Krag with pitted bore

[JRLesan]

I bought a Krag carbine in 1994 and never did anything with it which was a mistake, most likely. The outside is as near 100% as one could wish for but the bore is pitted; bore scopes can be problematic. The rifle does not tumble bullets and accuracy is acceptable for my eyes, BUT I can't get the bore clean. The copper is finally out but I still do not get clean patches no matter what cleaner I use or how many times I scrub. Is it not possible to get all fouling out of a pitted bore; is trying for a spotless bore a fool's errand? I'm somewhat experienced in working on and maintaining firearms so don't need 'basic' advice. Have used both brass and nylon brushes along with Butch's, Shooter's Choice, Sweet's, and Tactical Advantage to name just a few. Comments...

[Adam Helmer]

JR,

If you get acceptable accuracy, there is no need for a mirror-shine bore. I have some military surplus arms with dark bores with strong rifling. I get fine accuracy out of them all. Most of my guns like my cast boolits. I have seen shiny bores that would not shoot well.

Good shooting.

Adam

[GBertolet]

Both of my Krags have pitted bores. Both shoot great with cast bullets. I suspect they were shot with the corrosive primers of the period, without being cleaned afterwards.

[Larry Gibson]

"I still do not get clean patches no matter what cleaner"

I wouldn't worry about it. I have a couple rifles with similar pitted bores that will never give a "clean" patch either. I just give them a normal cleaning with Hoppe's #9 after shooting cast or jacketed and don't worry about it. I've had a couple of them I brought back from Viet Nam in '66 and they just keep on shooting with the same level of accuracy with cast bullets. I also have a 6.5 Jap I've had for 40+ years which still shoots fine for the bores condition.

[Whole Bunches]

Tubb Final Finish Bore Lapping System

This worked superbly on a rusty bore Finnish M39. I only used 5 of each bullet and cleaned after each bullet fired. Brushes and JB bore paste were not removing the rust. I don’t believe pitting was deep. To my eyes the bore is bright shiny with no pitting seen. Shoots superbly with cast bullets with no leading.

[MOC031]

Have used both brass and nylon brushes along with Butch's, Shooter's Choice, Sweet's, and Tactical Advantage to name just a few. Comments...

If you're not terrified at the very idea of using steel wool wrapped around a brush to scrub your bore, you can give that a try and see if you feel there's any resulting improvement.

When I helped the attempt to get the carcass of the defunct Montana Rifle Company running again, starting with barrel manufacturing on those old surplus Springfield Armory Pratt & Whitney gun drills, first thing I did was track down some of the former workers who had been there through the Remington ownership period as well. When they assured me they hand lapped all rifle barrels, I couldn't figure out how that was possible. Turns out their version of "hand lapping" was scrubbing the hell out of the rifled barrel blank to remove drilling and reaming tool marks sufficiently to meet whatever the quality standard MRC had. I mean SCRUB: two fisted handles on those cleaning rods.

I was beyond sceptical, so at the end of one work day I took a scrap barrel, pinned it to determine the bore diameter, then went to town scrubbing the hell out of that barrel with steel wool, just as the barrel shop workers were doing. It took a LONG, LONG time to open that barrel up to accept the next bigger size .0005" pin gauge in the shop sets. .0005" pin gauges are available for about $5/ each from Amazon if you can't get them locally. I have a range of three or four successive sizes for the rifle calibers I cast bullets for.

I have no idea what the result on a frosted barrel might be, and whether removing the frosting to any extent would result in a barrel much nicer to shoot and clean. But I would guess that if there's any remaining copper, lead, carbon, etc in that barrel, steel wool will probably do something about it, and possibly removing some of the pitting if you work at it hard enough.

I never bothered using a borescope to see if anything noticeable was happening in the bottom corners of the grooves, but the top edges weren't rounded - I assume the steel wool doesn't get right into those bottom corners of the grooves. I assume going the lead lap routine would be required to lap all surfaces inside the barrel.

BTW, McGowan Barrels also in Kalispell was also "hand lapping" their barrels the exact same way with steel wool at that time I was doing this a couple of years ago. I wouldn't have any problem using steel wool to clean a bad bore now, if I felt the bore needed it because regular cleaners weren't getting the job done.

[Brimstone]

I love reading stuff like this.

[Streetwalker]

I love reading stuff like this.

Me too!