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Thread: PC & Severely pitted 30-30 barrel ?

  1. #61
    Boolit Master

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    Petander,

    Glad things are coming together for you. Fire lapping can do amazing things, but it sure is work and time intensive. If you had to pay someone to do it, hardly anyone could afford it.

    Subject shift:
    what is all that green stuff on the ground, or has spring finally sprung in your far, far northern location?
    “Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Marines don't have that problem.” Ronald Reagan


  2. #62
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by oley55 View Post

    Subject shift:
    what is all that green stuff on the ground, or has spring finally sprung in your far, far northern location?
    Oh boy we had +11C° (52F) today.

    And the big news are - PC coated cast worked fine today!

    No leading at all,I left some copper fouling from yesterday and it all was visible after a few dozen nearly full power 140 grain loads.

    Bore scopes really rule when you drift into unknown territory. I must say this one looked like... unsaveable at first.



    Minute-of-moose accuracy is there, I broke claybirds again 25-50 meters. The snow berm told me accuracy is fine.

  3. #63
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Things are looking up for sure with your snow melting and improving accuracy from your gun! I'd say a drink or two is in order!

    11°C! we didn't see that yesterday. It was cold over night -6°C and cool all day yesterday. It is warming up today now and we just hit 13°C at about 1:00PM.

    We're not as far North as your are by any means. I live about 1/2 hour North of the US border. However, we generally get pretty cool winters at down to -20°C at times. This last winter wasn't bad and we didn't get a lot of snow but so far spring has been cool!

    Anyway, looks like you got that pitted barrel back into decent shooting shape. Good for you!

    Longbow

  4. #64
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by longbow View Post



    We're not as far North as your are by any means. I live about 1/2 hour North of the US border.
    I'm @ 62° north , the same as being in Yukon. One hour north from Whitehorse.

    Anyway, fire lapping made this old barrel a shooter again. The whole coating thing is amazing,too.

  5. #65
    Boolit Grand Master
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    Good to see you on the road to success. Needless to say, that rifle will require serious cleaning, more often, followed by a good metal preservative for storage. I've worked through a few pitted barrels and they take twice the cleaning at twice the frequency than undamaged barrels. Well done saving that old girl.

  6. #66
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by 725 View Post
    Good to see you on the road to success. Needless to say, that rifle will require serious cleaning, more often, followed by a good metal preservative for storage. I've worked through a few pitted barrels and they take twice the cleaning at twice the frequency than undamaged barrels. Well done saving that old girl.
    Yes,the pits are still there,just smoothed up. I didn't really expect this good a success.
    Coatings work perfectly,no leading as I hoped.


    VFG cleaning patch "feel" is completely different now,too.

    I use Bore Tech products,very very good for copper / carbon removal. Then good oil for storage.

  7. #67
    Boolit Master
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    Full house loads lead foul near the muzzle, I cut down to "cowboy" loads. Full jacketed foul a lot,too. But after one 20 rd box it still has the accuracy, I haven't fired more J:s at once now.

    So I cut down. This 1450 fps "cowboy" load shoots clean, except very little copper from gas checks near the muzzle.



    A cellphone pic of Borecam screen...



    Look at that surface. It's amazing what coatings & fire lapping can do together.

    I think that in terms of fire lapping, I'll stop here for a while. Everything doesn't need to be "full house" all the time.

  8. #68
    Boolit Buddy
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    It will likely continue to get better as you shoot it more. Great work!

    Quote Originally Posted by Petander View Post
    Full house loads lead foul near the muzzle, I cut down to "cowboy" loads. Full jacketed foul a lot,too. But after one 20 rd box it still has the accuracy, I haven't fired more J:s at once now.

    So I cut down. This 1450 fps "cowboy" load shoots clean, except very little copper from gas checks near the muzzle.



    A cellphone pic of Borecam screen...



    Look at that surface. It's amazing what coatings & fire lapping can do together.

    I think that in terms of fire lapping, I'll stop here for a while. Everything doesn't need to be "full house" all the time.

  9. #69
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by zarrinvz24 View Post
    It will likely continue to get better as you shoot it more. Great work!
    Thank you very much.

    My alloy is not hard at all here, it's a WW/pure pistol alloy around 10 BHN.

    I'm still amazed at PC:s ability to allow for much softer alloy than the old rules say. Lino and WW being harder to find than pure, I'm happy shooting reduced loads like this for fun and practise. I do have mono/lino/ww stash but I like to use as little as possible. PC rules over Hi Tek here. I also Hi Tek some calibers like 45-70 and 500 S&W. Full power loads. But I need proper hardness there.

    Also, a 10 BHN bullet is very malleable and tough, with HP @ 1450 fps it can actually hunt many things.

    Plus I can catch most of the ejected , flying brass in the air already.

  10. #70
    Boolit Master
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    A moly update:

    All this cleaning has been a chore. And factory Fed 170 ammo shoots under 2" / 75 m. Every time.

    But I wanted this for cast...

    So I treated the bore with Brownells moly paste. Four times. I then shot these groups the next day, Mihec 140 grn NLG @ 1400 fps and the other group named "full" @ 2100 fps. Bench 75 meters.



    I did some clay plinking too, total 40 rds. No leading. None. I did not "deep clean" it now, it takes hours even with Bore Tech products. Some carbon is there -and the moly. I'll shoot more today and see but cleaning was way easier than before, the first dry VFG wad feel was also smoother than before. Slick.



    I still can't believe that a bore like this can shoot at all. But all that fire lapping must have smoothed the pit edges or something. I'm not even good with semi-buckhorn and I still get acceptable deer accuracy with J-bullets @ 75 m.

    But it's cast for now until I see how long this moly works.


  11. #71
    Boolit Master
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    Very good progress. Great to see you bring the old rifle back to life.

    Muzzle leading with full house loads is a classic sign of insufficient lube/lube failure. Any chance you have access to some better lube - say a carnuba flavor like "Rooster's red" or the "High speed green" stuff? Another option is to try out a bullet with more/deeper lube grooves.

    Honestly, though, I haven't had much luck with cast running over 1700 or 1800 fps. 2100fps loads tend to scatter a lot more. Luckily, I have Hornady Leverevolution when I need 2400fps.

  12. #72
    Boolit Grand Master popper's Avatar
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    smoothed the pit edges
    probably. The pits can fill in and smooth out but sharp edges on the pits tear up the bullet. The moly will fill pits too. I've heard that using it a lot will leave rings of hard moly in the barrel.
    Whatever!

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check