Barrel Break in

[Wildstreak]

Holy crap. Just watched the podcast with Erik Cortina and Bryan Litz. Bryan said "I don't take any feedback from load development seriously until after 200 rounds".

This was in a conversation about barrel break in, life cycle of the barrel and load development. He said the average velocities are lowest and SD's are the worst until 200 rounds.

BUT…taking with the guys at Bartlein when I ordered one of my barrels and they said "when a guy spends $400 on a barrel he thinks it's special and requires break in and that's just not the case".

I'm certainly not one to question Bryan Litz. He flushes more knowledge done the toilet every day than I possess. But I suspect the guys at Bartlein aren't dummies either.

So which is it? 200 rounds is a bunch of shooting just to waste.

 

[Mikecr]

I have not seen it.
But with most guns I've had, I did not replace a barrel with an identical spare of same chamber. So for each barrel I end up fully fire forming a batch of brass before load development, so this gets me close to 200 shots by then anyway.
[Now with all barrels, I break-in with 10shts of Tubb's Final Finish. And that's it for my break-in.]

With my latest gun I had several Border cut rifled barrels finished at once, with MY reamer set. As I burn through one, and spin another on, I have had no change in MV or accuracy. I'm nearing the accurate barrel life of the 3rd barrel now, using the same 50 pcs of brass. There was not a fire forming need after the first barrel, and I was able to stay with exactly the same load the whole time.
I did not see any change from a late breaking in/speeding up with any of these barrels.

One thing I've noticed is that many reloaders manage a relatively large batch of brass, and many of these same folks seem resistant to fully fire forming before load development. I can see why given 3 shots to fully FF a big batch of brass..
Well as brass is better fitting to a chamber, MV goes up.
So I wonder if these shooters are just seeing MV go up (described as barrels speeding up) as their brass finally reaches form.
I do not believe their barrels are speeding up, and I can think of no logical reason that barrels would.
Even at the step changes I see at an accurate barrel life point, MV doesn't change. Just accuracy.

 

[Wildstreak]

Here's the link. He specifically talks about some of the things you've mentioned and reasons why.

 

[Rhett Crider]

Brand of barrel/ type of rifling may have a lot to do with this.

 

[Seabeeken]

From the time you first fire a barrel, it is forever changing. Just shoot it

 

[DTubb]

If you are going to a the Final Finish product on a hand lapped barrel be sure and choose the TMS version as it is the less aggressive version.

 

[yachciksc]

I seen that video as well. Most people who just hunt won't have that at all. It all depends how much you get into it

 

[FEENIX]

Holy crap. Just watched the podcast with Erik Cortina and Bryan Litz. Bryan said "I don't take any feedback from load development seriously until after 200 rounds".

So which is it? 200 rounds is a bunch of shooting just to waste.

I did ~200 on my .270 AI with Lilja 1:8" 3G while playing around with different powders in the process.

I suspect I would be doing the same with my latest wildcat build with C6 carbon wrapped barrel. I have 100 Lapua head stamped brass to fire-fireform.

 

[RockyRandy]

I'm no gun smith but it is a proven fact that your barrel will speed up 100 fps from your 1st fire to the 150-200 rounds down the barrel and then it will settle in and be consistent. Having it lapped will cut this process down as will. JMO

 

[Mikecr]

I'm no gun smith but it is a proven fact that your barrel will speed up 100 fps from your 1st fire to the 150-200 rounds down the barrel and then it will settle in and be consistent. Having it lapped will cut this process down as will. JMO

Alright, who proved it how?
It could be very difficult to prove, as the testing would require fully stable brass and no load/component change (of any kind) during the entire test. It's the only way to isolate this to barrel change only.

With any of your guns take a new/prepped case and fire it, reload, fire, reload, fire, all 3 shots across a chronograph.
You will see MV go up with each shot, but leveling off (unless you excessively FL size).
If you introduce 100 new cases to your gun, times 3 fire formings, that's 300 shots of unstable MVs, that trended upward, and that had nothing to do with the barrel. It was purely from the new brass -vs- brass that finally took it's set to your chamber.

 

[ShtrRdy]

BUT…taking with the guys at Bartlein when I ordered one of my barrels and they said "when a guy spends $400 on a barrel he thinks it's special and requires break in and that's just not the case".

Frank Green from Bartlein regularly contributes on the Snipers Hide forum. His take on break in is to do it but to let the barrel tell you how many rounds/cycles it needs.

 

[QuietTexan]

First off - there has been 0% overlap of goals mentioned here so far. Two champion match shooters talking over details versus a barrel maker saying he makes a good product without knowing who will cut the chamber. Who knows if they're talking about the same results at all.

What do YOU want to do? Are you shooting Palma and want to be competitive like Bryan Litz is? Are you shooting F-Open and want to win like Erik Cortina does? Are you popping baby whitetail at a feeder at 50 yards? You you trying to make 2-mile hits in ELR? Ding steel at a PRS match? Punch paper with service rifle? Kill an elk at 800 yards?

Define the required end goal, determine acceptable accuracy and precision requirements, and go from there. Who knows, a barrel right out of Bartlein's shop could be good enough. Or it might not be.

200 rounds is a bunch of shooting just to waste.

Why do you assume it's a waste?

We put so much stock in load development and in finding the load when in reality if a rifle shoots it'll shoot about near anything pretty darn well.

I loaded up 400 223Rems with whatever the Hornady book said for their 80gn ELD-M, went out and it shot a .183" 5-shot group on the first day. Then I rolled it out to 1400 yards. While forming to an AI chamber at the same time. "Load development" consisted of 5 shots to ladder up to the charge and seating at mag length.

Was any of that shooting wasted? No, because real trigger clicks are never wasted. That 223 has plenty of room to get better, it's not like I was schwacking a 1/4MOA target at a mile with it (not that it ever could), but it shot more than good enough to walk out and make hits, let me practice in the wind, let me get more shots downrange. It shot better than me, in other words.

He said the average velocities are lowest and SD's are the worst until 200 rounds.

Keep in mind that Bryan is the same guy who put into his book that muzzle velocity stats and BC variance don't really come into play in the short- and mid- range at all. If you're shooting inside 1000 yards it's not nearly as important as it's made out to be.

Let the target tell you what's going on, and shoot more. Nothing replaces actually shooting, running 200 rounds on a barrel shouldn't cause any heartburn at all.

So shoot the rifle, find the end of the rainbow. Find a load on a new barrel, see how long it lasts. Find another one after 200 rounds if it falls apart. Be surprised if it shoots better than you can. Shoot smaller targets and targets further away until you miss, and then shoot at them until you can hit them.

Shoot more, gain your own experience, ignore the noise.

Sneak Peek of Bryan Litz’s New Book: Volume III of Modern Advancements in Long Range Shooting

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[buckbrush]

I'm no gun smith but it is a proven fact that your barrel will speed up 100 fps from your 1st fire to the 150-200 rounds down the barrel and then it will settle in and be consistent. Having it lapped will cut this process down as will. JMO

I've never had a barrel speed up like this from 6 Dashers to 300 Normas. MAYBE 25-30 FPS.