Seasoning or Break in? The NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation have a procedure to break in modern rifle barrels, look it up. I used it to break in my Savage 10, 6.5 C, and my F class AR match bbl. There are some folks that have commented to me that modern rifle steel requires no break in. Well the Army Marksmanship Unit does it. Don't ever remember using a "set" procedure on my ML barrels, just shot, and shot, and.....cleaned and cleaned and.....Anyhow, I would imagine how well polished the ML barrel is to start with will have something to do with it also. I guess one can experiment on his own, can't hurt anything unless you "don't" clean it.