M1917 Eddystone

[Grapeshot]

OK Gents. I just picked up a M1917 Eddystone in .30-06. The bore is dark, but the lands and grooves are sharp and distinct. The previous owner said it shot jacketed bullets fine. My question is this, do I spend hours scrubbing the barrel with J&B Bore Cleaner or try the old stunt of shooting cast bullets using valve grinding compound packed into the lube grooves. If the latter, what is the finest grit out there?

I have no experience with small bore rifles outside of my Military days with the 5.56 and 7.62 NATO rounds.

I do havea .30-40 Krag that I am just starting to experiment with. Using .312 bullets, but I haven't had the time to get it wrung out as I have been tuning up my long range Cowboy and Grand Army of the Frontier rifles. (Not to mention my CAS 1873, 1866 .44-40's and Civil War Spencer in .56/.50.

[smilie=b::brokenima

[mooman76]

I'd just give it a good cleaning and see how she does before jumping in too deep first.

[wiljen]

I'd just shoot it as is until it gave me some reason to do otherwise.

[Adk Mike]

Clean her up and shoot it. I've got a pair and shoot one of them weekly. Mine had been in storage and both cleaned up fine and shoot Great. Mike

[azrednek]

I've brightened up some dark bores buy shooting them with jacketed bullets. Might take a couple hundred rounds, wont shoot any better but you will feel better seeing a clean bore.

[swheeler]

Shoot cast bullets in it, after a K or so it will blind you when you look down the barrel.

[NuJudge]

I bought an Eddystone from the the Civilian Marksmanship Program with a dark bore. The barrel gauged as about new, but it was really dark. It had probably been used with corrosive saluting blanks at a lot of funerals.

With other dark barrels, about 50 rounds of FMJ ammo brightened them right up. Not this one.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program bought a bunch of barrels from Criterion, and I had one of them installed. Now it shoots better than it ought to.

[Le Loup Solitaire]

I have one that started out the same way; it was pretty gloomy in there. If the lands and grooves are sharp or at least decent, follow the advice already given and just shoot the rifle with casts and the bore will clean up in time just fine. Clean it in the usual manner after each firing as you would normally do. There's no need to get involved with exotic formulas, rituals and fmj's unless you're in some kind of a hurry or for some reason. I shot only casts and the bore came up clean and shining...it took a while, but I enjoyed shooting the rifle all along. LLS

[missionary5155]

Good evening
Dark barrels do not affect accuracy. I have several and they shoot better (on a bench) than I can hold them.
If there is a different problem I would use a metal polish "Cream" rather than lapping compound. I use Metal-Glow on all new barrels. Shoot 1 round & Clean. I do this 10 times. If a used barrel has a rough spot or snug spot I load up some rounds using the metal polish as the lube on HARD boolits. Fire 5 & clean. If the problem persists fire 5 more. And so on. Carbon Barrels tend to slick up nicely. I have NO stainless rifle barrels.

[Jim]

I'd spend about an hour with a .32 caliber brush in it and check it after about every ten minutes or so. But then, that's just me. I'm one of those weirdos that enjoys cleaning guns.

[rhbrink]

I have done something very like what missionary5155 describes but used JB bore paste instead. Clean the barrel run a patch down the barrel with JB, rub some JB on a condom bullet, shoot, clean, and repeat, took six rounds slicked up my barrel.