Pitted -Frosty Barrel for Cast Boolits

[old turtle]

I have a nice Remington Hepburn in 32-40 with a semi-octagon barrel. The rifling is sharp but the barrel is pitted, more frosty than heavy pits. Has anyone had experience shooting rifles in this condition? Would harder boolits be better than 20to 1 lead? I will experiment but I would like to hear any advice or experiences others have had.

[Winger Ed.]

Ya just have to try it.
Some worn barrels do OK, some not so much.

Throat erosion is a consideration and you might need to seat boolits a little farther out for it.

[BLAHUT]

Just try some You may be surprised

[ShooterAZ]

I have some military surplus rifles that have frosted/pitted barrels, they all shoot good. If the rifling is sharp like you say, it will likely still shoot cast very well. Load her up and shoot her!

[stubshaft]

I've had a couple of rifles with frosted barrels. They can shoot very well with cast, but sometimes they will not shoot worth a damn. The ONLY way to tell is to shoot them.

[upnorthwis]

Just something that I heard that worked for me. Bought a .43 Mauser with some small but numerous pits. I shot maybe a dozen soft (5 BHN) bullets and it filled the pits right up. Then according to the instructions, you can only clean with a mop, not a brush, or you will remove the material in the pits and have to start over.

[marlinman93]

If it's more frosted than actually pitted it can be smoothed up by polishing. Depending on how "frosted" it is, I'd consider starting with a very tight patch cut from lead remover cloth sold by Kleenbore, or Birchwood Casey. Both sell the same lead remover cloth, and I cut patches to size for different bores. It needs to be tight enough that I use a leather or rubber mallet to tap the cleaning rod with patch into the bore. Then once in the bore I push it to the muzzle, and pull it back, stopping before it exits either end. Polish it back and forth a dozen times, and then replace with a 2nd patch and repeat. Usually a couple patches is al it takes if the bore is just frosty to polish it to a nice finish.
If the bore is too bad I use Flitz Metal Polish on a patch first to get it smoothed out, and then follow up with the lead remover cloth.
These methods have resulted in some bores that I considered relining becoming shooters that were pretty decent and didn't lead up anymore.

[koger]

Val is right on target, two ways I have worked with frosty bores in military rifles and one trapdoor in 45/70. one other method that comes to mind, is to roll a cast bullet between 2 files, then coat them with coarse or fine valve grinding compound and load them over light unique loads. i had did the same thing with Tubbs final finish iin 220,320 and 600 grit compound. The last one I worked on was a 1903 Springfield, that had great rifling but was dark and frosty. I soaked the bore with transmission fluid overnight, the drained it and wiped it dry, fired 10 bullets in each grit, cleaning between grits with Hopes soaked patches. After 30 rounds, barrel was bright and shiny, cleaned it up with Kroil and fltz, bore looked amazing and shot great too.

[OS OK]

Just something that I heard that worked for me. Bought a .43 Mauser with some small but numerous pits. I shot maybe a dozen soft (5 BHN) bullets and it filled the pits right up. Then according to the instructions, you can only clean with a mop, not a brush, or you will remove the material in the pits and have to start over.

Same thing I was going to say.
Don't let them pits and gnarly looking areas worry you, you got clean sharp lands you have 95% going for you.

Carbon will fill those areas if you don't want to smear soft lead in there.

[GregLaROCHE]

Shoot it and let us know the outcome. Make sure your boolit is big enough for the bore.

[Green Frog]

Twenty five years or so ago I bought a Winchester high wall barreled action in 32-40. it was pretty much complete except for sights and stocks. When I got it, I looked down the bore and paid for it thinking I was getting an action I could build. The bore looked pretty funky to me when I looked through it at the gun shop.

Well, I got it home and scrubbed out the bore and it looked kind of "salt and pepper" but I threw some wood on it and loaded up some standard 175 grain cast bullets over moderate charges of 4759 and went to the range. Out to 100 yds it was accurate enough that I decided to leave the barrel as it was. The fact it came with SST and that I found a nice set of original plain sporter wood for it along with a good tang sight made me hesitant to change anything. Author John Campbell took one look at it and said it would pass for original if I hadn't had to use a front globe sight that looked too new!

So back to the OP; clean that bore well and shoot it. You may be surprised, and of course "original is always a good thing".

Froggie

PS I tried shooting black powder loads in it with less success. In my experience at least, BP demands a much better bore for acceptable accuracy than smokeless does. As with all things though, YMMV!

[john.k]

The worst bore I ever bought was an as new Garand that had fired a few clips and kept in an outside shed .....paid $100 for it too .......bore was around 270 dia and completely featureless ......anyway,I started with steel wool and valve grinding paste until the brown rust was mostly gone,then did a series of lead laps ........clean bore ,very pitted ,rifling was round bumps ,nothing in the muzzle.......counterbored about 1&1/2 " to clean rifling,and the gun would shoot 4" groups......It took a year to get a new barrel sent out ,which was fitted ......but I could have used the gun with the old barrel .

[Rich/WIS]

Had an old Krag that was pitted in the grooves from chamber to muzzle although the lands were clean. Shot both jacketed and cast quite accurately, at least as well I was capable of.

[Rapier]

Lube a cast bullet with just valve grinding compound, course, medium and then fine, Low, low velocity, just enough powder to put the bullet out of the barrel, 5 bullets, then clean, inspect, fire again 5 bullets if needed, return the entire barrel to a polished bore, lands and grooves. Do not progress in grit until the frost or pits are entirely gone, then go to medium then go to fine, 5 rounds each. Cleaning every five rounds.

Slug the barrel then adjust your new cast bullets to the new groove diameter. A major benefit of shooting your cast bullets is you can always, always, adjust your bullet diameter to the actual groove diameter.

Had a badly drilled barrel with chip cuts and then chattered when cutting the grooves, a 30-30 Contender barrel, it leaded up like no tomorrow, after a half dozen rounds it shot like shat. That barrel got the fire lap treatment, shot 1/4" after. It had a .310 barrel when finished, just changed the cast bullet setup for it.

Honestly, I do not try to hand lap or hand polish barrels any more for cast bullet shooting. If a jacketed bullet barrel is bad, I just replace it.

[GARD72977]

I use scotch Brite cut in a small strip just larger than the bore. Dip it in solvent and scrub the bore. You may go through a couple of strips before you get it clean. It will Smooth up a barrel without removing much material.

[Gtek]

Paper Patch and just shoot it.

[ofreen]

The bore in my 32-40 Hi Wall looks to be in poor condition. Way back when, I heard the Loverin style bullets would mitigate some bore issues due to their long bearing surface. I've used the Lyman 323470 in the rifle all these years and you'd think the bore was pristine by looking at the results.

[old turtle]

Thanks to all for your excellent advice. I took it to the range and with a Lyman 321297 bullet and 15 grains of 5744 it shot very well. I seated them out until they touched the lands. I have several other long bullets to try namely 319289 (135 gr.) which has several landing riding grooves.
Thank again.

[Shawlerbrook]

Great suggestions above. I also have had some ugly looking milsurp bores that shot very respectable. I always proceed with caution as I have seen some that were damaged beyond saving from some over aggressive cleaning.

[old70]

I have a Uberti high wall in 38-55 that the previous owner had shot with BP and hadn’t cleaned properly. It has a worn, pitted throat but still shoots the Lyman 375449 into tiny groups with Trail Boss. I do have to use a fairly hard bullet to cast it the right size, and I think that helps.

Old70