faxon barrel break in?

[grayfox]

Faxon is not terrible, as far as I'm concerned. It and Odin are the mid-priced ones I would choose if I were looking for that. And I've had both, and both were ok. Still have one or 2 of each. True my lilja is better but the faxon (my 16-er) fills a niche for me.
As far as breaking in a nitrided barrel, it's pretty much whatever it's going to be because of that super hardened nitrided surface. There might be some sharp edges that will break away during the first few shots, but by and large it's as smooth as whatever it was when the nitriding was applied. So the real trick is to find a nitrided barrel that started out smooth and good, then got the nitride treatment. Most times we don't get to specify that. Couple of guys back in the past got a barrel whose chamber was rough then nitrided... and that basically killed the barrel (I had one of those too).

I would treat it as pretty much "broken in" already and see how it shoots for you.
By the way if you want to go light, a 16" can do hunting pretty well out to 200+ yards... with the 129 ablr it will go even farther as far as KE and opening mushrooms are concerned.