Bad .22 rimfire barrels?..Rimfire barrel gurus?

[Ragnarok]

Silly corrosive ammunition anyhow!!

I recently bought a Winchester Model 1903 .22 win-auto chambered rifle.

Like many old guns this one has a barrel damaged by corrosive ammo and human neglect. It's pretty bad..the bore throat is corroded out for at least a couple inches in front of chamber(EEK level of bad!)...the muzzle is worn bad from whoever was trying to kill the rust with a rusty cleaning-rod(about a half-inch back from muzzle to good rifling). The barrel has serviceable looking rifling in between the corroded/eroded throat and funneled-out muzzle.

Ok..I'm thinking I'll just see how bad this old rotton bore shoots...So I shoot it some and it ain't just totally unfortunate.

With this old hunting rifle there is only one game in town for ammunition..Aguila made .22 Win-auto is pretty much it unless you buy $50 a box NOS collectors ammo. My point being that I can't just buy another box of ammo to see if another brand will shoot better.

Back to how it shoots...despite some serious flaws in the bore..the cool old rifle appears to be stabilizing the bullets. On paper I see a few that might be yawing a bit but all seem to poke holes and not 'slots'. Accuracy is fair except for the flyers. If I could get rid of the few stray shots(out of every five shots maybe one or two will qualify as flyers)..the accuracy would meet my qualification as 'servicable'

Maybe sometime in the future I will spend the dollars to have the bore sleeved. I got it cheap enough..but really don't want to sink money into it now.

I cannot do much about the rotted out throat the bullet has to drive through to get to good-bore...however I can maybe have a counter-bore cut and do away with the funnel at the muzzle.

Any .22 rifle barrel gurus here with any experience salvaging a barrel by counter-boring?

Aside from Mosin Nagants..an occasional Mauser or other milsurp...not much info on counter-boring..Digging around online I couldn't find any reference to counter-boring a worn .22 caliber barrel

[elk hunter]

The muzzle of a rifle controls the bullet, if a bullet leaves the muzzle in a different attitude for each shot, i.e. tipped or yawing, it isn't going to be very accurate, but a long bad section in front of the chamber can't help. If it were me I'd counter-bore the muzzle and try it. Done properly, in a lathe, it shouldn't hurt and should help.

[Ragnarok]

Having trouble deciding which route to take with this old relic. Doesn't seem to cost just a lot to have the barrel sleeved..however who is going to have a .22 Winchester Automatic chamber reamer?

Have to swap a different bolt in to go long rifle(if a model 63 bolt will fit)...I looked around online for a piloted reamer..and didn't see anything specific to counter bore a .22 barrel

Not many competent gunsmiths in my area(that I know of)...I'll have to do some looking around..

[Mk42gunner]

There was a thread in the rimfire section a year or so ago where one of our resident gunsmiths converted one of these to .22 LR.

As for counterboring, if it were me, I would do it with a ¼" drill. Reason being, it should be large enough to clean out the muzzle, but be small enough to be completely removed when you eventually reline the bore.

Robert

[MtGun44]

Reline.

Bill

[rmcc]

Re-line +1!! I finished a 1914 Savage pump awhile back. It had 9 bullets stuck in the barrel ( who knows) and had rust problems. Got everything from Brownells. Takes a couple of hours then overnight to set up. The only tough thing to do is the extractor cut. Go slow with a small file and a LOT of light on it.

rmcc

[robroy]

I have one of these. Grandpa took it in partial trade for drilling a water well. It was Mom's favorite when she was growing up. I haven't shot it much because of the price and availability of ammo. If Old West Scrounger is still around I seem to recall they ordered a run of it from somebody. Now you're going to make me take it out and check the barrel on both ends.