"I'm a conspiracy theorist, I reckon some smiths and barrel makers are telling us to clean alot so we wear barrels out quicker and need to buy more barrels
it's all about money I sais."
l agree Am88, but you have to have a barrel with a good finish to start with so that it is not fouling like it shouldn't
lMHO coppering is not good
it needs to be said that John Krieger and the bartlein guys in the video's are talking about high quality hand lapped barrels
a quote from Gale Mcmillan
"Posted: 09-25-1999 10:10
The break in fad was started by a fellow I helped get started in the barrel business . He started putting a set of break in instructions in ever barrel he
shipped. One came into the shop to be installed and I read it and the next time I saw him I asked him What was with this break in crap?. His answer
was Mac, My share of the market is about 700 barrels a year. I cater to the target crowd and they shoot a barrel about 3000 rounds before they
change it. If each one uses up 100 rounds of each barrel breaking it in you can figure out how many more barrels I will get to make each year. If you
will stop and think that the barrel doesn't know whether you are cleaning it every shot or every 5 shots and if you are removing all foreign material that
has been deposited in it since the last time you cleaned it what more can you do? When I ship a barrel I send a recommendation with it that you clean it
ever chance you get with a brass brush pushed through it at least 12 times with a good solvent and followed by two and only 2 soft patches. This
means if you are a bench rest shooter you clean ever 7 or 8 rounds . If you are a high power shooter you clean it when you come off the line after 20
rounds. If you follow the fad of cleaning every shot for X amount and every 2 shots for X amount and so on the only thing you are accomplishing is
shortening the life of the barrel by the amount of rounds you shot during this process. I always say Monkey see Monkey do, now I will wait on the
flames but before you write them, Please include what you think is happening inside your barrel during break in that is worth the expense and time you
are spending during break in"
lMHO you need to clean a dirty barrel, but your barrel should shoot many shots before it is dirty,
l did not consider my 17 dirty at 250 shots and it will shoot the first shot off to the left then all shots will be on target till it gets cleaned again
what l believe is that if a barrel needs breaking in when new it has a burr from manufacturing that can only be burnt off by shooting
if a good non fouler older barrel starts to foul it is getting rough and may be at the end of its life or may be able to be brought back with polishing
but not too much polishing as it will have the opposite effect that you are looking for as explained by Dan Lilja
my 22-250 shoots one hole at 200 for 200-300 shots but then will group around 1/2 moa till l polish the throat area with autosol that brings it back to life
l am a hunter not a target shooter, if l were to shoot comp l would do it just like they do for the same reasons they do
“If you do not read the newspapers you are uninformed. If you do read the newspapers you are misinformed”. Mark Twain