[Scorch]

Asking about barrel break-in is opening a can of worms. Some people believe in it (I happen to be one of those), others pooh-pooh it. My response is this: it can't hurt, and it seems to have some beneficial effects. Will it turn your rifle into a sub-MOA shooter? No, that has to do with a lot of other factors, but primarily the quaity of the barrel and the mating of the barrel to the receiver. Will not doing it ruin the barrel? No, it will not, there are many, many people who never did and never will break in a barrel, and their rifles have not disintegrated. The real benefit of barrel break-in is an easier to clean barrel, and less copper fouling. Nothing more, nothing less.

And asking a sniper what he thinks is going on inside the barrel is like asking Homer Simpson to explain relativity: although they both work closely with the reaction, neither of them is qualified to discuss the particulars of it. I know several engineers who are highly qualified in metallurgy and high-pressure gas dynamics, and even they will tell you they don't have all the answers to that question.