Howa 20" Break-in

[Rickhem]

I bought a Howa Mini barreled action with the 20" barrel from Brownell's.  Also bought a Stocky's VGM for it, along with the Jefferson Outdoors blind mag bottom metal.  Everything arrived a couple weeks ago and it's all assembled.  I ordered the Talley extended rings for it and have a 3-9 Nikon on it right now.  Too late for Deer season for me, but I'm ready to load some ammo and see what it can do.  

Has anyone got a sense for whether the Howa 20" barrel responds well to a barrel break-in process?  I'm going to do a shoot-clean cycle for the first 10 shots while I get the scope more or less sighted, then maybe a couple 5 shot groups and clean before I do any serious load development.  

The consensus I got from speaking with a few smiths was that custom barrels benefit less from this than factory barrels, and ideally, I'm not looking to go through dozens and dozens or rounds, and prolonged cleanings for what will be a hunting rifle for me.  

That said, like the old saying goes, "Only accurate rifles are interesting".

[grayfox]

The howa barrel is not a custom nor premium one. I have had a few, in the 20". That being said they do shoot pretty well. I think for the grendel ones I did a JB bore shine first before shooting, then clean that out well, but you can just do a clean first to get any gunk out, then your cleaning series.

I usually did a short break in for them. Like you said, 5-10 of shoot 1, clean 1, then maybe a 3-group and clean. Up to somewhere 10-20 rounds, it gives you the ability to break it in.
I use normally some factory brand, for 6Arc either of the 105 or 108 hornady would do fine, whatever is the better deal for you.

[SpeyRod]

Let the barrel tell you what it needs. My process is to shoot one and clean. If it feels smooth on the rod I’ll move on to 3 shots. When cleaning after 3 I look at the copper fowling. If there is a lot I get it clean and repeat. When I am not getting a lot of copper on cleaning I move on to 5. Wash rinse repeat.

I have had guns go 1, 3, 5, 10 without any repeating. I have also had guns never want to leave 3. Those were mostly cheap guns years ago. Most do a lot better these days.

[Rickhem]

Thanks for those responses.
Once I have some time, I’ll load some ammo to go through the process. I like the idea of letting the barrel tell me it’s GTG.
I’ll post up what I did and what I learned after I do it.

[CZ527 Guy]

I did the brownells barreled action as well, only I did the 22" version. Also did the Stocky's VG stock as well. Accuracy was pretty good from this rifle, though if you want custom barrel results Id encourage purchasing a custom lapped barrel.

I am loosing faith in breaking in barrels. Barrels do tend to get better with a bit of break in. Though I have treated the Howa factory barrel for what it is & shoot CFE 223 a fair bit & clean sparingly. I also shoot a CZ527 re-barreled to 6mm ARC & find I prefer the CZ due to the Pacnor lapped SS barrel & the CZ527 set-trigger.

CZ received considerably more love on break in. Both do shoot well though Ill favor the CZ527 10 times out of 10.

I probably clean a bit more than I am implying

[300BLK]

I bit the bullet and bought one of these, so will be doing the same. Hopefully this one will like 75-90gr bullets as I'm expecting it to be a 300 yard hunting rifle and paper puncher.

[Rickhem]

I have a box of Hornady 100 grain BTSP bullets, and loaded a few with a mild charge of Leverevolution for break in. Weather has been bad, or other things took priority so I haven’t shot it yet.
I’ll start with a good scrubbing with either JB or the Remington stuff, I have both. We’ll see from there.
Thanks for the posts guys, you can learn a lot from some of the things that come up in these discussions.

[Cwlongshot]

I know Im late to the pahty...

Here is my 2c on barrel break in.

Some manufacturers suggestbit.
Some list oeramiters because they are asked.
Some say its un necessarry.

What you need know is some people "finish" a barrel. (Custom makers) Firearm manufacturers largly do NOTHING to the barrels.

NEVER have I read or herd it was BAD or HARMED a barrel.

So I do it to mine. Sometimes I really see a differrence. Itger times I need to step WAY BACK ta see bigger pic ta see benifits. But again, NEVER has it been a problem or regretted and harmed my gun. So there is ONLY BENIFITS to this. EVEN IF ONLY TRIGGER TIME AND ENJOYMENT.

I START with a good clean. Then based on what that shows. JB bore paste or straight to shooting. Shoot clean shoot clean slowly working to 10-20 shots before clean watching abd paying attention to what I see to determine how often or when to stop.

I have a 20" ARC Howa Mini headed my way. Ill start this bery powcess
Myself again in a few weeks. I have about 125 or so Fire Form loads to shoot that will be my break in ammo.

CW

[300BLK]

My mini finally showed up. So far I've run 1 box of Hornady Black through it for break in and it appears to shoot pretty well at 200 yards.

The Savage 110T took 150+ rounds before it seemed to settle in, but the 20" Faxon seemed ready by 40 rounds.

[Cwlongshot]

My mini finally showed up.  So far I've run 1 box of Hornady Black through it for break in and it appears to shoot pretty well at 200 yards.

The Savage 110T took 150+ rounds before it seemed to settle in, but the 20" Faxon seemed ready by 40 rounds.

I picked mine up Saturday and shot it yesterday. All I did to barrel before was a good clean. 
Question; How was your bolt-lift?  Mine was difficult and not smooth. (At start). I noticed that the bolt is short and small, probably slight less leverage. 

I started with one shot and clean. Then three and clean then 6...10...15. At 15 I started cleaning every 10 rounds. Usually three solvent patches and a dry patch. At about 40 rounds I ran a nylon brush 15/20x and followed with solvent and then dry patches.

Very good accuracy almost from first shots.  It hovered @ 1" @ 100 for fire form loads. I fired one little 100g ladder but didnt finish as I had cratering primers. So not sure what occured but stopped for safety. Overall I think I have a tight chamber and wont see or be able to reach top published loads for a bolt gun. No chrono so no idea if velocities. But Ill chrono soon enough. I have about 35 more FF loads to shoot. 
I

[300BLK]

Howa's bolt lift and smoothness is fine; its head and shoulders better than the RARR I had.

There is no point in running ladders unless you have factory brass, or have fireformed brass to work with. Brass from the Howa won't chamber in my Faxon barrel, but is snug in my 110T.

[Cwlongshot]

Yeah, I won't run that formed brass for anything special. I'll use it for range, brass, or planking or some of my cast bullet loads.

I gave the rifle a good clean tonight, and saw that the camming surface on the bolt and inside the action were both quite shiny. So the problem was probably a combination of the small bolt and a rough surface on the camming notch/angle. It's opening and closing fine now and pretty good or smooth with ammo.

My fire form loads did close firmly before they were fired. So fresh out of the die. But now, they have been annealed and resized and are going out of the gun exactly with the same feel as star line and hornady brass, I have. You cannot tell the difference in their feel alone.

Here is a short I did tonight.

CW

https://youtube.com/shorts/jRbkR5yJYMY?s...NOwD1tn7fO

[SpeyRod]

FWIW, in “breaking in” my new ARC barrel I did as wrote above. Shot 1 clean. No copper. Shot 3 clean. No copper. Shot 5 clean. No copper. At that point I was happy. Last session I shot 20, shot count now 60+, and cleaned for the heck of it. I couldn’t find a spec of copper. I am going to shoot it today to fowl the bore before tomorrow’s shoot. Will be interesting to see if there is a ccb shift with a barrel this smooth.

[Rickhem]

Late reporting back, but I did the "one and clean" for the first 5 shots, and could feel the difference with the effort needed on my cleaning rod with every cleaning. Started shooting three shot groups and cleaning, but after a few I noticed that the first shot was off. Also didn't feel any change in feel with the cleaning rod, so stopped the extra cleaning.
I'd say that on my barrel, the smoothing out I could feel with the cleaning rod was done in about 10 shots. I've also found that my first shot from the cold clean bore is a flyer from the group that follows that shot. Those were off by up to an inch at 100 yards. Some bullets were worse than others with that too.
I've subsequently spent an afternoon doing a deep cleaning with Wipe Out and Accelerator on a few rifles, and every one took a few shots to get back to what it was doing before I cleaned them.
For me, and everyone can make their own choices on this, I'm going to throttle back on the cleaning for the Howa Mini.

[DeadEyeSly]

Late reporting back, but I did the "one and clean" for the first 5 shots, and could feel the difference with the effort needed on my cleaning rod with every cleaning.  Started shooting three shot groups and cleaning, but after a few I noticed that the first shot was off.  Also didn't feel any change in feel with the cleaning rod, so stopped the extra cleaning. 
I'd say that on my barrel, the smoothing out I could feel with the cleaning rod was done in about 10 shots.  I've also found that my first shot from the cold clean bore is a flyer from the group that follows that shot.  Those were off by up to an inch at 100 yards.  Some bullets were worse than others with that too.
I've subsequently spent an afternoon doing a deep cleaning with Wipe Out and Accelerator on a few rifles, and every one took a few shots to get back to what it was doing before I cleaned them.
For me, and everyone can make their own choices on this, I'm going to throttle back on the cleaning for the Howa Mini.

How did it group?

[Rickhem]

I'm getting groups that run from about .75moa, to a couple of groups using older 95sst bullets that were almost 3". most are averaging about 1.25 to 1.5 moa. I'm going to attribute the horrible groups to SSTs made when they still had some issues with the tips being loose. I have shot assorted groups using the Sierra 85 BTHP, the 90 TGK, the Hornady 95 SST, the 105 AMAX (also old bullets) and the 100 BTSP. I've shot the Speer 75 HPs, the 70 TNTs, and even some older Berger 71 bt bullets. I've loaded with Varget, CFE223, Leverevolution, and IMR4895. The 100 pieces of Starline brass that I bought for this rifle are now all through their second firing.
So far, my best groups have been with the 105amax bullets (only two 5-shot groups fired), with the Sierra 85s, and the Speer 70tnt, and the Speer 75s. Those Speer 75s are dirt cheap too! I ran a ladder with them and 28.0 to 28.5 CFE223 looks promising, and worthy of further investigation.
As for the rest, every one of them would be fine for hunting deer at under 200 yards, but we all want that rifle that shoots knots, and it's fun and satisfying when you do finally find the right combination. The search goes on.

[300BLK]

My own Howa mini didn't take much load development before I "settled" on a load. That same load with a different OAL also works very well in a 20" Faxon.

https://6mmarc.com/showthread.php?tid=1173

Hinged botom metal from Oregunsmithing should be here tomorrow.

[Rickhem]

I have the ability to shoot on my own property, and it takes me about a half hour to get things set up, and fire a few groups with a load I'm investigating. I'm getting what would probably be acceptable groups for ringing some plates I have out a bit further than the 100 yard frame, but I'm looking for a consistent sub-MOA load, and while I've been close, not there yet. Part of the problem, if you want to call it a problem, is that testing a different load is so quick and easy. I'll make some notes and put together something that seems like it should be promising, and go try it out. If the group is all over, I have a 6BR and an older 700V in 223 that'll both hold under a half inch, and a group or two with either of those will tell me if I'm having a bad day, or it's the load.
I really haven't gone with a lot of the heavier bullets, those over 100 grains, and that should be investigated, since that seems to be what the 7.5 twist was intended to stabilize. Still, the call of those TNTs or the Speer 75s is strong, since they're so inexpensive. The TNTs have shot well for me in .223, .243, 6mmBR, 6.8, .308, and .30-06 loads, so I'm confident they'll work in the ARC, just haven't found the load yet.

[Rickhem]

Just checking back in on this thread and saying that now, with about two hundred thirty something rounds through the barrel, I've got the Sierra 85 HPBT bullets holding 5 shot groups at about .75MOA consistently. And my first shot with them is inside of a 1.25" orange dot sticker I use for my POI at 100 yards. Usually the whole group is inside that sticker, some days it touches an edge, but still groups. Barrel still feels smooth, but I'm cleaning it much less, and still getting results that meet my expectations.

My load is using CFE223, and I had to bump it a bit when I went from an older box of bullets (20 years old) to new production bullets. The newer bullets are much more consistent at the tips, where the older ones were not, and the CBTO measurement is a little different too, must be different dies in use now at Sierra.
Anyway, I'll leave this as it is for deer season and maybe get back to messing with the other bullets after that.