So my younger brother bought a Tikka T3 Scout compact a while back.
He’s been talking about buying all sorts of aftermarket stuff for it.
Thousands of dollars of stuff before he fired one round through it.
Well I sent him a pic of one of my 10 round groups.
He replies that his Tikka can do that.
As I Lol’ed I tell him that he needs to shoot it before he knows what it can do.
He reported that he finally shot it.
7 groups of 3, 168gr SMK.
I don’t know the manufacturers.
Problem is, he did not break the barrel in.
I’m not even sure if he cleaned it before he shot it.
He’s the hard headed infantry veteran, knows lots about the infantry’s messed up way of doing things.
Claims to know why its important for a proper break in for a precision rifle.
Don’t ask me why he didn’t do it correctly.:suicide:
Can this barrel still be broken in correctly?
Is the throat going to polish and wear correctly or did he just kill the serviceable life of this barrel?
Barrels are made to be shot without any break-in procedure. Test some loads and when you’re done…clean it before storage. The idea of barrel break-in came about because gun owners kept asking for the procedure, and barrel makers came up with a standard answer.
With any premium barrel that has been finish lapped – such as your Krieger Barrel --, the lay or direction of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, so fouling is minimal compared to a barrel with internal tooling marks. This is true of any properly finish-lapped barrel regardless of how it is rifled. If it is not finish-lapped, there will be reamer marks left in the bore that are directly across the direction of the bullet travel. This occurs even in a button-rifled barrel as the button cannot completely iron out these reamer marks.
Because the lay of the finish is in the direction of the bullet travel, very little is done to the bore during break-in, but the throat is another story. When your barrel is chambered, by necessity there are reamer marks left in the throat that are across the lands, i.e. across the direction of the bullet travel. In a new barrel they are very distinct; much like the teeth on a very fine file. When the bullet is forced into the throat, copper dust is removed from the jacket material and released into the gas which at this temperature and pressure is actually a plasma. The copper dust is vaporized in this plasma and is carried down the barrel. As the gas expands and cools, the copper comes out of suspension and is deposited in the bore. This makes it appear as if the source of the fouling is the bore when it is actually for the most part the new throat. If this copper is allowed to stay in the bore, and subsequent bullets and deposits are fired over it, copper which adheres well to itself, will build up quickly and may be difficult to remove later. So when we break in a barrel, our goal is to get the throat “polished” without allowing copper to build up in the bore. This is the reasoning for the “fire-one-shot-and-clean” procedure.
Every barrel will vary slightly in how many rounds they take to break in For example a chrome moly barrel may take longer to break in than stainless steel because it is more abrasion resistant even though it is a similar hardness. Also chrome moly has a little more of an affinity for copper than stainless steel so it will usually show a little more “color” if you are using a chemical cleaner. Rim Fire barrels can take an extremely long time to break in, sometimes requiring several hundred rounds or more. But cleaning can be lengthened to every 25-50 rounds. The break-in procedure and the cleaning procedure are really the same except for the frequency. Remember the goal is to get or keep the barrel clean while breaking in the throat with bullets being fired over it.
Finally, the best way to tell if the barrel is broken in is to observe the patches; i.e. when the fouling is reduced. This is better than some set number of cycles of “shoot and clean” as many owners report practically no fouling after the first few shots, and more break-in would be pointless. Conversely, if more is required, a set number would not address that either. Besides, cleaning is not a completely benign procedure so it should be done carefully and no more than necessary.
Exactly. The barrel makers answered the continual question with a standard break-in procedure so they wouldn’t have to repeat themselves so often. I recall reading that one barrel maker said that it makes shooters wear out barrels faster, so he could sell more. Krieger is likely one of the best barrels on the market…what exactly would a break-in process accomplish since they have been lapped, polished and finished before leaving the machine shop?
I don’t buy it.
How hard would it be to just say break in is not required on our barrels.
Sure beats typing a long essay on some complicated break in process, which by the way, would result in more questions the manufacture would have to answer.
I know how Kreiger does their barrels.
Tikka? Not a clue.
My brother claims it is a chrome moly hammer forged barrel.
I doubt that if it is supposed to be a precision barrel.
To gain the best accuracy and life from a barrel, it is far more important to use a good rod guide like those machined by Mike Lucas than any formula for breaking in a barrel.
At www.6mmbr.com one can look up what Gale McMillan had to say about the break-in procedure for rifle barrels. I don’t own any McMillan barrels, (only fiberglass stocks) but I do believe his comments.
McMillan’s article is pessimistic.
Krieger states exactly why they recommend a break in procedure.
McMillan sounds like the voice in the wilderness here.
It still doesn’t explain why copper fouling drops off during the break in procedure.
Also, I’ve read site staff on this board post about sending stainless barrels off for nitride after 100-200 rounds.
If a reamer is used beyond its proper sharpness level, then some barrels will be rougher. The copper fouling will be there in the initial firing whether you follow a shooting, cleaning regimen or just shoot some and clean when you’re done.
There’s an HS Precision 10x barrel on my Winchester 70 Sharpshooter that rarely shows any copper, but it’s a .308 Win. chambering. Another rifle with a factory barrel in 7mm Mag needs to be copper cleaned pretty regularly. That means it depends on the cartridge being used and the quality of the barrel when it comes to fouling. You simply can’t expect a jacketed bullet to alter the internal steel of a barrel in any measurable way by firing a few rounds with some cleaning thrown in between shots.
Because it was created by barrel manufacturers who want to sell more barrels. More barrels have been ruined by over cleaning/ improper cleaning, than " shooting one out" . Throat erosion and barrel wear are two different things. Did I miss what caliber we are talking about ?
I know some guys who make a living selling aftermarket products for Tikka rifles.
Who are long-range benchrest-types.
They have a “barrel break-in procedure” for Tikkas on their website. But they also say that it is completely unnecessary with Sako’s cold hammer forged barrels (which are what are used with Tikka rifles). Given the size groups they are able to wring from their rifles and the size groups I have seen others wring from their Tikkas without any barrel break-in whatsoever, I am inclined to believe them.
Barrel break in is total horse shit. Every explination I have ever been provided as to what it is supposed to do has been nonsense. I have never seen quantifiable evidence to suggest that it does anything at all.