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7br
09-30-2005, 02:43 PM
I have a new .22 Hornet barrel on the way. This will mainly be used for cast because I have to be difficult. I am sure this has been covered numerous times, but what is the best procedure for breaking in a barrel? Do I start off with jacketed ?

Fireball 57
09-30-2005, 09:43 PM
7br: I am not an expert, but I maybe able to help ya. If, you intend to shoot a mixture of jacketed and cast bullets through your Hornet, then by all means, start a cleaning and conditioning regiment. Start with a single jacketed shot and clean the barrel from the chamber using a proper bore guide for the next five shots. Then, clean every ten shots until the patches come clean up to the first fifty. Clean every twenty shots for the next one hundred shots. If, you wish to load and shoot cast, the barrel must be clean of all copper fouling as that will effect the accuracy of your cast. I have a 03, with a beautiful hand -carved birdseye maple stock given to me by a former National Palma Champion, since passed away. It has a new medium contour Douglas XXX competition barrel in 06. Since the previous owner gave me all his cast, sized, lubed and gas checked, I have NEVER shot anything but HIS cast bullets through this rifle-about five-thousand! Breakin this barrel, as we go along, with cast is my forte. Good luck and help another shooter or new shooter. :smile:

762cavalier
09-30-2005, 10:00 PM
I'll probably catch some flak for this but I've read numerous articles about barrel break in and conditioning that basically say that it is a waste of time. I have a ruger 9mm that i bought new and it delivered 1" holes at 25 yards out of the box I proceeded to blow about 1000 rounds through it and it still delivered 1" holes at 25 y ds. after first cleaning it produces 1" at 25 yds . I have about 1000 more rounds through it and barrel accuracy has not changed.
I also have a Mini 30 that produced 5" MOA at 100 yds with the first grouping and after barrel break in and conditioning still produce 5" MOA at 100 yds.
My advice Buy it Clean it Shoot it. Unless your shooting gnats balls off at 100 yds you'll never notice

PatMarlin
09-30-2005, 11:32 PM
I can see the benefit of barrel breakin, by the barrel progressively copper fouling less and less, and clean up is faster and faster. This tells me it's smoothing up, and it's important to not let the barrel get hot. Light loads help greatly.

As much money these new rifles cost, it is wise IMO to error on the side of breakin. I use 2 products- blue wonder with a brush for fouling, then following with sweets on a loose saturated patch for copper.

When the patches stop turning blue, your ready for the next group. I also run a very light oil patch of FP-10 gun oil once through after the sweets.

I have found great accuracy, and smooth barrels for cast this way... ;-)

mike in co
09-30-2005, 11:36 PM
flack......
articles in gun rags dont even make good toliet paper.....
now if you said you read the manufactures instructions, as in from the bbl maker it would make some sense.
you cannot make a shooter out of a tomato stake, and often tomato stakes are found on rifles.
and we be talking rifles, not pistols, so not a good analogy.
if it is a good bbl, then treating it good will normally result in better performance.
steps of shoot and clean is not abuse or a waste as load data can still be collected as you go.
armalite is something like 11 singles with clean between, then threes with clean for another 30 or something about there and then.........

the object is to break-in and clean, not allowing the copper to build up and hide the bbl.
do this to a tomato stake you will still generate a tomato stake; do it to a quality bbl and who knows what you may get.

Jumptrap
10-01-2005, 12:27 AM
Whatever turns your crank.

I haven't got a rifle that fouls easily or is hard to clean. I have one that I gave the old BR regimin too, PITA and never seen any benefit from it either. It's a tight necked 6 PPC with all the bells and whistles and built using a FACTORY Remington barrel. Smooth as a baby's ass and shoots bugholes way out yonder.

I am a proponent of cleaning after the shooting session when using JACKETED bullets and only clean between strings if I am using some hot stepper. I learned this after blowing some groups by not refouling the barrel between groups. Damn, I hate that! So, I quit and scores went up. Huh...imagine that!

If you want your eyes popped open, clean your baby cyrstal clean and then, run a Foul Out through it. Where the hell did all that come from? You ain't going to scrub it all out..ever. Electrolysis will pull it out, but a brush and solvent won't. But, don't distress.......it isn't that critical. Neither is being anal about shoot and scrub, shoot and scrub. Think about it, if that barrel was pulling jacket material off that badly, the damned thing would soon plug up. It will foul so far and then quit. Shoot the damned thing and then take it home and clean it. Get a good nights sleep, your gonads won't fall off if you put it away dirty.

I never clean a cast bullet barrel unless I shoot loads that are too hot for the alloy and get leading. It has been so long since this happened, i can't tell you the last time I cleaned a bore that sees only cast bullet...95% of my rifles. I run an oily patch through them at most of they are going to sit in the safe for a while before I can shoot again. Fire two rounds and the barrel is sweet and ready to go. Yeah, I own a few high dollar barrels too made by Lilja and Douglas...treat them the same.

StarMetal
10-01-2005, 01:16 AM
Jumptrap made me think about something when he said if they were copper fouling they'd plug up. Made think about machinegun barrels in WWII for example. You know they don't have target smooth bores and they don't clean them during a battle and they pour an awful lot of rounds through them and about the only think negative is I've heard of them melting and drooping or a get red hot and a bullet blowing out the side of the barrel. They obviously don't plug up with jacket fouling.

Joe

David R
10-01-2005, 07:11 AM
I bought a NEW savage @ wallyworld. Shot lead right from the get go. It fouled the barrel pretty good. Had to clean every time I shot it. I fired 20 J boolits and cleaned it again. Now it fowls much less. Since I have put another 50 J boolits and cleaned again. Barrel is smoozing up nicely. I will keep doing this till I run out of those free J boolits. It defanitly helps in MY gun.

44man
10-01-2005, 08:39 AM
A high quality barrel will only benefit a small amount from break in. Fouling will be reduced but you may not see an increase in accuracy. For the run of the mill barrel though, it can help a great deal.
I have been brought many old hunting rifles that would not keep shots on paper at 100 yd's. It took 3 or 4 days of cleaning and soaking to get them clean. After that, they would do 1" or better.
The analogy of the machine gun does not fit here because they were only meant to spray bullets. It didn't matter if they were accurate or whether they tumbled. The barrels would expand so much and wear so fast that in the end the bullets would barely touch the bore.

44man
10-01-2005, 08:48 AM
Jumptrap, a clean, slippery barrel will never put the first bullet in the group. Slippery is different then fouled. After a shot is fired, the small amount of powder residue and the DRY condition of the bore supplies the grip the bullet needs. I never hunt with a clean bore either. I fire at least one shot and will not clean the gun for the whole season unless it gets wet. Then I fire one fouling shot to condition it again.
When I shot IHMSA I would always miss the first chicken if I left home with a clean bore and didn't get a chance to shoot a shot before the match. This was with any gun I had.

Bass Ackward
10-01-2005, 02:12 PM
I have a new .22 Hornet barrel on the way. This will mainly be used for cast because I have to be difficult. I am sure this has been covered numerous times, but what is the best procedure for breaking in a barrel? Do I start off with jacketed ?


It all depends on the barrel and how you want it to shoot cast. Break in has nothing to do with accuracy. Part of the shoot clean process is an idot proof method to keep you from heating up the steel and removing the memory. You can tell a barrel that was over heated from the start as they are climbers.

So most of the shoot clean procedure is simply to close pours. And how much break-in you will need for cast might be none if you shoot cast like cast. Now if you want to shoot cast like jacketed, you might need more. Trial and effort.