Are breaking in barrels a meme? I'm researching the PTR91 before I buy one, and I'm seeing talk of having to shoot ~200 rounds through the rifle in order to "break it in" and shoot tight groupings.
Can someone enlighten me on this?
Breaking in barrels
Levi Hughes
Brayden Hall
I'm calling BS. I just bought a heavy barreled AR 10 in .308 Win and within a box of ammo it was shooting one inch groups at a hundred yards.
Owen Powell
Theres breaking in the gun and breaking in the barrel. Breaking in the gun is essentially making sure all the moving parts function properly and smoothing out action parts to improve relisble function. Breaking in a barrel doesn't really improve accuracy, at most it will smooth out tooling imperfections that will make future bore cleaning easier.
Ayden Harris
for example, this seems like an extreme case and I feel like there's something the guy isn't telling us
Bentley Mitchell
it used to be a thing before modern coatings and metallurgy. best thing to do is shoot it to break in the moving parts like user bro
Jason Evans
>Are breaking in barrels a meme?
yes
Dylan Miller
>starting magdumpping towards the end
>rifle works fine
Eli Ramirez
Barrel break in is bullshit. Just shoot it.
Alexander Foster
I always run a patch or two through a new gun to get rid of the carbon from factory test firing and the lint from packing materials, but that's me being clean.
Following some breaking in "procedure" to make your barrel accurate is bullshit. Guns a whole eventually "break in" but that's just metal on metal contact polishing the moving parts.
Julian Cooper
Actions need breaking in. Procedures are garbage though. Just shoot it until it works like it’s supposed to. Barrel break in just makes cleaning a hair easier supposedly. If you bought a gun that needs a barrel break in to smooth tooling marks, you bought a cheap gun. My Tikka shoots sub moa groups with any ammo I feed it and is cleaned extremely easily. My Remington holds a 2 inch group on a good day and is impossible to move all the copper fouling out of the barrel. Just buy a good gun and shoot it.
Zachary Stewart
I shoot two rounds, then pull the bolt out and clean with copper solvent, brush, run dry patches until they come out clean, then smear jeweler’s rouge on a patch on a Parker Hale jag and make 30 back and forth strokes.
Then shoot 3 shots and repeat the cleaning/polishing procedure. Then repeat again a final time. This kills the tool marks and makes cheap barrels perform like hand lapped cut rifled barrels.
Henry Watson
back and forth strokes with rouge
>>repeat a few times
So what you're saying is that if you hand-lap a barrel it performs like a hand-lapped barrel? Thanks for stating the obvious.
David Rivera
I had a gunsmithing book that talked about this. It was pretty fuddy, but it talked about doing this mostly for more precision-oriented rifles (competition, hunting,) and the reason was to simply assure there wasn't anything wrong with the rifle when you needed it. Smoothing out imperfections, assuring there was no pitting or whatever, pretty much what said.
tl;dr It's fuddlore, at best.
Charles Turner
Barrels are best broken in by soaking them in water for 1 week prior to shooting.
Camden Kelly
Jordan Jackson
its a ptr-91, its not going to shoot "tight groupings". breaking in barrels is a benchrest or precision rifle thing.
Jace Cox
I bought a bull barrel for my 10/22. I just decided to try doing it and followed the instructions that came with it.
Hudson Smith
And this was 10 shots at 50 yards. So I'm kinda thinking it does work but this is the first aftermarket barrel I have ever bought so this may just be normal.
Grayson Bailey
What ammo? Was it lapped?
Parker Myers
Wait... you paid $20 more for a barrel than an entire Marlin 795 and got marginally better groups?
>c
>u
>c
>k
Jaxon Lee
>fire hundreds of rounds
>frequently jams, broken firing pin, trash components
Easton Brooks
>What ammo?
It was CCI Mini Mag HP's 36 grain (store bought)
>Was it lapped?
don't know.
Kevin Lewis
ok
Tyler Hall
Well there is also the method where fudds would wipe some oil down the barrel every few shots for the first 20 or more. Maybe if you had a very precise barrel and you wanted to try and make sure it started to wear evenly, MAYBE it could have some very small impact of the length of barrel life (in terms of accuracy) for extreme precision applications
Any other time there are so many other variables at play that it's not going to have an effect, especially since modern manufacturing means metals are more durable and wear resistant
I can see why someone might consider it for a target bull barreled PTR, since it has a nice barrel, but it's pointless since the design isn't that accurate.
Brayden Fisher
Owned one for 2 years...just killed my first deer with it this week...takes about 200 Ed’s to get good groups because that’s how long it takes to learn how to properly use it. 200 reds to train....G3 pattern rifles don’t need breaking in.
Lucas Nelson
I've heard it said that competition guys like to shoot a barrel in for a bit before using it. Something about getting it to a mid point of wear so that the poi stops shifting? I don't have any idea if this works or not, I just go shoot my new guns and clean them like normal when I'm done, never worried about barrel break in and so far everything seems fine.