How To Break-In a New Rifle Barrel

I received an email recently asking me why people break-in their barrels and how they do it. They also asked about the best way to clean and store their firearms. So instead of just replying to the one who asked, I also decided to post the answers here on W-W. Today I will cover new-barrel break-in, and tomorrow I will cover proper cleaning and storage of firearms.

The purpose of breaking-in the new barrel is to try and squeeze every bit of accuracy potential out of the barrel. The break-in shots will help smooth the rough surfaces of the barrel, while the frequent cleaning will remove the fouling that fills in or builds up on the rough surfaces needing smoothed out, so that each shot will smooth out the barrel, instead of just building up excess fouling with each consecutive shot. A properly broken-in barrel will not only be more accurate, but will foul less and clean easier than a barrel that has not been properly broken-in
.
If it is a particularly rough barrel, one might consider first using one of the various barrel lapping kits from Brownells or Midway USA.

Give the gun a thorough cleaning before shooting it for the first time. This will remove any dirt, preservative, fouling from factory test shots, lapping compound not removed from the factory, etc.

Before shooting, run a dry patch down the bore to remove any oil or rust preventative.

It will take about 20 shots to break the bore in. Use only copper jacketed bullets for this procedure. Do not use any bullets with special coatings such as Moly, Lubalox, or other proprietary coatings, no matter if it's black, blue, green, purple, orange, polka-dot, houndstooth, or black-watch tartan.

For the first 10 shots, clean the bore with a good copper solvent between each shot. Allow the solvent to work for several minutes before swabbing the bore dry. Make sure you clean the barrel well enough each time that no traces of copper fouling are present.

For the next 10 shots, repeat the same procedure, except clean the bore every other shot.

Once all twenty shots have been fired, give the gun a thorough cleaning and now the rifle's barrel should be broken in and ready for duty.