Fire Lapping. . .anyone done it???

[atomicjoe23]

Have any of you fire lapped your rifle barrel???

I'm thinking about it. . .but I don't know. . .

. . .does it make a difference if the gun is brand new or has been used???

I haven't even fired my new .22-250 yet (no scope yet. . .) so I'm wondering if I need/should break the barrel in first or not. . .

. . .speaking of breaking the barrel in. . .never had to do this before this is the first new rifle I have ever owned. . .any suggestions???

It's a Weatherby Vanguard Varmint Special in .22-250 Remington with a 22" #3 heavy contour barrel (not free floated. . .yet!!!)

Thanks!!!

[Slenk]

Never have and never will. Might as well pour sand down your barrel .
22-250 is pretty hot and the barrels heat up in a hurry . Take your time and let it cool.
Just spend some time shooting you rifle it will work itself in.
Slenk

[FrankDown]

My understanding of throat erosion and barrel wear is that heat does it.  I try not to get my barrel hot at all.  If I can touch it and its hot I wait longer.  Unless your shooting P Dogs or something I dont think youll have trouble unless you just shoot all day.

When I get a new rifle I clean the bore and shoot it and wait for it to cool off.  Then I clean the barrel after each few shots.  Theres some people that are religious about breaking in their rifles though.  I will clean the barrel after about 3 shots until I have put 20 rounds through it.  Some will go on to do it for 50 rounds.  Basically you are burnishing off any tooling imperfections.  The longer between shots to clean it the harder it is to get the fouling out of the imperfections.  You are basically cleaning the fouling out so the bullet can help smooth these imperfections.

[demontang]

I would do this method


A note of warning breaking in a barrel does not make a barrel inherently more accurate. What it will do is make it more consistent and give it a longer life. For these reasons we do recommend a good quality break in procedure. We will not attempt to go into great detail with regards to why this is important. Nor will we describe what it does to the barrel as far as breaking it in or any more of the more scientific reasons and effects of this procedure.  Many volumes of books have been written with regards to break-in and we will not attempt to rewrite any of it.

Fire, Clean, Treat, Lubricate and Fire Method

Clean the barrel well.
Make sure the patches come out clean and white.
Use the cleaner of your choice (do not use ammonia-based cleaners). Use of a lead or copper solvent is okay. 
Make sure you have the barrel cleaned and neutralized in the bore.
Apply the lubricant-bore treatment.
Dry the bore with a clean dry patch.
Use the quality ammunition of your choice and fire ONE round.
Repeat Step 1 for the next 24 rounds.
At round 25, repeat Step 1. Change from firing ONE round to THREE.
Repeat Step 3 until you have fired 50 rounds total.
At round 51, repeat Step 1. Change from firing THREE rounds to FIVE.
Repeat Step 5 until you have fired 100 rounds total.
After firing 100 rounds total clean and treat the bore as in Step 1, then fire for a group. Your barrel is now broken in.

[ivarhusa]

A friend had the materials. One kit seems to do 100 rifles or more, so see if you can "share".

It is easy to do, presuming you handload. I have no way of knowing if my 'treatment' helped the rifle in any way.  The story sounds plausible, that it might scrub off some of the non-uniformities in the barrel.  I can't imagine that it actually 'polishes' to a significant degree, given how much elbow grease polishing on the "outside" (of a barrel) is. Don't expect miracles.

I wonder if anyone has borescoped a rifle, before and after treatment?  That would be cool.

[FrankDown]

Im not even sure youd see much of a difference without some magnification.

[demontang]

I know that OTIS makes a ceramic coating for the rifling that sounds like it would be a good idea. I'm going to try it on my AR when I get the cash.

http://www.otisgun.com/cgistore/store.cgi?page=/new/fcatalog.html&setup=1&cart_id=

[gramps]

I have the firelap kit and have done two barrels.  Checked both with a bore-scope before, during and after.  The process helped both barrels.  They were 'rough' bores that fouled very heavily and I did not go thru' the entire procedure as outlined in the instructions...I only used the fine grit.  Did not damage accuracy on either.   Some barrel are lapped before installation and some are not and, therefore, some are very rough.