Bullets for Fire lapping?

[Themoose]

Thinking of fire lapping recently acquired 30-40 Krag. Dumb question is about the cast bullets I use. Does it matter if they are lubed or not

[44man]

No lube, roll in the grit only.

[aephilli822]

be careful using lead boolits for fire lapping, I (think I) heard/read that lead boolit fire lapping can wear the leade (freebore) or "advance the throat" as compared to using jacketed bullets

[Themoose]

Thanks for the info guys

[bdicki]

Beartooth sell BHN 12 for fire lapping. They also have a couple of tech notes about fire lapping.
https://beartoothbullets.com/bulletselect/index.htm

[Chris C]

Firelapping requires a soft lead bullet so you can embed the grit in the lead. Jacketed bullets won't hold any grit. Be sure and read about it on the beartoothbullets.com site to do it right. It's safe, if done right.

[stubbicatt]

You could get the kit from NECO. I have one I haven't used yet. Supposedly comes with bullets, and does have an instruction sheet.

[runfiverun]

I wanna hear why a 100 y.o. rifle needs fire lapped.

[stubbicatt]

I don't know about TheMoose, but the bore on mine is pretty rotten. That's why I bought the kit. In shooting the rifle, I have learned that even with a rotten bore it shoots as good as I can, so I never used the kit.

[Themoose]

I posted a reply a little earlier about why I was "thinking" of fire lapping... don't know what happened to it, but I will try it again...I don't understand why the rifle's age has anything to do with my question... in my thinking, again my opinion... the grooves of the rifle remain very dark and appear to be rough after three days of scrubbing with various foam cleaners, soaking for two nights in Kroil, using bore eliminator, Hoppe's #9 and Hoppe's Elite.... my objective is to have the bore in the best possible condition to shoot cast bullets... my thinking of fire lapping is that it may smooth out the rough areas in the grooves... I have fire lapped a few rifles before and have never harmed them that I am aware of... I use a kit from LBT and follow the instructions... think it would be safer than trying to lead lap by hand to remove any bumps...I purchased the rifle to shoot and hunt with, not become a wall hanger to collect dust...does this make sense now

[runfiverun]

it does, I was just wondering how it shot.
I'm in the same camp, that guns are for shooting not looking at.
I was wondering what it was doing that showed it needed lapping.

[birddog]

I've only fire lapped my new barrels that were installed on target rifles or hunting rifles. Great thing and made barrel break in a snap. Have fire lapped all my ruger handguns ( 4 as of now )
Charlie

[303Guy]

I've fire-lapped a few rusted LE barrels. One was a sewer pipe (still is) and now actually has a shine to it. Not a smooth shine mind you. That one had a layer of rust scale in the bore. Another wasn't much better and that cleaned out quite fine too. A friend brought me his LE that a gunsmith had lapped for him. The bore was clean but not the grooves. Two fire-lap rounds cleaned it out to produce sharp rifling. But then, I used a somewhat different fire-lapping approach.

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Fire-lapping189620gr2205WG006.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/Fire-lapping189620gr2205WG006.jpg.html)
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Fire-lapping189620gr2205WG011.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/Fire-lapping189620gr2205WG011.jpg.html)
http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-548F.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/MVC-548F.jpg.html)

This method is rather agressive and it only takes two or three but that rust scaled bore comes out quite clean with all the lead snagging rust pit sharp edges rounded off.

[303Guy]

I have another fire-lapping method that uses cast boolits (paper patched in this instance).


http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Fire-LappingPigGun015.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/Fire-LappingPigGun015.jpg.html)http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/Fire-LappingPigGun017-1.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/Fire-LappingPigGun017-1.jpg.html)

The grinding past sits on top of a card disc held in place by a filler. The boolit sits just on top of the past (making sure it doesn't get pushed back on chambering). That cleans the bore bore quite well too, also rounding those sharp rust pit edges.

[303Guy]

Here is a boolit fired through a pretty badly rusted but lapped 22 hornet bore (not lapped by me).

http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo327/303Guy/MVC-307F.jpg (http://s388.photobucket.com/user/303Guy/media/MVC-307F.jpg.html)

[scottfire1957]

it does, I was just wondering how it shot.
I'm in the same camp, that guns are for shooting not looking at.
I was wondering what it was doing that showed it needed lapping.


Agreed. If it shoots well, or even good, why lap? The barrel "looks bad" is not a reason to lap, if it shoots.


Edit: You might lap the barrel and it looks better, but shoots worse.

[country gent]

The original fire lapping kits used and recomended Jacketed bullets. Tubbs recomended a bullet with longer bearing surface even. The kist recoment folling the bullet between 2 steel plates to imbed the grit into the surfaces same as lapping a hole the lap is impregnated between plates under moderate pressure. The jacket will impregnate and lapp the bore quite well. Just spreading compound on a bullet wont do it as its not impregnated into the bullet to complete the lapp surface. Alot recomended the steel plate were surface ground also to be as flat and true as possible. Properly done firelapping can help a rough bore or throat improperly done may cause more issues. One thing to do is to use a case and bullet to find throat / leades overal cartridge length. Then after fire forming use the same bullet as before and remeasure throats overall length to see how much it did move. You also want to load straight concentric rounds for this chore.