Barrel Break in

[brad925]

I just bought a new baikel 45-70 double rifle and i want to shoot cast boolitts out of it. It came with break in instructions but doesn't say if i can do the break in with cast or have to do it with jacketed. If anyone has an answer to this i would appreciate hearing about it.

[petroid]

Most say to use jacketed and clean after every shot or two for the first ten to twenty rounds. If there are machining burrs, this is supposed to smooth it out. cast may or may not do the same thing, but I would think any burrs are more likely to strip lead from a boolit, than copper from a jword. FWIW, I have a Ruger 308 that has never seen a jacketed bullet.

[JSnover]

Firing twenty jacketed bullets won't hurt your bore but I imagine burrs would be very thin and easily removed with properly sized cast boolits.

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

Nowadays, I would think the best way to deal with a barrel needing break in is to fire lap it with fine grits. Quick, painless and effective.

[John Taylor]

I would just start shooting it. Clean after every 10 shots, checking for lead build up. After 100 rounds of lead there should be no problem. If there is a leading problem after 100 rounds then think about fire lapping. Pope thought that lapping a barrel was pre-mature ware.

[Outpost75]

In my experience more barrels are worn out by improper cleaning than by shooting.

John is 100% correct!

Start with a clean barrel. The bore should not be dry. A light wet brushing, followed by a wet patch to flush out any loosened debris, followed by two dry patches is adequate. Any good standard bore cleaner will do, Mil-C-372B, Hoppes, Ed's Red, Kroil.

After ten shots simply wet patch and inspect the patch. If you see lead particles on the patch, or deposits in the bore, then wet-brush, wet-patch, two dry patches, dry the chamber go back to shooting. By the time you have done this ten to a dozen times, you will know the answer.

Personally, if leading or metal fouling were a problem, I would repeat the clean and shoot ten times using JB + Kroil before I would consider lapping. JB and Kroil produces uniform results through the entire barrel. Fire lapping works mostly on the throat and causes premature wear.

[Clay M]

With most new rifles I always run several hundred jacketed bullets through them.
I shoot both jacketed and cast, and like to see what each are capable of.
I clean the barrel between every five shots.
Bore Tech Eliminator works great to keep the copper out.
I do not fire lap as that can put excessive wear on the throat.
Usually after 100 rds I find the copper is easier to remove.

The Eliminator is the best product I have used so far.

My Sharps, High Walls, and my Ruger #1 .45/70 have never had any jacketed bullets.

[EDG]

But you have to take what Pope said into the context of him shooting his own very superior barrels.
He would probably refuse to shoot some of these inside out corn cobs that most of us shoot on a regular basis.
I suspect that Pope would not mind a lapped 4140 barrel compared to a barrel made of chewing gum soft steel.

Depending on how smooth the barrel feels with those tough synthetic patches, I may wipe the bore after every shot to see if there is any fouling building up.
If not I keep shooting. If there is fouling I try to get it out with patches and solvent. If not I use a worn brush about 2 passes with solvent. This proceeds to about 20 rounds. After than I may clean after 5 rounds until about half the bluing is gone from the grooves at the muzzle. That might take 75 to 200 rounds. After that I shoot it as normal.
If there is little to no fouling I may skip much of the fooling around. If the bore is rough and fouls I will keep cleaning it even longer.

I would just start shooting it. Clean after every 10 shots, checking for lead build up. After 100 rounds of lead there should be no problem. If there is a leading problem after 100 rounds then think about fire lapping. Pope thought that lapping a barrel was pre-mature ware.

[country gent]

I normally use the procedure I was given many years ago of shoot 1 rounnd and clean for 10 rds then 2 round groups and clean for 10 rounds, 3 round groups for 9 shots then 5 round for 20 shots and clean from here 10 shot grouos and clean to 100 rds. Jacketed bullets in appropriate firearms and lead in BPCR. the Idea is to keep fouling build ups out of the rough areas so the bullets can smooth them. One thing I have noticed is on my big bores that see Paper Patched bullet the bores are exceptionally shiney and smooth after 50-100 rounds. Maybe buy 100 slicks from Buffalo arms around 450 dia and wrap up to .458 -.459 and use these to smooth and break in the barrel. Paper is a very fine abrasive and should do a great job with the above procedure.

[montana_charlie]

I just bought a new baikel 45-70 double rifle and i want to shoot cast boolitts out of it. It came with break in instructions but doesn't say if i can do the break in with cast or have to do it with jacketed. If anyone has an answer to this i would appreciate hearing about it.

I bet the manufacturer of your new rifle knows the answer to your question.
Why haven't you asked them?

[EDG]

I do not know of any company that will warranty a firearm fired with handloads. Most factory ammo is jacketed.
So breaking in (2) 45-70 barrels would be expensive with jacketed bullets unless you handload. You could use cast bullets but break in might take 200 rounds per barrel because the lead is so soft.

I just bought a new baikel 45-70 double rifle and i want to shoot cast boolitts out of it. It came with break in instructions but doesn't say if i can do the break in with cast or have to do it with jacketed. If anyone has an answer to this i would appreciate hearing about it.

[JSnover]

The barrel will break in no matter what you shoot, the main thing is to keep it clean. It shouldn't take long to get any burrs out and if you're satisfied the the bore is clean, you won't do any harm by taking it hunting before you've fired the often-recommened 50 - 200 rounds.

[CHeatermk3]

Brad, I have a Baikal O/U 12ga/30-06 combo gun; it's bores are chrome plated. Does your double have chromed bores?

[Mauser48]

Don't do the barrel break in procedure its a myth. It does absolutely nothing good for your barrel. Go read gale mcmillans comments about it. The barrel break in procedure was created to reduce the life of your barrel so it wears put faster and you have to buy a new one. Just take it out and shoot it.

[ironhead7544]

Most new bores come filthy from the maker. I run a soaked patch down the bore a few time to get it soaked with solvent. Leave it overnight and rebrush. Use one of the spray gun cleaners until the spray comes out clean. Then rebrush and clean with patches. 20 rounds of jacketed in each barrel should smooth it out. Then remove the fouling with copper solvent. Slug the bore for cast bullets. I would check and find out what ammo they recommend. Then try to match the weight and speed with the cast.

It will be a fun project and I wish I had one of those.

[EDG]

>>>The barrel break in procedure was created to reduce the life of your barrel<<<
Now that is a myth. I am going to shoot the rifle anyway to work up loads. It is not just a brain dead process running bullets through the barrel. For me break in does not involve one single extra shot. Not even 1. All I do is wipe the bore a little more often and look for fouling. If fouling is found it is removed before continuing. If you want to run over existing fouling with another bullet it is ok with me because it is your new barrel. But to know if your barrel needs break in or not you have to look. It costs nothing to look and looking does not wear the bore.

You might check to see if McMillan laps his barrels because it makes a difference.
Earnie Stallman who made the well know Badger barrels for Browning BPCRs also lapped those barrels - and he advocated a short break in too.

Don't do the barrel break in procedure its a myth. It does absolutely nothing good for your barrel. Go read gale mcmillans comments about it. so it wears put faster and you have to buy a new one. Just take it out and shoot it.

[Tenbender]

http://www.snipercountry.com/Article...el_BreakIn.asp

[EDG]

I think that McMillan knows his own barrels and does not necessarily know what the rest of us shoot.
He may have never fired a cast bullet in his life and his first comments were about a guy that served the benchrest market ie jacketed bullets.

[waksupi]

Two of my best shooting rifles have never had a jacketed round fired through them.

[M-Tecs]

Krieger's view on barrel break-in.

https://www.kriegerbarrels.com/faq#breakin

BREAK-IN & CLEANING:

With any premium barrel that has been finish lapped -- such as your Krieger Barrel --, the lay or direction of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, so fouling is minimal compared to a barrel with internal tooling marks. This is true of any properly finish-lapped barrel regardless of how it is rifled. If it is not finish-lapped, there will be reamer marks left in the bore that are directly across the direction of the bullet travel. This occurs even in a button-rifled barrel as the button cannot completely iron out these reamer marks.
Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file.

When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is removed from the jacket material and released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this plasma and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat.
If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it, copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat “polished without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the fire-one-shot-and-clean procedure.

Every barrel will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in For example a chrome moly barrel may take longer to break in than stainless steel because it is more abrasion resistant even though it is a similar hardness. Also chrome moly has a little more of an affinity for copper than stainless steel so it will usually show a little more color if you are using a chemical cleaner. Rim Fire barrels can take an extremely long time to break in, sometimes requiring several hundred rounds or more. But cleaning can be lengthened to every 25-50 rounds. The break-in procedure and the cleaning procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while breaking in the throat with bullets being fired over it.

Finally, the best way to tell if the barrel is broken in is to observe the patches; i.e. when the fouling is reduced. This is better than some set number of cycles of shoot and clean as many owners report practically no fouling after the first few shots, and more break-in would be pointless. Conversely, if more is required, a set number would not address that either. Besides, cleaning is not a completely benign procedure so it should be done carefully and no more than necessary.