Learn How to Break In a Handgun

Modern firearms manufacturing has given us some phenomenal handguns. Now back when firearms were still made largely by hand they took a lot of intervention from the craftspeople who were making them to produce a gun that was well-fitted where the parts actually meshed together well and the gun functioned correctly, enter the world of mass production and it becomes harder to do that. We can no longer afford the kind of hand work that was common back at the turn of the 20th century certainly. And as a result, the guns we get today come off the assembly line, hopefully ready to fire. Now, some manufacturers will tell you that they require a break in period, some don't but in reality, most guns require some sort of a time to allow the parts to mesh together to knock off little spots in the machining little tool marks and things to get again, that reliably functions.

Now, all manufacturers are like this. It's really not specific to any one manufacturer. and in this particular case we're talking about a Steyr pistol. Now I've over the years. I've come up with a break-in procedure.

That's quick, easy to do and allows the parts to burnish themselves before we take it out and actually test the gun for functioning. I'm going to show you what I do. First thing I'm going to do of course is drop the magazine and I am going to make sure that the gun is unloaded. I'm going to open the slide, lock the slide open look at it okay it's unloaded. What I need to do is to essentially artificially age the gun, I need to get it to the point that it acts as though it's had a few hundred rounds on it and had time to get those parts meshed together and burnished together.

So what I'm going to do essentially is to manually do that. The first thing I'm going to do is to grab the frame and grab the slide. And I'm simply going to operate the slide back and forth a number of times and I'm going to do this probably 50 or a hundred times now, admittedly, it's a little tiring. So I do it a few at a time. And after a while, I might even switch hands because it does require some muscles to do this with once I've done that maybe a hundred times I know that the slide is starting to ware itself into the rails that it slides on.

The parts are starting to be burnished. Now I'm going to do a little bit of dry fire as I do this manipulate slide a couple of times and then dry fire the gun I'm going to hold the trigger back. I manipulate the slide, release the trigger and dry fire. Again, I'm going to do this all maybe 20 times and what this does in addition to continuing to burnish the slide and burnish the rails on which it runs. It also helps to burnish the action a little bit get rid of any little burrs and things that cause little hitches in the trigger travel.

After I've done, say 25 or 30 times, I usually find the trigger starts to feel a little different. It becomes a little more consistent and a little smoother. Once I've done all that, I'm going to take the magazines all the magazines that came with a gun I'm going to do essentially the same thing. Now, when magazines are manufactured, sometimes you end up with little burrs in the plastic followers or sometimes little edges on the metal parts that sometimes add a little friction to the movement of the slide and will occasionally cause hang ups in the gun. So what I want to do is to get the magazines at the same point that I've gotten the rest of the gun and then insert the magazine.

And what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to hold down the slide, stop lever so that it doesn't automatically lock open. And again, I'm going to manipulate the slide. Now it's a little tougher here because my thumb is in the way. So I'm going to go a little slower. I'm not going to do as many of them simply because of the fact that sooner or later I'm going to rub my thumb wrong.

This is very gun dependent. However, some guns with the slide stop lever in a different place. You may not have this problem with this particular guide. I do. So I'm just going to do a few of them.

And what this does again, is to burnish the parts on the magazine, get the magazine used to having the slide running over the top of it and prevent any issues that may occur with the magazine adding friction to the slide and slowing it down. Once I've done all that I'm going to simply take it apart and I'm going to clean it. And in this particular case I'm going to lock the slide open. I'm gonna check the chamber. Yes, it is empty.

I'm going to push these take-down lever in this particular case. It rotates other guns may simply push and I'm going to take the slide off. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to take everything out. I'm going to take a brush and I'm simply going to brush away any of the little metal particles that may have been knocked off by the burnishing procedure that I just did get those all cleaned out nicely. I'm going to take the frame.

I'm going to do the same thing. All the frame rails, get them nice and clean. And I might also do the same for the locking lugs on the barrel. Once that's done, I'm going to lubricate the gun, according to the manufacturer specifications. Now, some people like to use oil.

In my particular case, what I typically do is use some grease and I'm going to get some grease out of here and simply apply a little bit to the frame rails just a little bit. It doesn't take a lot, a little bit on the other side of the frame rails like so and when I put the gun back together, what I'm going to do is I'm now going to operate the slide, distribute the lubrication on all the rails on all the grooves and wipe off any excess just like so now I can take the gun to the range and actually test it for function. And what I do is I usually take a hundred rounds of plain ball ammo, and I shoot that through the gun at various rates of speed. And I make sure that I use every one of my magazines because I'm testing the magazines as much as I'm testing the gun. So I run through the hundred rounds and if no failures occur then I'm going to test it with the actual defensive ammunition.

I'm going to use for the gun and I'll take a box or two of that ammunition, usually 25 or 50 rounds and run that through the gun. And if I had experienced no problems with either the ball ammunition or the defensive ammunition I know the gun is good to go. By artificially breaking the gun in before you take it to the range. For the first time, I found that it increases the likelihood of having a gun that will run reliably and it also starts the gun out right. It starts giving the gun the nice warm feel and smooth feel both in the action and in the trigger that it should have after you shot it for a number of rounds.