I have read many of the threads on various procedures to break in new barrels.  I got a new bushmaster varminter 24" fluted barrel.  My question is, when do the cleaning cycles, am I just cleaning the barrel or do I have to also completely field strip and clean the bolt and carrier group?

Only the bbl is being broken in. It would prolly do the bolt good to get a little dirty, wear down any burrs etc.

FWIW, I, my son and his friend were breaking in three new ARs on the same day, and we all used .22 bore snakes while breaking in the barrels.

With the bolt back, mag out and weapon in left hand, with right hand drop brass point down chamber and feed snake cord until thru muzzle, grab cord with right hand, invert weapon and put butt on left shoe, wrap cord around hand, give a pull.

Takes seconds, requires no break down, and a little bit of bore cleaner on the brushes of the snake helps.

[url=http://www.bushmaster.com/faqs/]Bushmaster FAQs[/url]

I just can't see how a 'boresnake' can do a proper cleaning. I've yet to see where a single pass through of a brush, and a single swab of a patch 'could' clean a barrel properly. Even better, passing those two items through the bore at the same time and calling it 'cleaned', which in principal is how a boresnake works..

*shrug*

Barrel break-in is concidered foolish by some and essential by others.  I concider it essential on a rifle made for or bought for precision and foolish for a rifle you might just hammer ammo through like I see some guys use the inexpensive AK's for.

In between these extremes are most guys including the guy wanting accuracy out of his AR15 (no matter the configuration).

IMHO, a proper barrel break-in can get the bore smoothed out all in one day if you take your cleaning stuff to the range with you.  This way you can begin meaningful ammo selection (or load development for handloaders) and start working on accurate shooting the second time out with the rifle.  I have seen the occasional shooter have a rifle that is over a year old benn out to shoot it 5 or 6 times (and cleaned it most of the time afterword) and the barrel is still not broken in!   A properly broken in barrel will foul less and thus hold accuracy for more shots.  If this is not important to you then skip barrel break-in and just hammer round down-range.

Also proper barrel break-in required you get that barrel squeaky clean between rounds. This required a standard rod, bronze brush, jag, a pile of proper sized patches, and your favorite bore cleaner.  Even if the bore snake does clean the bore completely without running a clean white dry patch down the bore you never know if it is clean (or dry).

OTOH, I think a bore snake would be handy to keep in your range kit for a quick clean up should that be needed before you come home.

sorry for the long post.....