The idea of a break-in procedure for new rifles is a current trend. It can be done with any rifle, but is more helpful on custom barrels than mass-produced models. (Steve Knight/Tyler Morning Telegraph)

When it comes to hunting, much like fishing, there are trends that actually help and trends designed to do little more than sell product.

Sometimes it can be hard to differentiate between the helpful and the fad.

Excuse me if I am late to this party, but I was asked the other day about breaking in a new rifle. I must admit I had never heard the concept before. I remember the days when you bought a new car and would break-in oil in the engine and run it at low speeds for a few hundred miles to get the metal shavings left over from machining out, but never on a rifle.

All I have ever done with a new rifle was run a patch through the barrel and wipe it down with a cloth. The reason being that the rust preventative put on guns, once a chemical called Cosmoline, started off like an oil-like substance, but if not cleaned away could become crusty over time.

Cosmoline is no longer used, but new guns should still be thoroughly cleaned before using.

Today’s idea of breaking in a gun, more specifically a barrel, seems to be based partly on helpful advice and partly oin fad. It comes down to the quality of your gun whether it helps or not, according to Brownwood’s David Davis, who over the years has built competition rifles and participated in long distance shooting.

“When you are breaking in a barrel, you are smoothing out the tooling marks in a good barrel. When one gunsmith cuts a chamber from one end and then cuts a crown from the other, at any point where they come together there will be burrs. When a bullet goes over these burrs, it gets copper off the bullet and that builds up,” Davis said.

He said the goal is to never let the barrel and the tiny burrs get dirty while it is new, and use the heat and pressure from shooting to flatten them down.

“You can talk to a hundred guys and get a hundred answers on how to break one in. I fire a shot and clean it, fire a shot and clean it and fire a shot and clean it. Then I fire three shots and clean it, and then I am done,” Davis explained.

However, cleaning a gun for this purpose does not mean shooting a shot of Rem Oil or Gun Scrubber Down the barrel then pulling a snake through it. Davis recommends a much more thorough cleaning using first a carbon solvent and then a copper solvent. His recipe starts with running two wet patches with the carbon solvent down the barrel, one direction each, followed by 20 strokes with either a bronze or nylon brush. Then two to three wet patches, one way each, with the copper solvent.

“The first patch of copper remover looks like new blue jeans. The next is like faded blue jeans and then another should be fairly clean,” he said.

Then comes another 20 strokes with a nylon brush since some copper solvents can remove the bronze off a wire brush.

The final step is to clean the chamber using some type of acetone-based chemical like brake cleaner. A pro’s trick is to use a pistol cleaning kit with a .44-caliber brush draped with a patch.

Now comes the question of whether the process should be used on a rifle out of the box from your local dealer.

“With factory barrels it is basically a waste of time because they are not smooth to start with and never will be,” Davis said.

Davis said the majority of the barrels on mass-produced rifles are made in either one of two processes, hammer forged or button cut. Neither of these result in an extremely pristine barrel compared to custom made.

So, breaking in a factory rifle may not have the same impact.

“Is it necessary? Probably not. Does it make you feel better? Yes,” Davis said.

However, some of the tips for the extreme cleaning process should not be lost on the average hunter. Too often accuracy is affected by a dirty barrel, and specifically carbon build up. A little carbon can actually work to lubricate the barrel, but built up over time it becomes hardened and can cause the gun to lose accuracy.

And remember, when it comes to guns, and fishing reels, a drop of oil goes a long way. Too much oil is just going to cause more problems.

“The key is to never let a new gun get dirty,” Davis said.