Thread: Breaking in a new barrel

So I just bought my first rifle a new howa 308 in stanless it's off at the gun Smith at the moment but was wondering what you guys do to break in the break in a new barrel or will it just be fine after 5 shots. I've head something about putting a patch down after every shot? Is there any truth in this?
Cheers

Run a patch down with autosol polish on it and give it a good polish, it's mainly to take the edges off any tooling marks left from manufacturing. When its nice and shiney you'll be good to go! Theres lots of opinion out there on doing it or not, my feeling is why not do it as it will make it easyier to clean in the long run without damaging the bore.

I just shoot them

I wounder if it really makes any difference? Often start out with good intentions and fail miserably after about the first 10 rounds.

breaking in is just to waste all your cleaning gear so you go buy more cleaning gear

Originally Posted by 300CALMAN

I wounder if it really makes any difference? Often start out with good intentions and fail miserably after about the first 10 rounds.

haha yeah man. Now I just fire a couple clean, fire 5 clean and fire 10 clean then go hard. All my rifles still shoot

Barrels do not 'wear in', they just start wearing out when you start shooting them. Just start shooting it with whatever loads you intend to use and clean it properly after each day. Incidentally, the useful life of a good barrel (say 6000 rounds) is less than 10 seconds of actual use time. Do not, repeat not, use any form of abrasive as suggested in an earlier post!

Originally Posted by Paddy79

breaking in is just to waste all your cleaning gear so you go buy more cleaning gear

excessive cleaner I would bet has rooted far more barrels than actual shooting them

Personally I daimond polish every new chamber and throat after I've cut them and have no problems with advanced barrel wear, fouling or being inaccurate. Done it for over 30yrs and when others start to foul out I'm still holding point of aim.

The way i see it is you have to sight it in anyway. So shoot a couple, adjust , cool and clean. By the time you have finished sighting it in you might have used 10-20 rounds. Then just go hunting not many times you shoot more then three rounds on a big game hunt. Go home clean and enjoy

Just shoot it and clean it properly and you will be fine, long strings of shots that get the barrel super hot will do more damage to the barrel. 2-3 shots then let it cool would be the best way to go when sighting in, hot barrels can cause point of impact changes too.

I always follow the break in recommended by Truflight & Nathan Forster or close to that. Fire 1-2 rounds then clean barrel to remove carbon first then clean with copper cleaner, my fav is Boretech Eliminator. After the first pass with Boretech observe the muzzle thoroughly using an LED torch and at a slight angle. You should see some copper fouling in some of the Lanz. Or if heavy Cu fouling then in most lanz & thick. This is what u need to fix. Continue with removal of all Cu. Then clean barrel with JBs paste or autosol, but not too many passes. Focus on throat for 6-8 strokes, then mid section of barrel then finally 3-4 strokes at muzzle. The JBs or autosol is polishing the bore to remove residual machine marks from manufacturing that can cause severe Cu fouling if left unfixed. Repeat above firing 2-3 rounds until you observe light Cu fouling that is easy to remove. Typically takes 2 - 4 cycles , so by 10 - 12 rounds you r done and you’ll have a reliable & accurate barrel, unless you are unlucky and the barrel is a dud. It can happen with all brands of rifle. Good luck

Done it according to the instructions on my blued 30-06 Howa, was a pain in the arse. 1 shot clean x 10 then 2 shots clean x 10 then 5 and clean.The rifle shoots really well but with my 308 stainless Howa I cleaned the storage oil out and shot maybe 25 rounds through it then cleaned it before I put it away. That shoots really well also so who knows?

have a read of this
How to Break-in a Barrel

Buy it, should take you three rounds to sight it in, three rounds to shoot a group, if it likes the ammo, go hunting. I wouldn't even clean it after that first few shots either, run a pullthrough through it and call it done.