test firing a rebarrel job - safety measures?

what lengths do y'all go to on the first rounds after rebarrelling?

i got a new looking (yet advertised as take off) bbl from an auction site. the threads were completely unmolested, had the cheesy black mdl 12 fv finish on them, no sign of adhesive, and spinning the receiver on could in no way be accomplished by bare hands. it was a tight fit. a borescope inspection of the chamber and throat seemed ok.

i was going to measure brass b4/after neck od, datum, web. all the usual checks then i began to think.

two questions? 1. do i want to fire this using my finger, or remotely with a string? 2. if the bbl indeed had never been installed in a receiver, how was proofed? before finishing?

I sell a lot of new take-off's. Mine usually have no sign of having been installed previously. (Savage does not use any adhesives and I usually clean them up with a dremel brush after removing them. )

I know that doesn't answer your question, but I would not worry about it.

If your confident about your ability in setting the heaedspace, drop a round in the chamber and pull the trigger. String? FORGETABOUTIT!! When it goes BANG, just smile.
And I've found "proud" threads that will make screwing the barrel into the action a little bit of a choir at times. If it's "that hard", go after the threads with a piece of emery cloth just to knock off the high spots. And don't forget to oil/grease the threads. No Locktite of sealer of any kind needed, ever.

I would start with just hand loading a very light round

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Having worked with Mil Surplus where head space is on the far edge of field reject gauges.......................

The only precaution I take is per above, I have a low end round, but I always start low and work up as there is often a nice accuracy node down there.

Frankly the new barrel is irrelevant. If the nut is tight you are good. It may blow up, but that has nothings to do with installed and the extremely remote possibility there is a flaw in the barrel.

If you set the head space too long it won't fire.

Too short and you can't chamber a round.

What causes blow ups is not barrels (usually) its a gas escape event. Savage is well setup to deal with that. The cartridge head is fully supported (those pesky mil surplus rifles not so)

What is interesting is the Modern Winchester I know of two that blew up (saw the outcome of one in person and pictures from another one) not a clue why they have that issue.

I've heard some say to "let the ex wife fire the first shot". :o

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Originally Posted by Deadshot2

I've heard some say to "let the ex wife fire the first shot". :o

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:(
Ladies first, be a gentlemen. :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Deadshot2

I've heard some say to "let the ex wife fire the first shot". :o

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if she were that gullible, may never had been a reason for her to be 'the ex'....

And if you or she had better judgement in the first place, she wouldn't be the "ex wife". Takes two to tango.

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Originally Posted by chop house

what lengths do y'all go to on the first rounds after rebarrelling?

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Me? I shove a round in the go hole then pull the trigger. If its a barrel I used previously I'll use the same load as before. If its a new or one new to me I'll initially use a starting or mid range load the same as I would for any other rifle.

Bill

If it's a new barrel, I treat it like a new barrel and go through the lap in process...

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never thought about special safety precautions for the first firing. more concerned with sightin, barrel breakin and what that target looks like.

don't ever believe in using low charge weight loads. lots more afraid of reduced loads than hot loads.

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Originally Posted by m12lrs

never thought about special safety precautions for the first firing. more concerned with sightin, barrel breakin and what that target looks like.

don't ever believe in using low charge weight loads. lots more afraid of reduced loads than hot loads.

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I always use cheap factory ammo or cheap reload ammo on barrel break ins... when I use cheap reload, I do stay at the bottom of the charge or even lower to try and minimize excessive heating of the barrel along with ample time in spacing my shots... I don't know that all this is necessary but I feel it doesn't hurt to error on the side of caution and I have never had a barrel not lap in nicely... just my 2 cents

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I don't buy the lap or break in thing.

Shoot it 5 rounds, clean it, see how things look, shoot another 15.

Use a good Carbon cleaner like Carbon killer 2000 (several similar no toxic non odor) the copper is going to plate in a bit to start anyway, don't try to clean that out.

If it fouls the barrel with copper you have a problem barrel and then you might need to do the lap in.

I have found that the Carbon Killer is even more effective if the barrel is hot (shooting in!) and I now clean all my guns as I finish the last rounds with them before I case them. I don't have to do it at home and with warm barrel its faster clean up.

No some high end barrel like shilen you don't need to lap in but I have personally watched my groups go from 5 moa to 1/2 moa as I progressed in the procedure... savage barrels are very rough relatively speaking compared to something like shilen that is hand lapped in... you can forgo the lap in on any barrel buy it will take some alot longer to become accurate as they can be and this does not mean there is a problem with the barrel it simply means that some manufacturers have rougher barrels to start and with proper care that can be smoothed out quickly

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rc20 said: "Shoot it 5 rounds, clean it, see how things look, shoot another 15"

this bbl was described in an auction listing as new unfired takeoff. 204 ruger. it looked unfired, and even looked like it had never been in a receiver. Anyway, i attached the chrono, laid it on the bags, fired a couple rounds from the hip (so to speak) and measured the fired formed brass. i am here typing so nothing went wrong. i headspaced it tight and sure enough the factory brass grew less than 0.001 on my starting loads (w748, speer tnt 39 gr, jump 0.030", new hornady brass, 3600 fps chrono'd).

QD'd the scope back on, and through the next 4 rounds adjusted down 12" and over 4" from my .308 zero. Shot numbers 7,8,9,10,11 went into 0.400", with 4 of them into 0.275. i had an idea what components to use since 748 and tnt's work great in my .223, but to be that lucky is about insane.

What is all this about break-in? ;)

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Originally Posted by chop house

rc20 said: "Shoot it 5 rounds, clean it, see how things look, shoot another 15"

this bbl was described in an auction listing as new unfired takeoff. 204 ruger. it looked unfired, and even looked like it had never been in a receiver. Anyway, i attached the chrono, laid it on the bags, fired a couple rounds from the hip (so to speak) and measured the fired formed brass. i am here typing so nothing went wrong. i headspaced it tight and sure enough the factory brass grew less than 0.001 on my starting loads (w748, speer tnt 39 gr, jump 0.030", new hornady brass, 3600 fps chrono'd).

QD'd the scope back on, and through the next 4 rounds adjusted down 12" and over 4" from my .308 zero. Shot numbers 7,8,9,10,11 went into 0.400", with 4 of them into 0.275. i had an idea what components to use since 748 and tnt's work great in my .223, but to be that lucky is about insane.

What is all this about break-in? ;)

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Some barrels you are wise to break in as you will reduce how much ammo you go through.. some higher end barrels are lapped finely enough or hand lapped to the point they don't need broken in. Savage barrels tend to be alot rougher than some others.. if you look at the inside of the barrel with a magnify glass of a new savage barrel you will see the surfaced almost looks like a golf ball with just bunches a little bumps and dips and bumps and dips and as you fire that get slapped out but if you leave the carbon and copper in the dips it can pack in there and make it take a lot longer for all of that to polish out

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Originally Posted by Ted_Feasel

Some barrels you are wise to break in as you will reduce how much ammo you go through.. some higher end barrels are lapped finely enough or hand lapped to the point they don't need broken in. Savage barrels tend to be alot rougher than some others.. if you look at the inside of the barrel with a magnify glass of a new savage barrel you will see the surfaced almost looks like a golf ball with just bunches a little bumps and dips and bumps and dips and as you fire that get slapped out but if you leave the carbon and copper in the dips it can pack in there and make it take a lot longer for all of that to polish out

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Then in the other hand you have shilen match barrels where they hand lap the last bit out so the surface is smooth as can be and you do have to really worry about lappi g out or breaking in the barrel... it all just depends on how the manufacturer bored the barrel what type of boar they used what type of finishing they did if any some of them do some hand finishing some of them just bore it and let the customer break it in and lap it out

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Ted:

yes, i am aware, was mostly kidding about the break in controversy. i am envious of guys i know with even criterion bbls, virtually wiping out the bore in a couple of strokes. meanwhile i pull out my borescope and butch's or some such. i have seen and recorded all sorts of tooling marks, embedded impurities, discontinuities in the bbl steel, chipped out lands, waffle iron patterns, and burnt out throats - Not talking strictly savage here.

one 700 in 243 i picked up used had an eroded throat, rounded lands, and even some pitting spanning two lands. it was intended for rebarrel, until i shot it. groups nicely, but pita to clean... abaolute pita!

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Originally Posted by chop house

Ted:

yes, i am aware, was mostly kidding about the break in controversy. i am envious of guys i know with even criterion bbls, virtually wiping out the bore in a couple of strokes. meanwhile i pull out my borescope and butch's or some such. i have seen and recorded all sorts of tooling marks, embedded impurities, discontinuities in the bbl steel, chipped out lands, waffle iron patterns, and burnt out throats - Not talking strictly savage here.

one 700 in 243 i picked up used had an eroded throat, rounded lands, and even some pitting spanning two lands. it was intended for rebarrel, until i shot it. groups nicely, but pita to clean... abaolute pita!

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Oh lol... there really are alot of folks that think break in is worthless :)

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Originally Posted by Ted_Feasel

. savage barrels are very rough relatively speaking compared to something like shilen that is hand lapped in...

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The first, and only barrel I've seen with my own eyes that had lands and grooves that looked like they had "railroad ties" on them was a Savage.

If Savage would at least hone the barrels after they are drilled, the buttons wouldn't be ironing these artifacts from the drilling process into the lands and grooves.

The current barrel I have on my Savage was drilled, honed for bore dimension and finish, then buttoned for rifling. A final hand lap gave the barrel a slight "choke" which helps in the speed department.

Factory barrels don't have to be rough. Honing of drilled blanks and hammer forging are processes that can yield a lot smoother barrels than what some Manufacturers are pushing out the door. For the shooter that's buying on the basis of price, where's the economy when you buy a $600 (+/-) rifle and then have to put a $350-$600 replacement barrel on it in order to get the accuracy you desire?

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Originally Posted by Deadshot2

The first, and only barrel I've seen with my own eyes that had lands and grooves that looked like they had "railroad ties" on them was a Savage.

If Savage would at least hone the barrels after they are drilled, the buttons wouldn't be ironing these artifacts from the drilling process into the lands and grooves.

The current barrel I have on my Savage was drilled, honed for bore dimension and finish, then buttoned for rifling. A final hand lap gave the barrel a slight "choke" which helps in the speed department.

Factory barrels don't have to be rough. Honing of drilled blanks and hammer forging are processes that can yield a lot smoother barrels than what some Manufacturers are pushing out the door. For the shooter that's buying on the basis of price, where's the economy when you buy a $600 (+/-) rifle and then have to put a $350-$600 replacement barrel on it in order to get the accuracy you desire?

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No they don't have to be it's just the cost-cutting measure and it's one I'm Lily willing to live with I can go through a break-in procedure and have a good Smooth Bore or I can pay a few hundred extra for a barrel that I don't have to do that with

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Originally Posted by Ted_Feasel

No they don't have to be it's just the cost-cutting measure and it's one I'm Lily willing to live with I can go through a break-in procedure and have a good Smooth Bore or I can pay a few hundred extra for a barrel that I don't have to do that with

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I don't hunt I just shoot for distance and accuracy and for me part of the fun of all of it is going through all those nuances breaking in the barrel and that feeling I get knowing that I did it right and for me it was really neat to sit there and watch a 5ml a drop 2 1/2 in Malay throughout the day of breaking in a barrel it was just really neat to watch the group slowly tighten up

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Originally Posted by Ted_Feasel

I don't hunt I just shoot for distance and accuracy and for me part of the fun of all of it is going through all those nuances breaking in the barrel and that feeling I get knowing that I did it right and for me it was really neat to sit there and watch a 5ml a drop 2 1/2 in Malay throughout the day of breaking in a barrel it was just really neat to watch the group slowly tighten up

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Watch a 5 moa drop to a 1/2 moa ^^^^^

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I do want to note, if you really get a barrel clean, even a good smooth one like Shilen or my current factory Loather Walther (smoother than Shilen regulars) takes a bit of work. About 5 cycles of a brass/nylon brush and follow up with a patch run through. That's warm on the bench, more so at home. That with a very focused modern non brute force type Carbon cleaner (the old stuff even with brute force is not as good)

As rough as it was the Savages I shot for a while layered a bit of copper in the roughest places and stopped.

The key was never let the carbon build up and then layer copper over the carbon. You then get multiple layers you are trying to break through and that requires a series of Bore Tech eliminator/Carbon Killer (or equivalent )

And even supposedly good Aftermarket can be not that great. I was not impressed with the interior of the X caliber. About half way in between Shilen and Savage. That XC barrel at least showed minimum lapping work.

It also take more work to clean than Shilen or Lothar Walther (less if I do it at the range warm)

As I have the Lyman Boroscope I can see the barrel condition as well as how well the cleanup is working.

I have seen the Hammer forged, they are smooth, doesn't give you a good shooter though (it can, CZ hammers their and then does a final lap out finish that works, they also let them rust to assist in the process). Its more time than US makers go through (hammering is a serious stress inducer)

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Originally Posted by RC20

I do want to note, if you really get a barrel clean, even a good smooth one like Shilen or my current factory Loather Walther (smoother than Shilen regulars) takes a bit of work. About 5 cycles of a brass/nylon brush and follow up with a patch run through. That's warm on the bench, more so at home. That with a very focused modern non brute force type Carbon cleaner (the old stuff even with brute force is not as good)

As rough as it was the Savages I shot for a while layered a bit of copper in the roughest places and stopped.

The key was never let the carbon build up and then layer copper over the carbon. You then get multiple layers you are trying to break through and that requires a series of Bore Tech eliminator/Carbon Killer (or equivalent )

And even supposedly good Aftermarket can be not that great. I was not impressed with the interior of the X caliber. About half way in between Shilen and Savage. That XC barrel at least showed minimum lapping work.

It also take more work to clean than Shilen or Lothar Walther (less if I do it at the range warm)

As I have the Lyman Boroscope I can see the barrel condition as well as how well the cleanup is working.

I have seen the Hammer forged, they are smooth, doesn't give you a good shooter though (it can, CZ hammers their and then does a final lap out finish that works, they also let them rust to assist in the process). Its more time than US makers go through (hammering is a serious stress inducer)

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Oh heck, I know... when I was going through breaking in my savage barrel it took ungodly amount of elbow grease, all in all I went through over 500 patches that day, I cut patches my self so they were not those tiny scrappy ones buy again for me it was really rewarding putting all the effort in and now I have a very easy to clean smooth bore and a sub MOA rifle... I get alot of people don't want to put that much time into it but I enjoy it... it feels rewarding

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Ahhh, I get it.

Me, I like putting them together (that is fun) and then shooting them.

Even reloading is an ends to a means.

I hate cleaning

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Originally Posted by RC20

Ahhh, I get it.

Me, I like putting them together (that is fun) and then shooting them.

Even reloading is an ends to a means.

I hate cleaning

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Yep:) it's all fun... I just love learning about every aspect I can... our local gunsmith here let's me come in on my days off of my regular job and work for free just so I can learn the art of gunsmithing... the money I saved initially by keeping my factory barrel let me purchase a set of Redding dies... I imagine when I wear this barrel out I will look at something that's match grade from the get go but for now I'm just working on mastering the basics and the art of precision reloading :)

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I get that. That was me 35 years ago getting into generators , switchgear and building control systems as well as the pumps, fans, boilers etc.

I took the books home and spent weekend going through them figuring out what I was missing and why.

A monk like existence for 3 or 4 years, but launched me to a fairly good career that I was never out of work through two bad recessions.

If you like it, it will find it's way back:)

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Originally Posted by RC20

I have seen the Hammer forged, they are smooth, doesn't give you a good shooter though (it can, CZ hammers their and then does a final lap out finish that works, they also let them rust to assist in the process). Its more time than US makers go through (hammering is a serious stress inducer)

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Yes, hammer forging can induce stress. That's why there is heat treating.

More and more manufacturers are producing fine shooting rifles with hammer forged barrels. Remington, Winchester, Sako, H&K, Sig, and many more use them. Savage is about the only remaining manufacturer to use button rifled barrels.

FWIW, I bought a Rem. 5-R Milspec that shot .5 MOA out of the box with hand loads, even with the POS X-Mark Pro trigger. Also got over 10,000 rounds through it before I had to replace the barrel due to accidental damage.

There are many that feel "forging" creates a better piece of steel with the granular structure being more evenly distributed from one end to the other.

I saw a show on the Military Channel the other night they're starting to experiment with composite and ceramic materials for barrels

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Originally Posted by Ted_Feasel

I saw a show on the Military Channel the other night they're starting to experiment with composite and ceramic materials for barrels

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Anything that can reduce weight without compromising strength and durability is being explored. Look at all the carbon fiber wrapped barrels out there now. A thin sporter like barrel wrapped with carbon fiber "reinforcement".

Yep lol... it's amazing what they come up with.... 20 years from now our grandkids will ask, " grandpa... did you guys really use powder in your weapons? How did that work??"

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