"New" Remington 700 .223 w/ bull barrell

[rhino]

Okay ... today I took possession of Remington 700 that I sort of "inherited" by way of a couple of a friends. The caliber is .223 Remington and it has a bull barrel (looks to be 26 inches) ... I'm pretty sure it's a "varmint" rifle.

The thing was purchased by my FLG who did a significant amount of work on it, with the intent of it being one of his own rifles. I learned tonight that he sold it because he found a left-handed gun and no longer needed it, and that it probably hasn't been fired at all (other than test firing at the factory if any).

The bolt/action has been hand lapped and jeweled, and the trigger has had quite a bit of tender loving care. I'm guessing it breaks at about 12 ounces, maybe a little heavier, and it's very, very nice. It's had just about everything done to it to become a really nice shooter ... except having been shot.

So ... now I need to get it ready to shoot.

I need a scope mount and rings, and I'm thinking the Leupold one piece mount with their twist on/off rings is a good idea. Any opinions? I'm on a fairly tight budget here, but I want to make sure I have good quality stuff.

As far as glass goes, I have a nice Bushnell Elite 3200 10X42mm with mil dots on my compact Ruger .308. I intend to some day put a low power, long eye relief scope on the Ruger ahead of the receiver (think "scout rifle"), but I'm not in a position where I can handle that project and this .223 at the same time.

I doubt if I'll ever shoot more than 300 yards, and most of my shooting will likely be at 100 yards. I'm thinking something in the 3-9X or maybe 3.5-10X would be adequate. I need something that has good light transmission, repeatable adjustments, won't change zero with changing power, and will be rugged enough for my typical abuse of my gear. I know I can't get "cheap," but a modest price would be preferable. I'm thinking Nikon, Pentax, and maybe lower end Leupold.

Now ... as far as "break in" goes, how important is it? Do I really need to scrub like a madman, then shot one, scrub, shoot one, scrub etc? If I don't have the patience to do that, will I limit the effective accuracy of the rifle, or will it just be a matter of being harder to clean when I need to clean it (as if I ever will )?

If I do have to do the tedious breakin rituals, is a boresnake and some KelLube adequate for the cleaning chores, or do I need to get a nice coated cleaning rod, brushes, and all the jazz?

My only other centerfire rifles were either used or ARs, and the latter is pretty much something where you make sure the bore is unobstructed, then commence to blasting. So I really have no practical experience with breakin procudures.

Should I just sell it and forget it?

[AikiDale]

I guess it would be okay for squirrels and such, not enough gun for ground hogs. What are you going to do with it?

I don't know about the break in stuff. Friend of mine had me cleaning between each round when I got my 700 for the first 20 rounds. Hope it helps cause it was boring!!!

Truth be told, since it is a 300 WinMag I needed the time between shots for my shoulder to forget what I had just done to it........

[rhino]

Mostly I'm planning to learn how to shoot rifles with it to augment my .22LR CZ 452 "Scout." I'll be punching paper and clay targets and whatever else is safe to shoot at my range.

I might use it on rodents if and when it's a reasonable choice.

[wsimpso1]

Rhino,

I do know something about this, and I am a firm believer in breaking in rifle barrels. First, go to the Krieger web site, and read their description of how. The short answer as to why is that the throat is a set of little files after the chamber is reamed, and you need to wear off the high points UNIFORMLY if the throat is to wear uniformly and age gracefully. A LONG barrel life in a 223 Rem is 7000 rounds... Break it in by just shooting it, and accuracy will usually fall off much sooner.

The rough throat will tear off some jacket material, covering the rough spots and vaporizing jacket material into the powder gases. Then, as the gases expand behind the acclerating bullet, the copper condenses out of the gases and is deposited on the bore. A proper break-in procedure removes all of that copper after each shot so that the gun gases can remove the high spots in the throat. If you don't do it this way, then your rifle will copper up and shoot good and bad for each of the next 20 or so cleaning cycles. Better to get it out of the way now.

So, use Sweets or some other fast working copper solvent for this job, and do not use moly coated bullets for this either. I BELIEVE in a good coated rod and a rod guide that fits your action. Copper solvents will eat bronze brushes and brass jags, and use up their poop doing so instead of cleaning your barrel, so nylon brushes are a good plan for this stuff. Brass jags and patches are great for abrasives like JB.

An alternative to this process is David Tubbs' Superior Shooting Systems Final Finish bullets. On a good barrel, you shoot ten each the three finest grades, cleaning after each batch of ten. Less boring quicker, does the same job, and perhaps does it better.

After the bore is broken in, clean every 100 rounds or so. If you are shooting plain naked bullets, use Sweets with the nylon brush OR use Kroil and JB on patches. Kroil will not necessarily remove copper, but JB will. One of the best long range shooters (Pete Church) uses JB exclusively...

One other point. Primer ash and some strange carbon species is dropped in the back third or so of the bore in rifles, and degrades accuracy. To take it out, use JB or some other mild abrasive every 300-400 rounds. It is probably a good idea to clean with both a copper solvent and JB before you go about the break-in process too.

Summing up: Bore guide, coated rod, nylon brushes with Sweet's, brass jag and cotton patches to dry the bore and with JB and/or Kroil. Clean early and often. Break in the rifle wither by the one and clean etc, or Final Finish. The rifle will settle down quickly, allow serious load development, and shoot well for a long time.

Oh, prairie rats and 'chucks out to 300 m are in serious danger with it if you learn your ballistics table and how to read yardage.

Billski

[John Dunn]

I think barrel break in is bad science. The problem is that all the evidence is anecdotal (sp?), to my knowledge no one has done a randomized study with enough barrels under controlled conditions to know whether it is voodoo or not. That being said, David Tubb is a beleiver in breaking in barrels. I think it was Gale McMillan who was not. I do not have the patience for it, and until someone can show me a well designed and executed study, I'll persist in my lazy ways.

[Moondoggie]

Rhino;

I had an identical rifle back in the '80's specifically for shooting prairie dogs when I lived in SD. 55 grain Hornady SX bullets killed a lot of small critters out to 300 yds. When I was leaving SD knowing that I'd prolly never live there again, I traded it to a good friend for a Rem Mod 7 lightweight .243 (I got some $, too).

I had a 3X9 Tasco 40mm on mine (I didn't have the $ for a high dollar scope at that stage of life). There were 5 of us that went to the Badlands together, and we'd trade rifles now and then. We had an assortment of 22-250, 25-06, .243. You could lay behind mine all day and not regret it the next day. Some of them had more high $ optics, but mine could hit anything theirs could. The heat/wind made it pretty hard to shoot much past 300 yds anyway.

You've got a really sweet rifle on your hands! Enjoy...I know I did!!!

[rhino]

Thanks for all of thr advice, guys! Keep it coming!

[Guest Larry Cazes]

After 15 years and many commercial and custom rifles.....Skip the break in, clean regularly with JBs and a good penetrating oil and enjoy it. If your concerned about barrel longevity then never let the barrel heat up excessively and skip the Moly.

[uscbigdawg]

Rhino,

A break-in is probably not necessary, but wouldn't hurt to do one anyways. Plus, you just get to work the rifle more and get used to it quicker.

As for bases, I tend to stick with Badger Ordnance. A little pricey (not much more) but well worth it.

For glass, as Mr. Grube will state, you get what you pay for. There is a scope from Riflescopes.com, from a company called, Super Sniper, that according to Sniper's Hide is supposed to be the heat for the dollar. I haven't seen or looked at any of their glass, but for the dollar, it's probably a legitimate risk. Other than that, you really can't go wrong with Leupold.

Hope that helps.

Rich

[EricW]

If you're going waste a day to "break in" your barrel, why not kill a chicken and wave that over your gun while you're at it? Barrel "break in" is voodoo science and needs to go into the junk heap with crop-circles and the "never run a soiled patch down your barrel" mythology.

A $5 tub of JB Bore paste or Tubb's Final Finish system will do more to "break in" the barrel than anything and will do so in 5 lousy minutes. All you want to do is remove the machine tool marks in the barrel so that copper gook doesn't build-up and what build-up there is - is easily removed.

Buy steel mounts and rings. And that .223 is plenty good for anything short of deer.

Now get out there and shoot that sucker!

[/Tweak 99.99% of the planet mode]

[Guest Larry Cazes]

This thread brings to mind a particularly poor example of a remington 700 chambered in .22-250 that I owned that I spent 3 days trying to "break in" by the traditional methods. After about fifty cycles, It was still fouling pretty bad so I decided to try out some JB paste and in five minutes with a few patches of JB, I had it tamed. I learned this lesson about shooting/cleaning/shooting for barrel break in the hard way.

[JD45]

I spent countless hours breaking-in in barrels on three rifles ( two the super-long hard way). I have decided to side with the " forget break-in" crowd because it is a brutally boring process.

Also, if you can convince me to just shoot the hell out of my varmint and deer rifles like you guys do your AR15s and only bore-snake it, I will be elated.

Well, with the exception of my Ruger 257 Rob., I know that accuracy goes south after 15 shots in that one.

[rhino]

Hmm ... JB and some scrubbing sounds like a winner to me.

How do you clean that crap from the bore when you're done? Hot soapy water, or your generic bore solvent, or CLP, or what? Or is it adequate to just push patches through there until no more comes through?

I talked to the guy who did the work on the rifle. He wants me to do the shoot one, clean, shoot one, clean, etc. for FIFTY ROUNDS! Oy!

Thanks again for all of the input guys, keep it coming!

[EricW]

How do you clean that crap from the bore when you're done? Hot soapy water, or your generic bore solvent, or CLP, or what? Or is it adequate to just push patches through there until no more comes through?

Oil or break cleaner will work fine. Or, you can go the dead chicken route...

[wsimpso1]

Someone else thinks that Final Finish is a good route! I have used it on good barrels and they settle down immediately. A couple firends have tried it and never have they seen an accuracy decrease.

Using it to break in a rifle barrel is a little more than a five minute job because you do want to run Sweets and dry patches or JB through it before you start the next finer grit and again before you start your load development or confirmation.

I ran the three finest grades in a Krieger (sacrilidge, I know) took fifteen minutes. JB to finish up, and that rifle has been a hammer ever since... Using only the finer grits moved the throat less than 0.002", although the coarser grits moved another rifle (one with a rod damaged throat) 0.004". I wonder how much the throat would have moved in that Krieger with conventional break-in or the first few shooting sessions. It salvaged the damaged throat barrel.

Some folks get the willies over putting an abrasive through a rifle, but I became a believer...

Billski

[rhino]

So how do I scrub with JB? Using a brush, or with patches, or both?

[John Dunn]

When I use JB and Kroil, I'll get rid of the fouling with a couple Kroil soaked patches, followed by 10-20 passes with a Kroil soaked bore brush, then a patch or two to clean things out. Next wrap a patch around a worn bore brush and smear on some JB, I use just enough to turn it grey,then pass the patch thru the bore ten times or so, being careful to reverse directions before the patch brush comes out of the muzzle all the way. If the particular rifle is really dirty, sometimes I can feel extra resistance in the first 6 inches or so in front of the chamber, and I'll take a few extra short strokes here. Then a couple more Kroil patches to clean out the JB. If I'm feeling extra anal I'll use some Sweet's at this point to see how much copper is left, based on how blue the patch turns. I don't use JB everytime I clean, probably every 4th cleaning, based on pure whim.

[rhino]

Thanks, JD.

Keep it comin' kids! I'm assimilating!

Here's my tentative plan:

1. Clean with brushes/solvent/patches

2. "Lap" with JB Compound for a few minutes

3. Clean again

4. Shoot a few

5. clean a little

6. shoot a few more

7. repeat 4-6 a few times time

8. Clean well and put it away for next time to shoot "for real."

[EricW]

Don't forget the chicken.

[Guest Larry Cazes]

Might as well shoot a few final finish loaded rounds as well......Touch all of the bases, right?

[diehli]

Jeebus... don't think I'll ever get into the whole accurized rifle thing judging by the cleaning regimen. Spit and shine is all my handguns get and even that takes too much time.

[rhino]

Okay ... how many of us really believe I've going to do all of that?

Now, how many think I'll run a bore snake through the barrel three or four times, then just commence to blastin'?

How many think I won't even boresnake it?

Here's some good news: a "new" 300 yard rifle range has opened within 15 minutes of my home. Yearly membership is $35!

Here's some other news: my new .223 has a 1-in-12 inch twist. Which means I'm limited in my choice of bullet weight (length). I'm thinking 55gr is about the top end, right? I'm probably going to get a box of Black Hills in 52 and in 55gr and see which does the best at 100. Will 55gr do okay at 300? I'll be punching paper and maybe ringing steel or breaking clays.

[EricW]

The JB and/or Final Finish treatment is worth the 6 picoseconds of your time. It will dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend cleaning your gun - if you ever decide to.

[rhino]

You're not going to throw the chicken at me if I really do it, are you?

[John Dunn]

That chicken has been tenderized in the Bass-o-matic tumbler for 12 hours and should be extra good eating after you wave it over the rifle, and use its foot to paint chicken blood tigerstripe camo on the bolt gun. Long live voodoo and the Bass-o-matic!