faxon barrel break in?

[tdbru]

The reason for the faxon barrel, was i was trying to do a lightweight build. their Gunner profile/weight appeared to be about the lightest i could find in 20" length. my first AR i put together was 24" and ended up almost 12lbs. great for target shooting but too heavy to hunt with. with this upper build i went as light as i could find in a 20" bbl length. Still the rifle is 1oz. short of 9lbs. definitely not light, but 3 lbs. lighter. the mini howa is 7.5 lbs. much better. but i would like to hunt with the AR too. as part of the diet i was looking for a "pencil" barrel. the faxon gunner profile was the closest thing to that i could find. granted i'm just getting started with load development for this light upper, and have yet to put a variety through it, so it may like something else. bartlein, brux, krieger, etc. only seem to be making heavy barrels. and if that is where the market is, i get it. but i find it hard to believe that i am the only one who thinks the AR is way overweight (like me) and needs to go on a diet. it was originally designed to be a replacement for the M1 carbine (5 lbs) for the air force. i held an original COLT SP1 one time that a friend had. if i recall it was under 7 lbs. I think right around 6 lbs. nice and light weight and portable and sized appropriately for the varmint round it fired. of course i held another friends AR who what big in to service rifle shooting, went to Camp Perry every year, got his distinguished badge, etc. damn good shot. His match AR weighed 18lbs. had lead in the butt stock and under the handguards, etc. and of course a very heavy barrel, or so it seemed. so heavy is not a detriment to target shooting, to a point, but is not so compelling when trying to hike up and down the mountains with it. anyway the intent of the upper build was to be light weight. i have just started putting rounds through it. so i've got a long way to go wrt load development yet, but i just found it surprising that there would be that much disparity between the same load in 2 different rifles. and i recalled someone else on the forum saying after about 200 rounds their rifle was grouping much better. i realize that the nitride surface is much harder than bare steel and was wondering if these faxon nitrided barrels do also need some breaking in or not. i'm sure i'm not the only one on the forum to have a faxon 4150 nitrided barrel. i thought i might hear what others with the same barrel had to say about accuracy as the round count changed. as far as recommendations for better barrels, as mentioned, the better barrel makers only seem to be making the heavy match barrels. anyway, thanks for the replies. and just curious, for 20" barreled uppers, what full up rifle weight (rifle + optics + empty magazine + sling) are you guys seeing? i thought i spent a bunch and still ended up with an 8lb 15oz. rig.
thanks,
-tdbru