How To Break In Your Rifle

• Posted on 30 April 2025
• By Jenna Poirier
• 0

How To Break In Your Rifle
Rifles often need a breaking-in period before they reach peak accuracy and consistent velocities. A new barrel will often print disappointing groups until it's had a certain number of rounds down the barrel.

What Is “Breaking In” Your Barrel?

When someone says they are “breaking in” their rifle’s barrel, what do they mean? The barrel break in procedure is when you shoot and clean your rifle multiple times to smooth out miniscule imperfections left from when the barrel was manufactured.

Why Should You Break In a Barrel?

Rifles often need a breaking-in period before they reach peak accuracy and consistent velocities. A new barrel will often print disappointing groups until it's had a certain number of rounds down the barrel. That number changes from barrel to barrel. The basic idea is that the shoot-clean-shoot-clean process smooths out microscopic imperfections from manufacturing (tiny burrs, feathers, etc.) that may be present in the bore, and cleaning ensures that copper fouling doesn’t become stuck in those imperfections before they’re smoothed out.

Is Breaking In A Barrel Always Necessary? 

Ultimately, that comes down to each individual shooter and what the planned use of a firearm is. For precision shooters looking to get the most performance possible out of their rifle, it may be worth going through the barrel break in procedure to get their rifle just a little more polished and refined for a potential advantage.For the average hunter or shooter, it may not be as important to go through the barrel break in procedure with their rifle. If a rifle will only be used to take shorter range shots, such as a ranch or farm rifle, or a closer range hunting rifle, then it may not be as important to break in the barrel to squeeze out a little more potential accuracy. 

How To Break In A Rifle?

If the company that manufactured your rifle barrel doesn't offer specific guidance on breaking it in, there's a general process you can follow that should offer some benefit. There are a variety of different methods and opinions when it comes to breaking in a barrel. Different sources will outline different processes, but ultimately the goal of each of the different processes is to achieve the same end result. While there are many different barrel break in processes, this is the process that Precision Shooting Magazine recommends:

    1. Thoroughly clean the barrel, even if it's never been fired. You want to remove as much debris as              possible, even if it's barely visible or seemingly inconsequential (like lint).

    2. Reassemble the rifle and fire one round.

    3. Thoroughly clean the barrel again and let it cool back to room temperature. Even a slightly warm              barrel could reduce the effectiveness of the breaking in process, so be patient and let it cool off                completely.

    4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 a total of ten times — twenty times if you want to be really thorough. More              than twenty repetitions isn't likely to produce additional benefit.

STEP 1 (repeated 10 times)

Fire one round

Push wet patches soaked with a powder solvent through the bore

Push a brush through the bore (5 times in each direction)

Push dry patches through the bore (2 times)

Push wet patches soaked with a copper solvent through the bore

Push a brush through the bore (5 times in each direction)

Push dry patches through the bore (2 times)

Push a patch with 2 drops of oil through the bore

STEP 2 (repeated 5 times) 

Fire a 3 shot group

Repeat the cleaning procedure from STEP 1 after each group

STEP 3 (repeat 5 times)

Fire a 5 shot group

Repeat the cleaning procedure from STEP 1