Accuracy during barrel break in

Afternoon everyone! Finally got out and shot my new bergara b14 hunter in 6.5 creedmoor. I only have 22 shots through it. Grouping has been sporadic. My last two 3 shot groups held almost perfectly flat, (.05") vertical but one was 1.5" horizontal other was 2". This is using Hornady 143 ELDM.

My question is, what is to be expected for accuracy during barrel break in? This is my first new rifle since I learned how to actually shoot decently. I know my model 700 .300 win mag has gotten more accurate over time but back when I broke the barrel in I couldn't hold a 4" group at 100 to save my life.

"barrel break in" is an old wives tale, IMO. All that horizontal sounds more like a shooter issue, probably not used to the trigger or the gun itself yet. It would probably help if you shot through it and didn't **** through it.

Tell us a little more about your set-up. Scope brand, scope mounts/rings, etc. So many variables to take into account but more info always help.

If everything is tight and torqued to spec, I'd try a different ammo.

22 sh!ts through a 6.5 Creedmoor?..

You might wanna get that checked out...

20 MOA rail 6 screw rings leupold Vx5hd, leveled torqued and loctited. Verified barrel is free floated. I'm pretty sure it wasn't me pulling. Next step I was going to try a different ammo.

If it is factory ammo, then I might expect those kinds of groups.

livetohunt said:

20 MOA rail 6 screw rings leupold Vx5hd, leveled torqued and loctited. Verified barrel is free floated. I'm pretty sure it wasn't me pulling. Next step I was going to try a different ammo.

Click to expand...

Try a couple different loads. My wife's bergera is picky with powder.

The only factory ammo that we tried that shot good in a Bergara HMR of a friend. Was Prime. Under MOA. The hornady's was about like your group.

I thought I had done thorough research and it seemed like the best bet for the bergara was the ELDM, guess I will try some others. Want to start handloading, if I can ever find some H 4350

Congrats on your new Rifle, sounds like shes setup very nice ,if you can reload some harder jacketed bullets like Sierras, you will brake in your barrel faster. give her the tlc now and she'll pay you back later. jmho.

I normally take some super soft bullets and roll them thru a very fine diamond paste and load them really conservatively. It gets any burrs or blemishes out and polishes the barrel to a mirror finish. Just have to clean it extremely well afterward to remove all the abrasive.

jb bore paste can also polish up your bore with out doing any harm,with respect a 1 piece cleaning rod and bore guide make cleaning a snap. enjoy your new Rifle !!!

If you're getting wide dispersion during break in then you probably have a bedding problem. I've found that just because you're free floated back to the action doesn't mean much at all and sometimes it made groups worse!

When I finally started having my rifles professionally bedded by an advertiser on this website (Whidden Gunworks) all of a sudden shot dispersion almost completely disappeared both during break in and later including with factory ammo (I normally use Nosler factory ammo when I use factory ammo at all).

Even with rifles with aluminum bedding blocks and experimenting with different torque specs I never was happy until they were professionally skim bedded over the aluminum bedding blocks.

In my experience over the last year since having all my rifles bedded groups over 1.25" during break in at a hundred yards were rare and usually my fault.

I have a 308 LTR that started opening up groups after about 120 rounds and some work with Iosso brought them right back to 1/2" reliably at 100 and under 1.5" at 300. That rifle was the one that originally convinced me to try skim bedding on top of the aluminum bedding blocks. I had taken it to John Whidden with 3" horizontal dispersion and he skim bedded it and within 10 rounds and a good cleaning I shot my first 1/4" group at 100 with it.

I also found that when I started following Len's recommendations for barrel cleaning my accuracy improved. It's the first post in the thread below and includes barrel break-in advice. Also see the part about carbon fouling. That was one of the keys that kept me in the one hole grouping range.
https://www.longrangehunting.com/threads/new-barrel-break-in-and-cleaning-methods.160450/

Just remember that a gun that's guaranteed to shoot sub moa does mean it will shoot every load sub moa. My wife's bergera shoots some loads 2.5 moa at 100. But will shoot 1/2 moa with its preferred load