Ragnarok
09-11-2013, 07:54 PM
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
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