Why factory ammo for barrel break in?

Longwalker,
The old rule of thimb was use mag primers at 70gr charge and above. The case geometry of the new short mags has shown that this is not always the case today.
In older, longer (taller) cases this is still pretty typical. (Like Win Mags) In the newer short/fat cases, you can sometimes pressure out prematurely. Try both types of primers. You may find you can burn more powder/get more speed with a more gradual burn/pressure curve. Your rifle and chrony will tell you what's best
I always thought 60
 
The only reason I have used factory ammo to break in a barrel is to save primers.
Hey there hope all is well with you and your family. Can you buy factory ammo cheaper than a primer. Please let us know where you buy a loaded round for less than a primer.
We use all of our quality brass for breaking and fire forming. Might use lesser bullets, and powder ,but in these times everything we have is in the top quality range.
thanks
Len
 
I never use factory ammo to "break in" a barrel either. Unless you buy 5 boxes of the same lot (100pcs so you can reuse the brass), it is all wasted money in my opinion.
I would rather buy 100pcs of virgin brass and good components of my choice, and roll my own. Even a moderately skilled handloader will put out higher quality and more consistent ammo than 95% of factory offerings. Plus, you will probably get a good final load before you even fire the first 100 rounds that only need minor tweaking (if that is even needed) with fired brass.
 
Hey there hope all is well with you and your family. Can you buy factory ammo cheaper than a primer. Please let us know where you buy a loaded round for less than a primer.
We use all of our quality brass for breaking and fire forming. Might use lesser bullets, and powder ,but in these times everything we have is in the top quality range.
thanks
Len
I haven't been able to find factory ammo cheaper than primers. But, I have found the ammo much more readily available than primers.
 
It doesn't matter

It's gonna speed up or it's not and you can use this time to get used to your new rifle and fireform brass and shoot targets or you can burn ammo into a dirt pile
 
Asking about barrel break you'll get 100 different responses.

I don't do any break in. If it's a shooter it's a shooter. I've never had a barrel settle and shoot better groups after so many rounds down it. I'm not shooting F class, keepnin mind. Proper load development will allow for the barrel speeding up after 150 plus rounds. That's a lot of shooting for a big magnum.

Shoot it and have fun! If you're doing load work up, do a proper OCW to account for velocity swings.
 
Longwalker,
The old rule of thimb was use mag primers at 70gr charge and above. The case geometry of the new short mags has shown that this is not always the case today.
In older, longer (taller) cases this is still pretty typical. (Like Win Mags) In the newer short/fat cases, you can sometimes pressure out prematurely. Try both types of primers. You may find you can burn more powder/get more speed with a more gradual burn/pressure curve. Your rifle and chrony will tell you what's best
Yes Sir , I have always loaded 210GM's in my Lazzeronni Patriot short mags !
 
I've got a new 300 WSM build in the works and have already assembled all the components dies, projectiles, etc (save 215M primers) and started looking for factory ammo for barrel break in when it eventually shows up.

Started looking for factory ammo and as expected not a ton of choices available and not cheap. To boot the Norma bond strike which is the most plentiful doesn't get glowing reviews for accuracy.

That got me thinking why not just use quality components I already have a just do a middle of the road load for the first 25 or so and then start load development.

I'm thinking and hoping I'm just stuck behind the curve and most folks already use this option. I use the same style load to fire form brass after barrel break in already so there can't be some magic to factory that makes it the best choice for a new rifles first shots.

Or is there......
There is no real reason to have to use factory ammo to break in a barrel. I generally use hand loads loaded to moderate velocities and pressures approximating factory loads. The barrel does not know the difference between factory and hand loads unless you over pressure or the velocity is too fast causing copper fouling. If I had used factory when breaking in my 300WM it would have cost me over $600 by the time the barrel stabilized down to 1 MOA or slightly less. That is almost the cost of a pretty good rifle these days. PM me about the 215 primers.
 
A couple thoughts.
- If you already have high end brass, why buy factory ammo with different brass? Mixing brass isn't the best accuracy combination
- For break in, it doesn't matter what you shoot down the barrel
- Fireforming the brass you intend to reload has value
- Factory ammo is more expensive so why burn up the expensive stuff?

On new barrels, I recommend doing pressure workups with bullet and powder combinations to get the brass fire formed and the barrel broken in. If you have 100 pieces of brass and a couple of bullets and powders to try, that could get the 100 cases fire formed.
 
When I bought my 300wsm-- I found factory bondstrike ammo for less than new norma cases -- so I bought the factory ammo just for the brass ( no it wasn't very accurate or consistant)

Broke in the barrel and got ised to the gun and trigger worh the factory ammo and then I get good 1x fired brass from my gun for reloads

It depends on pricing and availability of components for me on what I do

On semi- auto guns I do test function with factory ammo before going to reloads to make sure the gun cycles reliably
 
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