Viewing The Bore

[d414hiker]

This is what a borescope will show you. Maybe you can find someone with one to borrow.

View attachment 31388

This is what a borescope will show you. Maybe you can find someone with one to borrow.

View attachment 31388

Which borescope was this? Could you post a link if possible.

 

[ElDiablo]

Which borescope was this? Could you post a link if possible.

These photos were taken using this botescope:

https://www.amazon.com/Teslong-Bore...4010ad0#aw-udpv3-customer-reviews_feature_div

 

[Garbler]

Well I always wanted to play with one those inexpensive phone endoscope so bought one off Amazon. I’ll let you know how they are work for $30

Rick

 

[Ka'imiloa]

That’s the breech. Yeah, shoots just fine.

I resoundingly second what ElDiablo wrote here. Old shotguns or old rifles don't care a lick if they are pitted as long as you have carefully cleaned and "lapped" the bore. 4/0 steel wool wrapped on a multi-groove brass jag works pretty well to do that smoothing of the surface, just takes a lot of elbow grease. Making a plastic jag from the base of a sabot, then center-drilling that "jag" and screwing it onto a ball-puller which is then screwed onto your ramrod carefully allows use of fine-grade valve grinding compound (you have cut one or two narrow grooves into the plastic to create a short "jag".) Yes, use a bore-protector collar on your ramrod while doing any kind of lapping or prolonged cleaning, and clean out the valve compound when you are done lapping ( as usual, avoid lapping at the muzzle AMAP, and lap from the breech is you can. You don't want to enlarge or make the muzzle out-of-round in the least.)

I once resurrected TWO rust-wrecked T/C Renegade bores that way. They were both tack-drivers after that to my surprise and great pleasure, yet the bores looked terrible if you dropped a light down the bore to view them.

Of note, I've found by comparison, using a Hawkeye borescope, that even bore pits that look quite bad and deep due to light shadowing (especially with a light dropped down the bore, or light reflection method) are in fact no more deep than typical lettering or proof marks stamped on the outside of barrels. And all of those are waaaay less deep than the many dovetail cuts used on ML and centerfire barrels for sights or underlugs. If people aren't worrying about those dovetails "blowing up the barrel", how in the heck could vastly less deep pits blow up the barrel??

"Ask a gunsmith if your gun is safe" is so often heard/read but the large majority of gunsmiths know none of this and if they see any pitting they tell you "it's a wall hangar, not safe to shoot"! (Liability has much to do with that statement, and a great majority of gunsmiths know next to nothing about MLs or old time barrel metal. Do your own homework, the information is out there.

Aloha, Ka'imiloa