What am I seeing in my barrel?

[arch408]

Maybe not winning bench rest quality group, but definately minute of deer, hog, bear, elk or any other medium to big game.

 

[Tac-O]

Thanks for all the replies and advice!

I definitely don't plan on cleaning or scrubbing my bores any more than I usually do. In fact, I may just quit cleaning them again since I now have a borescope to educate myself on the efficacy of my cleaning efforts when the bore is really dirty! I've certainly heard of guns that shoot well that are missing chunks of rifling, so I'm not too worried!

I am a little worried about the crown on the savage though. I know how important the crown is and it's quite ugly. But, it's my kids'gun and they really only need to be able to shoot 2moa this year. But maybe I should use it as an excuse to get them a nicer one we'll see how it shoots after cleaning. One thing I found when taking the action out of the stock was what looked like tons of teeny tiny metal ball bearings coming out of the recoil lug slot on the barrel nut!!! Maybe it's leftover machining junk? It wasn't there when I stripped the gun right after buying it to clean it all. I have reseated the action and screws a couple times since new (without completely disassembling and looking inside) so maybe some of that slag stuff got into the recoil lug and bedding area and caused the decreased accuracy.

I gave both rifles a few strokes of JBs and PB blaster penetrating oil (don't have any kroil). I'll out up pics of each post cleaning.

 

[Tac-O]

Here's the savage. I did two rounds of pb blaster and JBs. Wrapped an oversized patch around a nylon brush correctly sized for bore and covered with pb blaster and JBs. I did 13 strokes (26 counting both ways) each round.

Pictures include the chamber end, leade/lands, throat, and scary muzzle/crown.

 

[Tac-O]

Here's my Tikka. I gave it the same procedure except I only did 1 round of 15 strokes. There may still be a touch of a ring at the case mouth area, but it looks good enough for me. My throat still looks surprisingly good!

Pictures include the chamber end, lands, and throat.

 

[jeb405]

Regarding the comment about rifling damage possibly not effecting accuracy, when I wrote to ask about my AR barrel the company reminded me that gas guns have holes cut in them and still can get great accuracy.

 

[26Reload]

Pictures include the chamber end, lands, and throat.
[/QUOTE]
Ah...looks good..grasshopper learn fast....

 

[Gone Ballistic]

I blew your photos up and you don't appear to have any signs of pitting in any of your pictures. It appears that you have some carbon in a few places but, the smaller particles, I think you thought were pits, appear to be some form of residue left from your cleaning process. You might stand it up, end of barrel down, and flush it with some isopropyl alcohol and leave it up until it dries out. Make sure the barrel end is above anything that could touch it.Then, take another look through your bore scope and see if it still remains. If it does, try to clean it some more but, regardless whatever you decide to do, run a light oiling through it afterwards. Good luck and I hope it helps.

 

[DCAN]

Too many cool pics! I couldn't take it any more. Just ordered a borescope. If this leads to sleepless nights, it's all you guys fault. If nothing else, maybe I can find the source of those voices I keep hearing. I really want to see who keeps telling me to slap that trigger.......

 

[Tac-O]

I blew your photos up and you don't appear to have any signs of pitting in any of your pictures. It appears that you have some carbon in a few places but, the smaller particles, I think you thought were pits, appear to be some form of residue left from your cleaning process. You might stand it up, end of barrel down, and flush it with some isopropyl alcohol and leave it up until it dries out. Make sure the barrel end is above anything that could touch it.Then, take another look through your bore scope and see if it still remains. If it does, try to clean it some more but, regardless whatever you decide to do, run a light oiling through it afterwards. Good luck and I hope it helps.

Those pits in the savage are really pits. I put more cleaner through it and flushed it with brake cleaner. Still there

 

[Wedgy]

The nasty chatter is a typical button rifled factory barrel and is why most recommend a barrel break in, to knock some of that nastiness down for future ease of cleaning, not accuracy gains. The normal carbon and copper fowling ~generally won't effect accuracy unless it's excessive but the carbon ring in the throat will( note this is hard carbon, much different than the fowling further down in the bore). Solvents alone generally will not get rid of a carbon ring, an abrasive needs to be used(JB, Isso, etc.). Consider cleaning just the first ~4" to more often to prevent the carbon ring from forming, solvents can keep it from forming but once it is there they won't remove it. As to the stuff in the end of the barrel I tend to think moisture was trapped underneath some type of fowling and eroded some barrel material.
Some of these ugly chattered barrels can really shoot well so don't be afraid of them, same with firecracking.

 

[Gone Ballistic]

Those pits in the savage are really pits. I put more cleaner through it and flushed it with brake cleaner. Still there

Wow, that is surprising. Just goes to show you hands on is a hundred times better than hands off. Now you have a real problem. I don't think it's worth cutting down and re-crowning. Maybe time to make it someone else's problem unless it will shoot good enough for you. Sure didn't look like pitting in the picture to me.

 

[Coldfinger]

I

I'd love to use a bronze brush every time to remove carbon, but I'm too scared from all the hate on them.

Here's my Tikka .30-06 bore. I wiped the cleaner out so I could inspect it. There's some leftover copper deposits. I use the same cleaning regimen on my Tikka, but there's about 550 rounds on it and I went for a 275 round stretch without putting a single patch down the bore. I've used JB a couple of times, a maroon 3m pad on the throat once around the 220 round mark, CLR after not cleaning for 275 rounds to help remove carbon, and had been in the habit of spinning a .338 bronze brush in the neck near the lands to take care of the carbon when I wasn't cleaning the bore.

I'm surprised how good it looks.

The picture I'm also wondering about on this one is the end of the chamber where the case mouth would be. There's a slightly different uneven light grey colored area near the edge. No carbon ring that I can see!! Unless... Can carbon rings be an almost invisible light yellow haze color?

I know it's off the subject but those are some great pictures .

 

[jimirwin]

It's interesting to see all of the tooling chatter marks in the Savage . I'm not afraid to use a bronze brush , but like anything else you shouldn't over use them . I have seen some barrels ruined with people trying to get them too clean and over using J B or ammonia based cleaners . Keep in mind that bronze makes your copper remover show copper signs if you use a bronze brush . Carbon is an 8 or 9 on the hardness scale and a lot of solvents won't even start to soften it up for removal and like so many other things a small amount of it will cause more to build up faster by catching more of it then a smooth surface . Over all it looks like you are doing pretty well with your cleaning procedures . With the barrel steel being so much harder then the bullets and other things you put down your barrels , except grit in say JB or Tubbs fire forming rounds it will take some time for the Savage to smooth out and speed up .

Shiney bores are pretty. Tight groups on targets are best. Savages seem to share this characteristic. Pretty is as pretty does.

 

[Dirtrax]

The only practical way to manage this is to look and see what is so, then shoot and determine what the results are. If the results are acceptable monitor and note changes. Once the results become unacceptable you'll know what THAT looks like.
For what it's worth (not much) I just can't get behind the "don't clean" thing unless circumstances (COMPETITION) demand it. If one shoots primarily on the weekends that leaves a lot of time to soak barrels.