Breaking in a new barrel

[woody2]

Is it necessary to use hardball to break in a new barrel or will cast boolits do the job?

[warf73]

Is this a rifle or pistol?
I've had better luck with rifles using Jacketed bullets for the first 100 rounds or so to iron out all the burrs in the barrel. This is my limited findings others may say different.
For pistol I've seen no difference using cast first or jacketed. If you do used copper before lead make sure you clean it really good before crossing over, and make sure you slug the barrel as fit is king.

[woody2]

It's a Taurus 1911 9mm. Just got it yesterday afternoon and plan to slug the barrel later this morning. I've got .355 and .358 sizing dies so hopefully one of them will work.

[warf73]

I would clean the Taurus really well and load up some cast boolits that are the right size and go from there.

[captaint]

I've never broken in a pistol barrel. In fact, I have a couple that have never seen copper. The last new rifle barrel I had, I just put some BAC on a patch, ran it through the barrel a few times and went shootin....enjoy Mike

[cajun shooter]

Barrel break in is a worth while thing to do if you are shooting a custom rifle barrel or any rifle that is required to be very accurate. I'm speaking of long range shooting and varmint rifles as well as hunting rifles.
We were taught a barrel break in process when I attended the FBI SNIPER SCHOOL that does a excellent job.
I have never done a barrel break in with any handgun and that includes ones that were built for competition.

[bobthenailer]

I usually shoot the gun first with cast & see if it has any leading ! if it does ? i will shoot some jacketed bullets through it to smoothe out the internal barrel machining inperfections , if it still leads after shooting cast again, i will fire lap the barrel as it will probley never see a jacketed bullet again .

[sqlbullet]

Barrel break in is a much debated item.

Certainly a long range rifle barrel shoots better after 100 rounds or so of break in. As has been mentioned, this is because the manufacturing artifacts are normalized. And taking a precision barrel out and pumping 100 rounds through it as fast as possible can be detrimental to the life of the bore. But the debate about whether a specific methodology is markedly better than letting the first 100 shots happen appears to have no clear scientific answer.

Everyone agrees that this is 1/4 MOA differences at 100 yards. Not gonna matter at all in your handgun.

[Iron Mike Golf]

I have not done a scientific study (controlling for numerous variables), but i have observed groups significantly tighten during the first 200-300 rounds in three different new handguns (Ruger SR9c, Walther PK380, and Sig P238). That was off bags at 10 yds in each case.

[pdawg_shooter]

Best way to brake in a barrel is by shooting bullets down it.

[williamwaco]

I've never broken in a pistol barrel. In fact, I have a couple that have never seen copper. The last new rifle barrel I had, I just put some BAC on a patch, ran it through the barrel a few times and went shootin....enjoy Mike



Ditto.

I have seen pistols group tighter after a few hundred rounds but not revolvers. I am 100% convinced that the inside of the barrel had nothing to do with it. It is related to the moving parts "mating".


I have verified this by taking new 1911's that would not hit a paper plate at 25 yards and cleaning and degreasing them completely. Then "lube" them everywhere with a fine valve grinding compound and reassembling them. I cycle the slide manually about 2000 times and them and shoot them. The groups decrease steadily up to about 200 rounds then level off. At that point I clean them and re-de-grease them and lube them properly.

Nobody can convince me that 200 rounds of light loads with cast bullets had any effect on the inside of the barrel.



I have seen good accurate bolt action varmint rifles decrease group size steadily for the first few hundred rounds.




.

[blaster]

I usually "break in" a barrel with jacketed in the interest of supposed cleaning ease. I typically shoot 10 cleaning after each, then shoot 10 and clean a couple times over and call it good.

How much good it really does I don't know. I figure it can't hurt.

[woody2]

Thanks for all the responses. The expertise on this forum and your willingness to share it never ceases to amaze me. Gonna load up some cast boolits tomorrow and head for the range.

[mpmarty]

I used the recommended process from Savage on my 308 and it was a major PITA. Shoot one shot, clean repeat ten times, shoot five and clean, repeat ten times etc. The rifle has never had a jacketed round in it. The bore looks like the inside of a chrome lined pipe. No leading and very nice accuracy.

[Lizard333]

I may be wrong here but I remember having a conversation with a gun smith that said that the "break in" of a match grade barrel was all for not. The only reason the manufacturers gave instructions for it was to give the person that just bought that rifle a warm fuzzy feeling after spending a LOT of money in the new rifle. According to the gun smith the shoot and then clean, bla bla bla, was a waist of time. You get far better accuracy after shooting a couple of hundred rounds without cleaning. This was of course with jacketed rounds. My M1A NM was not put through this break in, and is capable of better accuracy than I can provide. Bottom line, if you think you need to do it and it makes you feel better, do it. No reason to from what I have found.