no repetitions after it is done.
You will need a bore brush, a lot of dry cotton patches, a bottle of copper solvent and about 100 rounds of FMJ ammo in the caliber of your rifle, preferably premium factory loaded stuff. Hornady, Winchester, Federal, or Remington ammo will be perfect. Start by cleaning the bore by passing a patch saturated in your copper solvent, then a few passes of the bore brush then another wet patch, followed by a dry patch. I told you it was tedious. We only have begun.
Fire one shot and clean the barrel thoroughly. This means brushing and passsing wet and dry patches alternately until no discoloration is seen upon passing a wet patch. You will repeat this ten times.
Next thing you will do is similar to the abovementioned procedure but will now be 5 shot intervals between cleaning.
Finally you will do the 5 shot then clean procedure again while also taking note of the group size you are making.
If you are not yet very proficient with the rifle, you can use a sandbag or benchrest to aid in shooting accurately.
After the shooting session, thoroughly clean your rifle again and lube for storage.
For people who are expert marksmen using a match grade rifle and match grade ammo, noticeable improvements on accuracy might be observed until the rifle has hit the 400 round mark. At which point, you have done all that you can and it is your raw skill that will need improvement to achieve better and better accuracy.
Note that most people probably can't shoot as good as their rifles can. It will takes lots of ammo and lots of practice to "outshoot" any decent modern rifle. |
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From: Gale McMillan <" gale"@mcmfamily.com>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Barrel break-in necessary?
Date: 7 Jan 1997 20:40:25 -0500
Mike Sumner wrote:
> ...
As a barrel maker I have looked in thousands of new and used barrels
with a bore scope and I will tell you that if every one followed the
prescribed break in method A very large number would do more harm than
help. The reason you hear of the help in accuracy is because if you
chamber barrel with a reamer that has a dull throater instead of cutting
clean sharp rifling it smears a burr up on the down wind side of the
rifling. It takes from 1 to 2 hundred rounds to burn this bur out and
the rifle to settle down and shoot its best. Any one who chambers rifle
barrels has tolerances on how dull to let the reamer get and factories
let them go longer than any competent smithe would. Another tidbit to
consider, Take a 300Win Mag. that has a life expectancy of 1000 rounds.
Use 10% of it up with your break in procedure for ever 10 barrels the
barrel maker makes he has to make one more just to take care of the
break in. no wonder barrel makers like to see this. Now when you flame
me on this please include what you think is happening to the inside of
your barrel during the break in that is helping you.
Gale McMillan
NBSRA IBS,FCSA and NRA Life Member
From: Gale McMillan <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Good barrels for Rem 700 in .308?
Date: 10 Feb 1996 12:50:53 -0500
Consider this, every round shot in breaking in a barrel is one round off
the life of said rifle barrel. No one has ever told me the physical
reason of what happens during break in firing. In other words to the
number of pounds of powder shot at any given pressure, is the life of the
barrel. No one has ever explained what is being accomplished by
shooting and cleaning in any prescribed method. Start your barrel off
with 5 rounds and clean it thoroughly and do it again. Nev Maden a
friend down under that my brother taught to make barrels was the one who
come up with the break in method. He may think he has come upon
something, or he has come up with another way to sell barrels. I feel
that the first shot out of a barrel is its best and every one after that
deteriorates until the barrel is gone. If some one can explain what
physically takes place during break in to modify the barrel then I may
change my mind. As the physical properties of a barrel doesn't change
because of the break in procedures it means it's all hog wash. I am open
to any suggestions that can be documented otherwise if it is just
someone's opinion forget it.
Gale McMillan
From: Gale McMillan <" gale"@mcmfamily.com>
Newsgroups: rec.guns
Subject: Re: Remington 700 break in
Date: 8 Aug 1997 00:01:07 -0400
Arthur Sprague wrote:
# On 29 Jul 1997 22:50:26 -0400, [email protected] (John W. Engel)
# wrote:
#
# #This is how (some) benchrester break in barrels, and it does work.
# #The mechanism is that the bore has pores in it (microns in size).
# #If you simply shoot a box or two through it without cleaning, the
# #pores fill up with gilding metal, and stay that way. If you
# #follow the above procedure (and they mean *clean* between shots!),
# #the pores are "smoothed over" with each successive shot. A barrel
# #correctly broken in is MUCH easier to clean than one that is
# #not. If it is a good quality tube, it will also be more accurate.
# #Regards,
# #whit
#
# Well, the range hours here are quite limited. On my first trip I
# managed to fire a whole fourteen rounds, with a thorough cleaning
# after each round. It couldn't hurt! Fun gun! Difficult to think of
# .223 as a battle round after experience with .30-06 and .45ACP, but it
# surely going to be a pleasure to shoot.
# Thanks to all for their advice.
This is total hogwash! It all got started when a barrel maker that I
know started putting break in instructions in the box with each barrel
he shipped a few years ago. I asked him how he figured it would help
and his reply was If they shoot 100 rounds breaking in this barrel
that's total life is 3000 rounds and I make 1000 barrels a year just
figure how many more barrels I will get to make. He had a point it
defiantly will shorten the barrel life. I have been a barrel maker a
fair amount of time and my barrels have set and reset bench rest world
records so many times I quit keeping track (at one time they held 7 at
one time) along with HighPower,Silloett,smallbore national and world
records and my instructions were to clean as often as posable preferably
every 10 rounds. I inspect every barrel taken off and every new barrel
before it is shipped with a bore scope and I will tell you all that I
see far more barrels ruined by cleaning rods than I see worn out from
normal wear and tear.I am even reading about people recommending
breaking in pistols. As if it will help their shooting ability or the
guns.
Gale Mc. |
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