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Barrel pitting and wear
kidthatsirish
Member Posts: 6,981 ✭✭✭
I have an M-1 rifle that shoots pretty dang good groups usually sub 1.5 MOA. It has a GI 1954 barrel. I got a bore scope for Christmas. Today I gave it a deep clean and then scoped the bore...
Holy crap I want to see what it will do with a new barrel.
Comments
Wow! Going to write myself a note to NEVER get a bore-scope. I don’t think my heart could handle looking down some of my barrels. I’ll just keep shooting them in blissful ignorance and pretending they are as pristine as my naked eye thinks they are. 😁
WOW. I've been using a HF inspection camera (in larger bores) but it is no where near that clear. I'll stick with mine.
Thats just now broke in, leave it alone.
Seriously, I don't have a clue as to the degree of damage. Pictures sure came out good tho.
From what I have seen on imported rifles, is that the muzzle end tends to show the most wear. I bought one back in 1999, it was one of them Sky Blue imports and muzzle was well worn out. It would give groups 4 to 5 inch, functioned well though. At the time Springfield Armory was located in Genaseo I’ll. I called them and set up an appointment with them, drove there with a friend, and they changed the barrel out for me while we waited, I believe it cost me $200 back then. It made a big deference, grouped around inch and half, and still does to the day. Over the years of being cleaned from muzzle to chamber will tack it’s toll over time, especially when you figure it was some drafted GI , and mostly would rather be at home than cleaning a rifle.
But if your getting 1.5 inch groups, I would it leave as is.
This is a CMP rifle, it gauged 1 at the muzzle and 1+ at the throat when I bought it. I've always used an Otis pull through cleaning system. It has definitely seen some long strings of fire, but those are the exception to the rule... typically I'll fire 8 through the rifle and then let it cool down. I don't know how many thousands of rounds I have shot through it though. Some of the marks look like hatch marks from a machinery surface or something.
Of course I am going to leave the barrel on it as long as it continues to give me acceptable accuracy (about 2 MOA or less)
I may buy the new barrel just to have on standby though.
Great pics! As long as it keeps shooting that good, I second the leave it alone opinions. The bottom right pic must be the throat area because of the alligatoring that is evident. it looks like you still have a way to go before you have to worry about it. Bob
Waltermoe makes a good point, the muzzle is as important as the chamber/bore/rifling. I've bought a few guns cheap, that didn't shoot great, but after having the crown re-cut, were sure worth the money!
had a friend who worked at a local hospital, he would use a colonoscopy camera and get some incredible pictures of his rifle bores.
I've seen military Mausers that had terrible pitting and roughness plus cleaning rod wear at the muzzle shoot fairly decent. Have one in the rack that had a nearly pristine bore except for heavy wear at the muzzle. Gunsmith cut 2" off and re-crowned leaving the rest alone. Excellent accuracy. Back in the 'old days' lots of old Mausers had the muzzle 'counter bored' to clean up the rod damage to the muzzle and crown because cutting back required re-setting the front sight.
Agree, eroded chamber and lead rarely affects accuracy. The last two inches of the barrel are important for accuracy. If you want to keep a MilSurp looking original and shoot it, suggest having the muzzle reamed or bored out out about an inch removing all the worn rifling while leaving the outside alone. This process removes worn rifling at the end of the muzzle while keeping the outside original. Have had great results providing shooting of your collectible is important. Its like have a new barrel end.
Many MilSurps have issues with wear on the end of the barrel from steel cleaning rod use over the years.
Have the Lyman borescope and use it regularly. The Lyman takes video and scopes just as good as the one you see advertised in gun rags at 1/8 the price. I have used it to look inside engines.
Had a Garand with a pitted barrel and sent to the CMP to have them install a new Criterion chrome lined barrel. Groups went from 8" to sub MOA. Once they received my rifle, they turned it around in about a week and sent to my home. Cost was very reasonable. The Garand was a late model SA not collector grade. Bought to shoot comp with.
For those asking it is a teslong rifle bore scope....it was around 60 bucks or so on Amazon.... although they have shorter versions that are cheaper. It comes with every imaginable connection adapter you can think of. Does videos and pics.
Part of getting quality images I found was knowing how to focus the camera for different calibers. The instructions were good about explaining how far in and out to screw the mirror lense for focus based on caliber.
Just for comparison this is of a relatively new rifle (less than 1000k rounds). However the rifle is dirty which makes it look worse than it is, but the bite still looks better than the clean M-1.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QfXTSgfyrZzpRgxK8