Fact or fiction. I've read more than once that before shooting the cheap steel ammo that the rifle(223/556) should have a break-in period(if there is such a thing?) with good brass. Is that true and if so what rd count is considered doing that? I have about 250 rds thru my M&P Sport and the AR platform is fairly new to me.

I broke mine in by shooting 3-400 rounds of steel case (Silver bear and Wolf) in a few hours, .

Im sure you will hear all kinds of people here soon saying not to shoot that "cheap steel crap" in your AR at all, but my Spikes 14.5" midlength has had no problems with any steel ammo (thats pretty much all I ever shoot through it).

Someone else can chime-on break-in period.

 

Steel ammo depends on the rifle. My franken-AR eats steel ammo all day. My higher quality AR won't cycle a single magazine of steel without jamming. Tighter tolerances I guess.

I honestly don't think it matters between steel or brass but your gun will tell you quickly if it's going to cycle the steel or not. Make sure you keep it lubed to break it in.

Steel cases? No problem. Steel jacketed bullets with a thin copper plating? How much did you pay for your barrel, and how much will replacing it cost?

Almost all of the steel cased Russian stuff uses bi-metal bullets these days from my experience. They are mild-steel jackets with a thin copper wash over them to provide lubricity and reduce steel jacket to barrel contact.

 

The topic of copper washed mild steel jacketed bullets causing excessive barrel wear is hotly debated on the interwebs. Here's a decent post from calguns http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=510798 .

 

My take on it, is even if they increase barrel wear by 10%, the cost savings of replacing a barrel a little sooner is still substantial over if I only shot higher quality copper only jacketed bullets for plinking. I highly doubt I will ever get to the point that I have shot so much bimetal out of my AR that I will need to replace the barrel, especially in quality chrome lined barrels.

 

If you were going for a precision platform, and were planning on chasing single holes, or going for long distance precision shooting, my personal inkling would be to stay away from cheap ammo, and only feed that rifle a diet of high end match commercial ammo or reload yourself (even better). Particularly if you invested in a high end barrel for big bucks..

 

For my multi-purpose fun guns, I shoot almost exclusively Silver or Golden bear with bimetal 62 grain bullets.

Ok so basically no worries about break-in. But the steel bullets, something to think about. I remember a while back we were discussing this about some RWS(?) steel washed HG ammo and I just bought a case of it. I just spread it out among my 9's and used it up and am confident that any "damage" was miniscule.Gonna buy some of the cheap stuff just to see how it shoots.BTW the brl is melonite so thats supposed to be pretty good stuff.

Ok so basically no worries about break-in. But the steel bullets, something to think about. I remember a while back we were discussing this about some RWS(?) steel washed HG ammo and I just bought a case of it. I just spread it out among my 9's and used it up and am confident that any "damage" was miniscule.Gonna buy some of the cheap stuff just to see how it shoots.BTW the brl is melonite so thats supposed to be pretty good stuff.

 

Superior barrels touts the awesomeness of their melonite qpq barrels. They also say don't shoot bimetallic bullets. Otoh, you are shortening the life of a $400-700 barrel from them.

 

The plating is REALLY thin. It also matters how you shoot. If you are doing mag dumps, I suspect the bi metal will be more abusive than if you are shooting one round every two minutes as you would be adding a lot of heat to the equation.

 

If its a $150 on sale special and you can score a replacement for $210, the savings might be worth it. A pricey barrel? Probably not.

My take on it, is even if they increase barrel wear by 10%, the cost savings of replacing a barrel a little sooner is still substantial over if I only shot higher quality copper only jacketed bullets for plinking. I highly doubt I will ever get to the point that I have shot so much bimetal out of my AR that I will need to replace the barrel, especially in quality chrome lined barrels.

 

If you were going for a precision platform, and were planning on chasing single holes, or going for long distance precision shooting, my personal inkling would be to stay away from cheap ammo, and only feed that rifle a diet of high end match commercial ammo or reload yourself (even better). Particularly if you invested in a high end barrel for big bucks..

 

 

I think you hit it all right here.... high quality chrome lined barrels will suffer much less.... however, cheap ammo through a 500+ dollar barrel? wouldn't even bother. Although, i dont think anyone, or majority, even thinks about putting cheap steel through a noveske barrel or such. Since the general consensus when purchasing a high end piece of equipment is to get high end results. I've been looking at there intermediated 18" barrels for my next build. Putting steel ammo through it would defeat the purpose of the rifle.

 

Most barrels that are chrome lined, have a chrome chamber, but just make sure. As steel cased ammo will wear that down faster then brass. scarring the chamber can be a big issue, and steel cased ammo already seals the chamber less adequately then brass.

 

Properly braking in a barrel means shooting 1 bullet at a time and thorough cleaning after each, move up to 3 shots and clean. It's not a period of time, like the first 500 rounds through the rifle, its a process. Your removing the left over bits from machining the barrel, basically deburring it. You don't want something too hard or too soft, it's best done in a very gradual process.

I think you hit it all right here.... high quality chrome lined barrels will suffer much less.... however, cheap ammo through a 500+ dollar barrel? wouldn't even bother. Although, i dont think anyone, or majority, even thinks about putting cheap steel through a noveske barrel or such. Since the general consensus when purchasing a high end piece of equipment is to get high end results. I've been looking at there intermediated 18" barrels for my next build. Putting steel ammo through it would defeat the purpose of the rifle.

 

Most barrels that are chrome lined, have a chrome chamber, but just make sure. As steel cased ammo will wear that down faster then brass. scarring the chamber can be a big issue, and steel cased ammo already seals the chamber less adequately then brass.

 

Properly braking in a barrel means shooting 1 bullet at a time and thorough cleaning after each, move up to 3 shots and clean. It's not a period of time, like the first 500 rounds through the rifle, its a process. Your removing the left over bits from machining the barrel, basically deburring it. You don't want something too hard or too soft, it's best done in a very gradual process.

 

Seriously, that crap again? Look the guys who make the fancy barrels say "what machining marks" and the chrome lined or melonited barrels are so hard what irregularities is copper covered lead going to smooth out? If it abraded the irregularities, you would destroy the chrome lining.

 

 

Seriously, that crap again? Look the guys who make the fancy barrels say "what machining marks" and the chrome lined or melonited barrels are so hard what irregularities is copper covered lead going to smooth out? If it abraded the irregularities, you would destroy the chrome lining.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to debate the effectiveness of the process. But braking in a chrome line barrel means polishing it, The supposed accuracy gained from braking in a barrel is from smoothing out micro sized imperfections. Not necessarily removing tool marks, a decent barrel should be lapped. If the idea is to polish then scrubbing the inside of the barrel could be a bad idea.