I was participating in a recent bull session of local gunsmiths yesterday, and brought the subject of shooting slick up for comments. The comments were quite interesting, and included things like:
“(Local BP gunsmith) will swear its true, and says that he's experienced it several times. He says nothing will cure it except to wrap 000 or 0000 steel wool on a jag and run it up and down the bore for half an hour or so to rough the bore up a bit.”
Another 'smith opined that while he wasn't into BP much, he'd sure take exception if anyone tried to tell him that the same thing would happen with modern guns, and he hadn't seen anything like that in several decades of smokeless powder cartridge guns.
Another 'smith laughed, and said that a lot of BP shooters used various oils to lube their patches, and that some oils would form hard cakes with BP residues, especially if shot enough to warm up the barrel. Said a lot of dried / hardened oil or grease lubes wouldn't clean out well with soap and water (the classic BP cleaning solution) and left a residue that would dry and harden with time, kinda like linseed oil paint, and this would cause all sorts of accuracy problems like preventing the ball from seating properly tight against the powder charge, etc. He thought that all (the local BP 'smith) was doing to restore his guns was to give them a good thorough cleaning with steel wool.
The general consensus was that the notion didn't seem to have much merit, and that included the opinion of one 'smith with considerable BP experience, who said he'd heard of it, but never seen a case.
Me, I dunno. I’m not into BP. But at least the cleaning explanation accounts for both the slow deterioration of accuracy and its restoration by 'roughening' the bore, which would surely be vigorous enough to remove any tough, water-resistant caking deposits. I think this would be worth some serious investigation by someone interested. If'n I were interested enough to pursue it, I'd maybe start by getting a rifle that was 'shooting slick' and see if pouring the barrel full of paint remover overnight visibly removed anything, or restored / changed accuracy. At least, this would have the advantage of not removing any metal from the bore, so it would still be 'slick', and accuracy should still be the same.
If paint remover didn't give me some hints, I'd pour some naphtha down the barrel and scrub the dickens out of it with steel wool. Then I'd dip a magnet in the cleaning naphtha to remove the steel wool and its fragments, and see what I have left. If it's still water-white naphtha, I'd say that the residue idea was all wet. But if the naphtha has a lot of specks that aren't removed by the magnet, I'd find out what they are, and how they got there. How? Slosh some of the same steel wool in naphtha, tearing some of the wool into small bits. Soak well, and remove the steel wool with the magnet. What does the naphtha look like? If it's still got a lot of specks, they’re are coming from something in the steel wool (a rust preventive perhaps) and not the bore. Simple reflection will suggest a lot of easy, simple tests that can be very informative. And believe me; a single experimental test will trump a thousand expert opinions to the contrary!
If that didn't tell me anything, I'd take a good shooting rifle and fire a few groups to establish a base accuracy performance. Then I'd get some chrome polish to lubricate my patches with for a while. Shouldn't take too much of that to give a bore that was as slick as a mirror. Then I'd re-check accuracy with the original load. Then I'd scrub with steel wool and test accuracy again. Somewhere along the line, I think I'd learn something.
Frankly, the whole thing sounds rather far-fetched to me. But as soon as I say that, I'm reminded of the huge difference that changing cast bullet lubes will make in modern rifles.
And I've personally - and repeatedly - experienced poor shooting from dried residues of Hoppes until I got it shot out. - or unless I scrub it out with a bronze brush and paint thinner before shooting.
So, mebby there's something to it after all. Even with smokeless rifles and jacketed bullets, first shot accuracy has been a conundrum for a long time, and maybe this is part of the explanation there too.
Who, ME? No thanks, I'm not into BP. I don't have time to handle the cast bullet projects I want to do as it is. But there's no reason one or two of you fellows couldn't have some fun is there? Go to it, and let us know what happens.
So many interesting questions, so little time ....
Regards,
Molly
BTW Joe, what's Wagner's Fallacy #2? Or are you going to hold that one back until you're done milking this one? (VBG)