Breaking in the new PIF

[tombogan03884]

Yes

[Fatman]

Yes, but the action is where all the little fiddly parts are that make it a pain to clean.

Crap. I bought a rifle with fiddly parts. My kids have sippy cups with fiddly parts. Are they interchangable?

[Bill Stryker]

I bought a new rifle from Fulton Armory with a Douglas barrel. They told me not to bother with "break in" because the barrels were hand lapped already. They also said that the break in routine does more damage than good. I choose to believe them.

All this BS about breaking in a barrel is relatively recent.

I have also come to believe that you can clean too much. As a result I have cut down on my cleaning routine, but I still make sure my semi-automatics are not run dry -- unless it is very cold when the oil may gum up. Then it is time for graphite. But I find at my age I no longer need to stock graphite because I don't go out if it is too cold. I grew up in Michigan and learned the lesson the hard way about oil or grease creating stoppages in the cold. My 1903A3 even froze up in the cold one day and wouldn't shoot until I cleaned out the gunk in the bolt!

[PegLeg45]

I bought a new rifle from Fulton Armory with a Douglas barrel. They told me not to bother with "break in" because the barrels were hand lapped already. They also said that the break in routine does more damage than good. I choose to believe them.

All this BS about breaking in a barrel is relatively recent.

I have also come to believe that you can clean too much. As a result I have cut down on my cleaning routine, but I still make sure my semi-automatics are not run dry -- unless it is very cold when the oil may gum up. Then it is time for graphite. But I find at my age I no longer need to stock graphite because I don't go out if it is too cold. I grew up in Michigan and learned the lesson the hard way about oil or grease creating stoppages in the cold. My 1903A3 even froze up in the cold one day and wouldn't shoot until I cleaned out the gunk in the bolt!

Many agree here too.
As posted earlier from Shilen Barrels:

How clean is clean?
We get this question many times and have a great deal of difficulty helping some customers understand that a rifle barrel does not have to be spotless to shoot great. Many times more harm than good is done in trying to get it that way. Picture a car's fender. If the fender has a small dent in it, then professional application of body putty fills the dent. When painted over, the dent becomes unnoticeable, and the surface of the fender is smooth and consistent. The same thing happens in a rifle barrel on a microscopic level. Removing this small trace of copper puts you right back to square one. The next bullet that crosses that area will, again, leave a small trace of copper. Similar to patching a pothole. All successful benchrest shooters shoot one or more "fouler" shots down the barrel before going to the record target. This is not to warm up the barrel. They are resurfacing it on the inside. Benchrest shooters clean between relays to get the powder fowling out, not the copper. However, since copper usually comes out with the powder, they know that it must be replaced to get "back in the groove". I've had shooters tell me they "cleaned their rifle for 3 hours to get all the copper out of it." Their next statement is almost invariably that they had to shoot 4-5 rounds through it just to get it back to "shooting" again. This tells me that in order for the rifle to shoot well again, they had to replace the copper they worked so diligently to remove. I have a 7x08 Improved that shoots the same 1/2" MOA after 15 minutes of cleaning or 3 hours of scrubbing and de-coppering. Personally, I prefer shooting to cleaning. The gist of this is to set a regular cleaning regimen and stay with it. If the accuracy of the rifle is acceptable with a 15 min. cleaning, why clean longer? I would much rather have people admiring the groups I shot than marveling at how clean my barrel looks on the inside.

http://www.shilen.com/faq.html#question10

[1776 Rebel]

Not to nit pick, but I will....The discussion is not about cleaning a new barrel. It is about how to treat a new barrel to optimize its accuracy. Shilen, Douglas, Lilja all conceed that hand lapping a barrel makes it better. They charge more for it cause it takes time and effort. If you have purchased a hand lapped barrel then your done. Get a box of ammo and shoot a little and clean a little. Your ready to enjoy an accurate shooter.

But if you have purchased a "regular or normal" barrel then you can either try hand lapping yourself (too much trouble) or fire lapping it. That's all. Instead of one box of ammo try two boxes for "break in". Then go about enjoying an accurate shooter.

Cleaning the barrel during its lifetime is a different issue I argue.

[Sponsor]

[Bill Stryker]

  My doctor said that his cousin, who is a gunsmith, said that you can't do better than Remington 700 barrels. Seems his cousin takes all the Remington take off barrels that result when some sport has to have a big name barrel and builds fantastically accurate sporters using the take off Remington barrels.  The doc says he and his boys have six of the rifles his cousin built and they are all at the very least MOA off the bench.

I will admit that my Remington 700LH is more accurate than my favorite Ruger No. 1. But I still hunt with the No. 1. And I will say that I have no complaints at all about my Remington M788LH -- it is a sweet shooter -- way better than MOA. Nether of the Remingtons nor the Ruger enjoyed being broken in by the current break in fads. They are all older than that myth.

[PegLeg45]

Not to nit pick, but I will....The discussion is not about cleaning a new barrel. It is about how to treat a new barrel to optimize its accuracy. Shilen, Douglas, Lilja all conceed that hand lapping a barrel makes it better. They charge more for it cause it takes time and effort. If you have purchased a hand lapped barrel then your done. Get a box of ammo and shoot a little and clean a little. Your ready to enjoy an accurate shooter.

But if you have purchased a "regular or normal" barrel then you can either try hand lapping yourself (too much trouble) or fire lapping it. That's all. Instead of one box of ammo try two boxes for "break in". Then go about enjoying an accurate shooter.

Cleaning the barrel during its lifetime is a different issue I argue.

No, it's not being nit picky, to an extent, but cleaning is part of the 'break in' process cycle, if you bother with such at all.
The point was that if you are going to even bother with break in at all, then cleaning too often (after) is detrimental to the accuracy that was caused by the break-in in the first place.

These posts do tend to wobble, don't they.   

[Fatman]

Actually Reb, the discussion and pointers on cleaning the rifle are helpful also.  The part about over cleaning the barrel effecting initial accuracy makes sense.  jumbofrank's point about breaking in (or not) a chromed barrel is also interesting.  My barrel is not chromed, none in stock.  Anyway, jf got me thinking - would the chroming effectively smooth the barrel, or would it just chrome the machining rings, imperfections, etc.  I would imagine it would fix some of the minor issues, but some of the stuff i saw on the Lilja vid would most likely just get a layer of chrome, making for shiny machine marks and digs.

Putting the Tubbs finishing rounds (first two grit sets) down a chrome barrel seems to be a good way to scrape the chrome  off.

[1776 Rebel]

Fatman here goes a wobble.....

I wouldn't go for a chrome barrel in an AR. Why you say? .... cause

Actually here is a clip from an AR barrel site (worth taking a look at his site). Neither of us is going to war with these rifles. So with regard to having an accurate rifle here is this guys point on chrome lined barrels and chambers....(makes sense to me )

>Is it chrome-lined?

No, Chrome lined barrels are only available when a company mass produces them. The chrome needs to be applied after the chamber work is done. This requires special barrel blanks and chamber reamers, made larger than spec and then plated back down to spec size. It would be cost prohibitive to do custom barrels with chrome lining. Any barrel that is chrome lined is certainly not a match grade barrel. It is not possible to put the attention into the chamber details that you need for extreme accuracy when you are mass producing barrels.

http://www.ar15barrels.com/faq.shtml

[Fatman]

Fatman here goes a wobble.....

Neither None of us is going to war with these rifles.

Can you yell that loud enough for the Brady Bunch and the rest of the hysterical left to hear?