l break-in AND load development

Buckbrush, I have the same questions as you do. I just got a new rifle for long range shooting and my biggest question is load development also. Do I load up loads that I might want to try to break in the barrel or do I just go to like Cabela's and buy one of their 100 round ammo deals to break in the barrel.

I do know the other part of your question. I heard that when breaking in a new barrel that you clean as good as you can before going to shoot the gun. Fire one round through the barrel and clean it agian. Sending one or more rounds down the barrel will smoth out any burs that was left from making the barrel. Now send two rounds down and clean the barrel. Then send three and clean. Repeat this process for about 50 rounds shooting 5 round groups. If there is another way out there, I would like to hear about it. In the past I never really paid attention to how to break a barrel in until a couple years ago when I was watching Shooting USA. They brought that up and I started reading more about barrel break in.

Hopefully someone out there will have a answer to the other part of your question. I would like to know the answer too.
 
Buckbrush, I have the same questions as you do. I just got a new rifle for long range shooting and my biggest question is load development also. Do I load up loads that I might want to try to break in the barrel or do I just go to like Cabela's and buy one of their 100 round ammo deals to break in the barrel.

I do know the other part of your question. I heard that when breaking in a new barrel that you clean as good as you can before going to shoot the gun. Fire one round through the barrel and clean it agian. Sending one or more rounds down the barrel will smoth out any burs that was left from making the barrel. Now send two rounds down and clean the barrel. Then send three and clean. Repeat this process for about 50 rounds shooting 5 round groups. If there is another way out there, I would like to hear about it. In the past I never really paid attention to how to break a barrel in until a couple years ago when I was watching Shooting USA. They brought that up and I started reading more about barrel break in.

Hopefully someone out there will have a answer to the other part of your question. I would like to know the answer too.

Barrel break-in is basically a process to conditon your barrel to foul less (smoothing out the roughness). The way to do it is to clean after each and every shot until your copper fouling is gone or almost gone.

If you clean after two or three shots, you're essentially wasting ammo and barrrel life becaue your barrel will foul after the first shot which impedes any lapping or burnishing action by the second bullet, making it useless.
 
I just picked up a new SPS and was wondering how to go about breaking in the barrel while developing a load, if it is possible.

Thanks.

I originally wanted to do this to save time and resources but now I recommend to do these separately. After cleaning your bore, any residue left behind may affect pressure and velocity of your bullets which wont give you the info that you need.

You certainly dont want to shoot groups with cleaning between each shot because your bullet will perform diferently in a clean bore vs a fouled bore and that's why most shooters shoot at least 1 fouling shot and usually more before shooting for groupd or hunting.

For break-in I will load cheap guilded jacketed bullets at a reduced load (to avoid over pressure) and clean between each shot. i also use a product to conditon the barrel during the process.

Once your break-in is done, start load development.


Good shooting,

Mark
 
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