Thread: Tikka T3X barrel break-in

Greetings All,
The first few new barrels I aquired dated from before breaking in barrels was invented. In those days most of us took care to clean our new barrels after each shooting session but this may have been due to the military ammo we had previously used that required prompt cleaning. Some never cleaned their rifle at all. Suggestions that barrels needed to be broken in appeared much later. Over time these became larded with faux scientific phrases like developing a home registration point and many others. None of this passed the sniff test with me and I have stuck with cleaning after each use. Some have suggested that all this voodoo barrel cleaning stuff is to provide a get out of jail free card for the odd bad barrel that slips through.
In 1974 we bought our first new family car. The instructions firmly stated that a certain speed should not be exceeded for the first so many kilometres to run the car in. A new car purchased in 2000 had no such instructions. Why have barrels gone in the other direction?
Regards Grandpamac.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

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In 1974 we bought our first new family car. The instructions firmly stated that a certain speed should not be exceeded for the first so many kilometres to run the car in. A new car purchased in 2000 had no such instructions. Why have barrels gone in the other direction?
Regards Grandpamac.

Because ham fisted people with cleaning rod's following the break in instructions will wreck barrels and so more will be sold. Firing extra rounds "breaking them in" will also wear them out faster especially combined with point one before it. Then there is the endless load "development" that some seem obsessed with.

Originally Posted by grandpamac

In 1974 we bought our first new family car. The instructions firmly stated that a certain speed should not be exceeded for the first so many kilometres to run the car in. A new car purchased in 2000 had no such instructions.

Machining tolerances have improved such that it has become a redundant process and is a great parallel example to barrel break in.