How many rounds did you break in your barrel for?  (Shoot, clean, shoot, clean, etc.)I have done this for about 30rds, some two and three shot cycles but most single.  I feel like I am doing more harm to the barrel than if I had just shot it.  So I am wondering how many times you shot and clean your rifle before you just started using it.  I am talking about non-chromed barrels  

what you have done sounds good to me.
did you use a scope to sight in.
one of the fun parts of breaking in is watching the group size shrink.  usualy group size stabalizes at about 50-60 rounds.  group size will shrink from 2"-1" or 1.5"-.75" etc.  to get down below .75" i need custom handloaded ammo and a very good day on my part!

With my steel-bored 20", I get .5" groups at 100 yards, which is good enough for a non-contest shooter like me.  My break in method was to go to the range and shoot about 100 rounds through it.  Then, I took it home and cleaned it.  Finally, I put it in the safe, and there it sits until the next time I take it out.  [;)]

My 16" M4gery was broken in similarly: took to the range, and shot it.  A lot.  Accuracy on it is not as good as the 20", but that's due to barrel length, and not any break-in method, or lack thereof.

My opinion on this subject is that unless you're going to be shooting hamsters at 400 yards or doing competition shooting, I think you can just shoot and clean at the end of the day and have decent accuracy.  I'm not saying that this is good for everyone, but it works for me.

I did not use a rifle scope and have not yet sighted it in.  I think I have cleaned and shot any potential roughness out and am just going to start shooting it.   Thanks.  Happy shooting!

I'm glad you brought this up. I went to many manufactures sites, I read the recommendation at Maryland AR-15 shooters site and also called Colt (I bought a Colt MT6700, my first AR). Four of the sites recommended that you shoot 1 round clean and repeat for 10 rounds and then shoot 3 rounds clean and repeat 10 times and then shoot 5 rounds clean and repeat 5 times and then shoot 10 rounds clean and repeat until you reach 100 total rounds. This was the most popular method. Bushmaster and one other site recommended you shoot 20 rounds clean and repeat 6 times. When I called Colt they said no break in is required. With all of the rest of the manufactures recommending break in proceedures I decided to do some breaking in. I couldn't do the long break in, in a million years it would kill me. I went to the range for the first time today and started to break in the barrel. One of the things almost all of the sites said you want to keep breaking in the barrel until the fouling gets to be conciderably less than in the beggining. I shot 2 rounds cleaned and repeated 5 times then 3 rounds and repeated 3 times then 5 rounds 3 times and repeated and then I was beat. I live in Florida and it was 88 degrees at 88% humidity. So I fired 20 rounds for fun and then cleaned out the barrel super well and went home. Before I shot the 20 rounds the fouling was conciderably less than I started with. I will do another day of breaking in but do somthing like 2 shots and clean twice 5 shots and clean twice, ten shots and clean until I get up to 120 rounds which is the highest recommended amount of break in I found. I think you have done great doing one at a time as long as you have. If I were you I would just do 10 and clean until you get up to 100-120 rounds and call it a day.