Barrel funkiness...

[offshore44]

I slugged the barrel on my Parker Hale .308 Mauser today and came up with some surprising results. The Parker Hales had hammer forged barrels on 'em. as an aside...

The bore is oblong... 0.3083" groove diameter one way and 0.3055" ~ 90° the other way. I slugged the bore three times, two different ways and the measurements came up same-o, same-o all three times. The barrel feels kind of funny as well when you slug it. Tight at the muzzle and the throat end...loose in the middle. This may explain why it doesn't shoot j-words very well either. It's a 3 - 4" shooter with factory ammo. It's amazing what you can tell pushing a fishing weight through a barrel with a stick.

I was intending on making make this the next cast boolit shooter in the safe, but now I'm not so sure that is going to work out so well. I"m thinking that a new barrel is in order before that is going to happen.

[Maven]

offshorre44, I think I'd try CB's sized to .309" and .310" + a known load (e.g., 13gr. Red Dot or 16gr. 2400) before I'd go to the expense of rebarreling it. Btw, you'll need to remove the copper jacket fouling from the bore before testing it with CB's.

[canyon-ghost]

Btw, you'll need to remove the copper jacket fouling from the bore before testing it with CB's.

Yes sir, you need a good copper solvent and a brass brush, followed by more cleaning with a nylon brush. Factory and jacketed just adhere to everything too well to leave in.

[jblee10]

A little tight at the muzzle is not so bad. But tight at the throat is not good. It may be a canidate for fire lapping.

[offshore44]

The barrel is pretty clean right now... I usually do a good job of scrubbing them out after a day on the range.

The lead slugs that came out of the bore are pretty interesting... It appears that the mandrel that the barrel blank was forged on had one of the four mandrel lands partially hammered out. The top of one barrel land tapers from where the trailing edge should be to the root of the adjacent land. I may try and figure out how big this defect is; i.e. how much of the bore is affected before i do anything else with it. If I lap this out, I may end up with a 4 - 6" long throat. That would be interesting, to say least.

[Casting Timmy]

The barrel is pretty clean right now... I usually do a good job of scrubbing them out after a day on the range.

The lead slugs that came out of the bore are pretty interesting... It appears that the mandrel that the barrel blank was forged on had one of the four mandrel lands partially hammered out. The top of one barrel land tapers from where the trailing edge should be to the root of the adjacent land. I may try and figure out how big this defect is; i.e. how much of the bore is affected before i do anything else with it. If I lap this out, I may end up with a 4 - 6" long throat. That would be interesting, to say least.

I would also try and just put a slug a few inches into the throat and then knock it back out so you can see what the throat area measures and then do the same with the muzzle end.

Then my great thought for the day would be trying to make a dummy round for the size boolit you think you;d need for the rifle before doing anything to it. If you think that you'll need a .311" boolit but can't chamber a dummy round loaded with a .311" boolit you might need to go back to the drawing board. You can also try and see if the diameter boolit you need will slip in and out of a case fired in that gun before lapping the barrel.

Everyone in a while I can think of something good to say.

[6.5 mike]

I had one bout like that A&b 260 bbl took care of it.

[nanuk]

I assume this rifle is not under warrantee

[303Guy]

I'd fire-lap it anyway. Did you follow my thread on my newly discovered paper patch fire-lapping? The correct powder and charge would likely ensure the throat area is opened up more than the rest of the bore but it will also likely remove material the whole length but more so where the chamber pressure is highest, hence the need for faster powders that develop peak pressure while the boolit is still inside the neck. Using j-word's would likely take out material at the most constricted areas which would probably be preferable but would likely not open the groove as much as the bore diameter.