Borescope results?

cdhknives said:
You BR guys... I'd love to try out that game, but for now have to content myself building a solidly sub MOA 7 lb hunting rifle or three that don't beat me up when I carry them all day! I have a trued up Rem 700 action in the safe that I hope to someday turn into a heavy varmint/light BR rifle, but not this year and not till I get a lot better with my lathe!
Click to expand...
my advise is you have to either get into it deep or stay out! I freely admit my addiction. I have more money tied up in Benchrest than in my first house! My machining is all because of shooting. My 14 x 40 grizzly lathe (with spindle bearing upgrades, 3 phase with vfd, DRO, buck 6 jaw with jaws edm'd off flush with chuck face for short barrels,) is mostly for chambering and making dies. My 9 x 42 mill is for fluting barrels and inletting stocks. I have a surface grinder that does a wonderful job of hiding my lack of machining skills.
This whole thing started with my lifelong interest in hunting and shotgun shooting. I had a 22-250 that I thought was a shooter. There was a local club match that I went to watch. Seeing what those guys were doing and the groups they were shooting made me realize that I had work to do.
I bought a used custom gun and was hooked. Since that time, I have acquired all the machining stuff that I have. I also make my own jacketed bullets. I have both flat base and boat tail die sets. We (benchrest shooters) spend countless hours testing everything you can imagine. Things like firing pin fall distance, angle of the crown, freebore in the chamber, trigger pull, the list goes on to get the best accuracy possible. Just because the other guys find something that works, is no reason to believe it will work for you in your setup. You have to find what works for you. The greatest feeling of accomplishment is when you do well in a match (beating the guy you want to beat) with your own stuff - bullets, barrel, load. After you have the best equipment that you can buy or build, it comes down to gun handling and wind reading. Bottom line here is that bench shooters are proud of their equipment. They are eager to show you what they have and will also let you shoot their gun. (they want a new guy to join the community so they have someone that they can beat for a while.)
 
You might want to consider using some JB Paste to clean up that barrel. My competition rifle barrels take about 175 rounds before they break in. With a lot of cleaning in the process. That build up will die down some after break in.

The process is pretty simple for cleaning and will take out some of those micro sharp edges as well. But not damage the barrel.

1) Since you have a bore scope, use it to determine the depth from the end of the action (bolt removed of course) to the barrel. Place a piece of masking tape on your cleaning rod so about 3 inches farther to mark the rod. This will allow you to know when you at the beginning of the rifling. I also place one about 10" -12" towards the handle as the majority of the work will be done over this length of the barrel. Finally, place another piece of tape to mark a point that would put the patch about 3" from the muzzle.
2) Soak with Kroil oil by running a wet patch down, but not back through the barrel. You want the barrel wet and then leave it for about 10-15 minutes at a slight down angle so any liquid would drip out of the muzzle and not into the action.
3) Take a patch and put a generous amount with your finger along one edge of the patch. Place this edge on a Jag and wrap the Jag with the patch. When you are done, apply more JB to the wrapped patch to great a soaked patch.
4) Insert from the breach into the barrel and run the JB soaked patch back and forth about 10 times over that 10-12 inch length you marked on the rod.
5) I run the patch then 2-3 times from the breach to within about 3" of the muzzle to clean up the rest.
6) Clean the barrel with what ever you normally use. I use CLP Lube and Cleaner and I never use metal brushes.
7) Check the results and repeat steps 2-6 until clean.

This is something you do NOT do ever time you shoot. It is used to get out heavy buildup. The liquid copper removers don't desolve the copper very fast. They are for light buildup and you will be there forever.

For in between times, I use Bore Tech copper remover, for light buildup. I place a small silicone plug in the muzzle, place the gun vertical with muzzle down and in a small plastic container. Fill the barrel to the end, careful not to get any in the action and leave it for several hours. Sometimes over night. Pull the plug and clean.

Some shooters like Erik Cortez out of Texas uses CLR but the duration is much shorter.

If you are interested in accurate shooting and maybe doing some competition, you might want to check out Accurate Shooter forum. Some amazing people there, friendly and willing to help anyone that is willing to listen. There are a great many different venues of competition that you might enjoy until you are ready to try BR shooting. I enjoy F-Class (Target Rifle). Fell into it by pure accident and love it.

accurateshooter.com/

Good luck
 
The initial early in the thread pictures that look so clean and shiny are at about the 300 round mark on this bbl. I used Flitz metal polish (after a normal 3 day cleaning/overnight soaks with Gunslick Bore foam to remove major copper fouling) to scrub out the last traces of anything but barrel steel immediately before those pics. My procedure was an undersize bronze brush with a patch wrapped around, coated with Flitz, and run for 10 full strokes. Repeat once for 20 total. So we are not too far apart in procedures, and this barel copper fouls heavily, though only really the later half of the bore, from day 1 till now.

Then I shot 10 rounds slow (about an hour to get all 10 downrange, plenty of cooling time) fire, and a simple powder solvent (good ol Hoppes) cleaning to give the copper plated pics more recently posted.

I have a Douglas #2 6mm 1:8 SS barrel on order for my next build...replacing the never better than 2MOA bbl on a mid 1990's vintage M70 Classic featherwight. After that maybe I'll tackle a heavy varmint rifle and see if I can build a half MOA rifle...baby steps! I don't have near the budget some of y'all run. 2 teenage kids keep me about 3/4 broke, so this is a stress relief/hobby for me. I gotta use what I have for a while yet!

Appreciate all the info guys!
 
my experience is that JB works very well. Use it sparingly - only to remove heavy fouling. My experience using JB (Jim Brobst's product) too much to polish the barrel to a nice shiny mirror finish - killed the barrel. It became a fire forming barrel afterwards. When you have heavy fouling, you can feel it with your cleaning brush. In short range (100-200) benchrest, we clean after every 15 shots or so. We use tight fitting brushes and tight patches. I brush until I feel the fouling has gone. Sometimes it takes only 8 or 10 strokes, sometimes it take 25 strokes before I feel the fouling go away. I love Flitz but not for the barrel for the reasons mentioned above. I even have some valve grinding compound for when I am in a hurry. Only use it a couple of strokes and then go to my usual cleaning regiment. Everybody cleans differently - what ever works for you is the correct way. One of my shooting buddies moly coats his bullets. He only cleans his gun at the end of the day during matches. looking at his barrel with a borescope will make you sick. He shoots well and doesnt understand why everyone doesn't do it his way.
 
cdhknives said:
The initial early in the thread pictures that look so clean and shiny are at about the 300 round mark on this bbl. I used Flitz metal polish (after a normal 3 day cleaning/overnight soaks with Gunslick Bore foam to remove major copper fouling) to scrub out the last traces of anything but barrel steel immediately before those pics. My procedure was an undersize bronze brush with a patch wrapped around, coated with Flitz, and run for 10 full strokes. Repeat once for 20 total. So we are not too far apart in procedures, and this barel copper fouls heavily, though only really the later half of the bore, from day 1 till now.

Then I shot 10 rounds slow (about an hour to get all 10 downrange, plenty of cooling time) fire, and a simple powder solvent (good ol Hoppes) cleaning to give the copper plated pics more recently posted.

I have a Douglas #2 6mm 1:8 SS barrel on order for my next build...replacing the never better than 2MOA bbl on a mid 1990's vintage M70 Classic featherwight. After that maybe I'll tackle a heavy varmint rifle and see if I can build a half MOA rifle...baby steps! I don't have near the budget some of y'all run. 2 teenage kids keep me about 3/4 broke, so this is a stress relief/hobby for me. I gotta use what I have for a while yet!

Appreciate all the info guys!
Click to expand...
I do understand the budget constraints. To feed my habit, I would sell off one of my hunting guns or one of my IPSC type handguns (had a bunch collected over the years) each time I needed something. I have one old remington 700 left that has a bad firing pin assembly. (or I would have sold that) The last time I hunted Elk with my son, I had to borrow a 300 win mag from another shooting buddy!
 
Papa Charlie said:
You might want to consider using some JB Paste to clean up that barrel. My competition rifle barrels take about 175 rounds before they break in. With a lot of cleaning in the process. That build up will die down some after break in.

The process is pretty simple for cleaning and will take out some of those micro sharp edges as well. But not damage the barrel.

1) Since you have a bore scope, use it to determine the depth from the end of the action (bolt removed of course) to the barrel. Place a piece of masking tape on your cleaning rod so about 3 inches farther to mark the rod. This will allow you to know when you at the beginning of the rifling. I also place one about 10" -12" towards the handle as the majority of the work will be done over this length of the barrel. Finally, place another piece of tape to mark a point that would put the patch about 3" from the muzzle.
2) Soak with Kroil oil by running a wet patch down, but not back through the barrel. You want the barrel wet and then leave it for about 10-15 minutes at a slight down angle so any liquid would drip out of the muzzle and not into the action.
3) Take a patch and put a generous amount with your finger along one edge of the patch. Place this edge on a Jag and wrap the Jag with the patch. When you are done, apply more JB to the wrapped patch to great a soaked patch.
4) Insert from the breach into the barrel and run the JB soaked patch back and forth about 10 times over that 10-12 inch length you marked on the rod.
5) I run the patch then 2-3 times from the breach to within about 3" of the muzzle to clean up the rest.
6) Clean the barrel with what ever you normally use. I use CLP Lube and Cleaner and I never use metal brushes.
7) Check the results and repeat steps 2-6 until clean.

This is something you do NOT do ever time you shoot. It is used to get out heavy buildup. The liquid copper removers don't desolve the copper very fast. They are for light buildup and you will be there forever.

For in between times, I use Bore Tech copper remover, for light buildup. I place a small silicone plug in the muzzle, place the gun vertical with muzzle down and in a small plastic container. Fill the barrel to the end, careful not to get any in the action and leave it for several hours. Sometimes over night. Pull the plug and clean.

Some shooters like Erik Cortez out of Texas uses CLR but the duration is much shorter.

If you are interested in accurate shooting and maybe doing some competition, you might want to check out Accurate Shooter forum. Some amazing people there, friendly and willing to help anyone that is willing to listen. There are a great many different venues of competition that you might enjoy until you are ready to try BR shooting. I enjoy F-Class (Target Rifle). Fell into it by pure accident and love it.

accurateshooter.com/

Good luck
Click to expand...
 
cdhknives said:
You BR guys... I'd love to try out that game, but for now have to content myself building a solidly sub MOA 7 lb hunting rifle or three that don't beat me up when I carry them all day! I have a trued up Rem 700 action in the safe that I hope to someday turn into a heavy varmint/light BR rifle, but not this year and not till I get a lot better with my lathe!
Click to expand...
A good entry point for you would be F-Class. It's more shooter-centric than BR, which all but takes the shooter out of the equation, except at long range where they must work the wind. You can run any scoped rifle (no dang muzzle brakes) with a bipod and sling. Your loading, wind reading, and marksmanship are the drivers, with less emphasis on the idealized engineering in BR. All I've got anymore is a safe full of bolt actions, I love this stuff!
 
I believe that you are referring to Eric Cortina, self appointed "pro shooter" that uses CLR. What ever works. I cant knock it because I havent tried it. I like your cleaning regiment. I'm sure it works fine. The issue that we have in benchrest is that we have 30 minutes between relays. In that 30 minutes, we have to remove all of our equipment from the shooting bench, clean our rifle, go to the loading bench, clean, size, prime, and load about 10 rounds of ammo for the next relay. we also try to look at our previous targets and make decisions on changing the load or loading another 10 rounds with a different powder charge to test during the next relay. Many times we are shooting hot loads and that causes major copper fouling. In addition, some of the powders that we use can be extremely dirty and cause powder fouling. We clean after each relay to stay ahead of the fouling (unless your name is Dan and you molycoat your bullets - he cleans once a day) In our spare time at the loading bench, we try to watch the conditions to determine what condition we want to shoot in.
 
Yep, Earl described it just about right. That is where I am headed this weekend. The first match I have shot in over a year.
Joe
 
Liljoebrshooter said:
Yep, Earl described it just about right. That is where I am headed this weekend. The first match I have shot in over a year.
Joe
Click to expand...
Good luck in the match. I wish I was going but 2500 miles for a weekend shoot is a stretch :) I think I will just stay out of the heat and make bullets this weekend.
 
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