The “Accelerated” Firearm Break-In Process

Once upon a time I was a model airplane nut. Big time. Seldom have I ever been as happy as when a scaled down Spad 13, SE-5, Sopwith Camel, or Fokker D-7 was buzzing around me while attached to a pair of 60-foot control wires. The hobby served as a great release from monotony for me and a large group of U. S. Air Force guys stationed on the still-battered island of Iwo Jima during the late stages of the Korean War.

Occasionally, just to be different, we’d get hold of a freeflight model with a 6- or 7-foot wing span, build it, bolt on a Japanese-made glow-plug engine, load the model up with as much fuel as it could carry, crank the prop, and turn the whole project loose. Sometimes, it would disappear over Mt. Suribachi. Other times it would vanish toward nearby Ita Jima, off whose shores former President George H. W. Bush ditched his TBF during World War II.

Once, Iwo’s Air/Sea Rescue Grumman amphibian radioed in to the control tower to report spotting one of our models 40 miles out at 10,000 feet. The engine had run out of fuel, but there she was, sighted by the entire crew aboard the Grumman. For all I know, that model is still out there somewhere, gliding silently along over the South Pacific. I’d like to think it is anyway. How did we manage to ensure high performance and goose more rpms from what were cheap little engines back then?

The answer is: The Asame way you can work out a rough or overly heavy trigger pull from a rifle, shotgun, or handgun’by breaking them in. Traditionally, with model airplane engines, that could be done by connecting a pint of fuel to the intake and running the engine rich until the pint was empty. That took too much time to suit us, however, and was too expensive. So we connected a regular 2-

ounce tank and let the little mill run rich for 60 seconds. At the end of that time, we’d inject one drop of NOXX- ON’ brass polish into the intake. Instantly, the rpms jumped significantly, and continued to increase as we leaned out the fuel/air mixture. Eventually, those little engines would scream like a Formula-1 car moving down along straightaway. The reason for this performance improvement was that the piston and cylinder walls had been polished to a mirror finish by the NOXXON.

What minimal friction remained between them was essentially eliminated by the inherent lubricity of the fuel. Years later, I recalled our "accelerated break-in" technique when faced with a lightly used, but ill-cared-for, 9mm Ruger P-Series. At the time, I was not very familiar with the pistol, but I knew correcting its heavy, rough trigger pull could not be approached as it would be with the familiar M1911. The designs were and are as different as day and night.

I wondered: "Why couldn’t I adapt that stepped-up engine break-in process to a firearm?" It would save me (and impatient gun owners) considerable time. Here’s how I applied that same technique to the break-in of the P-85: Referring to the schematic, every part identified with an "A" was coated on both sides with Brownells 555 Gray Polish. Likewise the sear (#25) and Binder Ad (p/u from page 18, AGM-August 06) hammer (#43) engagement surfaces were coated, along with the sear/hammer pins.

I also coated the contact areas between the trigger (#42), trigger bar (#18), and the bar’s frame slots. Then I reassembled the pistol, chambered a snap cap, and began the polishing by repeatedly pulling the trigger. When my finger got sore, the gun was torn down, the gray polish residue cleaned off with solvent, and the parts were blown dry before coating them again, this time with 555 White Polish.

After a second reassembly and multiple pulls of the trigger, I took the pistol down again and cleaned and dried the parts. All the areas that had undergone the treatment wore an ultra-bright finish. Then they were lightly lubricated before being turned back into a reassembled P-Series pistol. Subsequent live-fire testing revealed a pistol with a silky smooth trigger pull that felt much lighter than it had previously.

Time doesn’t exactly stand still when applying this accelerated internal polishing/break-in process. It usually takes about an hour per gun, depending on how quickly you’re able to disassemble and reassemble the piece. Nevertheless, it’s a good deal cheaper and a lot less painful than blowing 500 to 1,000 rounds downrange to accomplish the same thing’ although, admittedly, it might not be as much fun.