Bore Lapping

[leeenfield]

Some time ago, I think it was on this forum, I saw a post about a lapping method in which the lapping compound was placed behind the bullet and in front of an over-powder wad. Now I can't find it.

If anyone else has seen this, could he please point me to it?

Thanks

[geargnasher]

No help on finding that thread, but I believe there is a better way.

Here's what I do, just use the method that a member here (BABore) detailed to me some time back. Embed some boolits in the 10-13 bhn range with valve grinding compound by rolling the boolits gently back and forth between two flat steel plates for about two minutes, then fill the lube grooves by hand, seat them and shoot them with a load that will just barely get them out of the barrel. Just a pinch of fast shotgun/pistol powder does the trick, and I found that putting a lofted tuft of Dacron in the case to fill between the boolit base and powder helped the whole process work better. 3/4 grain of Dacron and like three grains of Titegroup was what I used in my .30-30, anything like that will work as long as the boolit exits every time, check to make sure! Before you start, clean the barrel really well and take a good pic of the inside of the muzzle, you want to see the surface of the bore about an inch down if possible. Fire ten or so, clean it and check the muzzle. When the first appearance of wear happens near the muzzle, stop. The laps cut from the breech, so this process makes a nice taper to your barrel, but once the cutting works down to the muzzle, you need to stop. After you get that far, to finish, hand lap the bore with about a hundred brisk strokes of a cleaning rod, jag, and TIGHT patch coated in valve grinding paste. The abrasive in the paste is very brittle and crushes down finer and finer with each stroke, so it really doesn't matter what you start with as long as it's about 320-400.

Gear

[303Guy]

That was me.

Here's the link;

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?t=135326

I don't know if it will work as well with plain cast but I don't see why not. Maybe use a card wad under the boolit.

[leeenfield]

Thanks for all of the help guys. My project is an 1896 Lee Enfield No1 with a somewhat rough and oversized bore. The biggest problem, I think, will be that it has tight and loose spots. Fortunately it is tighter toward the muzzle. I'd really like to save this barrel and I really don't like to own a rifle that won't shoot. So I'm collecting all of the ideas that I can.

[303Guy]

That would be a candidate for fire-lapping. Just two or three abrasive cookies followed by polishing compound.