New barrel question

[MuleyFever]

I see people talk about how a barrel will speed up after so many rounds. At what point do you start to see more consistency in speed and or accuracy? Should one not even get really serious about settling in on a load until say 50 rounds down the barrel, 100 rounds? Reason I ask is I have some Petersons brass and I have a few Nosler brass. I intended to just use the Petersons but I wonder if I should just shoot the barrel a bit using the Nosler first just to break it in then settle in on a good load with the Petersons brass. That would save some firings on the better brass I intend to use long term. Or maybe I am wasting my time thinking about it.

 

[WeiserBucks]

It's a complete mystery when any barrel will settle in. I've had some take 200 rounds and others were done at 30. I would start with the Peterson brass and not look back. Using it will form it to the chamber, give you good data and Peterson is really durable, it'll last a long time unless you're really abusing it.

When Peterson brass first became available for 300 Norma I bought some because the Norma brand brass I'd been using wouldn't last for 3 firings. I took one piece of the Peterson and tried to kill it. Fired it 16x with max loads in one afternoon, full length sizing and no annealing. At the end of that experiment the primer pocket wasn't like new, but certainly not gone.

Going from one brand of brass to another is just introducing unnecessary variables.

 

[Seeknelk]

It's a complete mystery when any barrel will settle in. I've had some take 200 rounds and others were done at 30. I would start with the Peterson brass and not look back. Using it will form it to the chamber, give you good data and Peterson is really durable, it'll last a long time unless you're really abusing it.

When Peterson brass first became available for 300 Norma I bought some because the Norma brand brass I'd been using wouldn't last for 3 firings. I took one piece of the Peterson and tried to kill it. Fired it 16x with max loads in one afternoon, full length sizing and no annealing. At the end of that experiment the primer pocket wasn't like new, but certainly not gone.

Going from one brand of brass to another is just introducing unnecessary variables.

What he said. Shoot the good brass to have it ready for real load work about the time it settles in.

 

[Oregonmuley]

Not an expert but seems its been posted that cut rifled barrels take a few more rounds to settle in versus button rifled simply due to the how they where rifled. But like already posted I think every barrel will be different.

 

[willfrye027]

You can get your seating depth pretty well dialed in while the barrel is still breaking in. I like to use the first 100 virgin brass to try a few powders and get a rough seating depth, and test at distance if something seems to be working well. Then I will fine tune powder charge and confirm seating depth is working after you have fire formed brass…and it’s usually pretty settled in at that point.

 

[wildwilderness]

I would test loads etc while breaking in.

I had a barrel speed up after about 100 rounds. Knowing the ideal velocities for loads I was able to just adjust powder to keep it consistent once the barrel settled- I cut about 1 grain in that load to get the same velocity

 

[wind gypsy]

I had a benchmark that was speeding up after 300 rounds still but that's not the norm.

What I like to do with a fresh barrel if I intend to use fresh brass is ideally start with enough brass to make it through a barrel's lifetime. Load up a bunch at a modest load for virgin firing, maybe do a little seating depth testing as you're breaking the barrel in and getting the brass through its first firing. Typically this works out so by the time i've got all of the brass fired once the barrel is broken in and then I can do load dev without dealing with significant changes from virgin to formed brass or barrel speed up.

This works good for hunting rifles where 100 pieces of brass can keep you in business. Takes a little longer with volume guns where you might want 300+ pieces so you can have enough for a competition, class, longer practice sessions, etc.

 

[menhaden_man]

I went down the rabbit hole last summer on a new 7 RM Xbolt... it sped up nearly 100 FPS for the same loads somewhere between 70-100 shots. Peterson brass here too, stud cases. Good luck.

 

[Wrench]

I find after 100 I can feel good about any of them. They will all get faster if you build a carbon ring....that doesn't mean better accuracy.

 

[300 win mag]

It's a complete mystery when any barrel will settle in. I've had some take 200 rounds and others were done at 30. I would start with the Peterson brass and not look back. Using it will form it to the chamber, give you good data and Peterson is really durable, it'll last a long time unless you're really abusing it.

When Peterson brass first became available for 300 Norma I bought some because the Norma brand brass I'd been using wouldn't last for 3 firings. I took one piece of the Peterson and tried to kill it. Fired it 16x with max loads in one afternoon, full length sizing and no annealing. At the end of that experiment the primer pocket wasn't like new, but certainly not gone.

Going from one brand of brass to another is just introducing unnecessary variables.

what he said.peterson brass is phenominal.