First of all, WELCOME to the forums. Yep there is a lot of great info here and a lot of great guys that are eager to help out when they can.
As per the barrel break in, I am a firm believer in properly breaking in a barrel. I am not sure if my method is any better or worse than what everyone else does, but it seems to have worked for me. To me I think the biggest advantage of breaking in a barrel properly is that they seem to foul less. Granted I have no way of proving this, but it just seems that the barrels I have taken the time to break in properly seem to shoot forever before becoming fouled to the point accuracy falls off.
Once the barrel is totally cleaned I start out by running 3 patches soaked in Shooters Choice followed by 3 dry patches between shot for the first 10 rounds. I then progress to shooting 3 shots followed by 3 patches soaked in Shooters Choice followed by 3 dry patches. I shoot 3 - n - clean for the 21 rounds, and then go to shooting 5 shots followed by 3 patches soaked in Shooters Choice followed by 3 dry patches until I reach the 50 round mark. At 50 rounds I totally clean the bore again, and do so every 50 rounds or so until I have 200 to 300 rounds through the bore.
Where this really makes a difference is when out shooting prairie dogs in which a lot of rounds are fired per day. With proper barrel break in the task of removing fouling during these extended shooting sessions is much easier and less time consuming.
Goot luck
SD Handgunner
