Pitted barrels and cast vs jacketed

[GhostHawk]

It is my experience, that once a barrel is truly clean. In my case a badly leaded Yugo SKS with copper fouling under it. It took me 3 days hitting it every hour or 2 to get it clean.

Once I had it there cast was way better, and tended to fill in the bottoms of the pits better than jacketed.

A better lube, continued shooting, it continued to improve until I could with confidence call out a quarter sized piece of orange clay pigeon at 50 yards on the berm and nail them 10 out of 10.

Longer range is going to be tougher. But could IMO still be doable.
I would not advise pushing the speed. In fact bring it down as far as 1400 fps or thereabouts.

[dverna]

It is my experience, that once a barrel is truly clean. In my case a badly leaded Yugo SKS with copper fouling under it. It took me 3 days hitting it every hour or 2 to get it clean.

Once I had it there cast was way better, and tended to fill in the bottoms of the pits better than jacketed.

A better lube, continued shooting, it continued to improve until I could with confidence call out a quarter sized piece of orange clay pigeon at 50 yards on the berm and nail them 10 out of 10.

Longer range is going to be tougher. But could IMO still be doable.
I would not advise pushing the speed. In fact bring it down as far as 1400 fps or thereabouts.

The issue I would have is dealing with a .22 Hornet. If it shoots "well" at 1400 fps with cast, why bother? That is not much better than using a .22 LR at half the cost without having to cast, lube/size and reload. There are better ways to utilize $75/k primers and $45/lb powder than getting 20% better performance than a .22LR.

I think Larry gave good advice. But if after doing that, the gun is not achieving .22 Mag ballistics it is not of much use as a .22 cal. IMO.

These guns are selling for $350-500 on Gunbroker. Not as cheap as I expected but is it worth investing in having the barrel rebored or replaced?

Here is a link to a guy who had one rebored to 6.5 Grendel:

https://www.65grendel.com/forum/foru...i-Rifle-Build=

This is link to the gunsmith who did the work:

http://www.oregunsmithingllc.com/Reb...zzleBrake.html

[Ruts]

My three bores that lead the least are all badly pitted.two of them get no lead with subsonic rounds and one gets some but it comes out with a bronze brush and patches in grains and flakes. I find if I get lead on a nice smooth bore it's very hard to get off and just as likely to lead without the right load

[Wooserco]

Agreed! If a rifle won't shoot minute of angle, it's down the road. I own a rifle that my Uncle built on a Mauser action in .308. It was capable of half minute of angle a 600 yards. Sadly, I wasn't, even 25 years ago. I did shoot seventeen 10s or Xs at 600 yards with it (sadly, in practice). My buddy asked to shoot it the next relay. He beat me with my ammo, my rifle. He was one round of shooting a clean. Bastard! Joel, may you rest in peace.