Best Way to Polish a Shotgun Bore

[Kestrel]

I have a spare 12ga. 870 barrel, that is marked on the package as being an Express model barrel. It's 20", with rifle sights. The bore is not as polished as my other barrels and I wondered about polishing it. I would appreciate any help/advice.

I'm assuming the benefit of it being polished, would be less leading? (I haven't used this barrel, yet, so don't know from experience.)

I thought of a couple of options:

1. Get a 10ga. bore mop and coat it with some sort of polishing compound (Simi-Chrome? Jeweler's Rouge?) Chuck it on a cleaning rod in a power drill and polish away. Clean the bore afterwards. (This seems like it would provide the smoothest results.)

2. Wrap 0000 steel wool around a 12ga. cleaning brush and chuck it on a cleaning rod in a power drill and polish away. Follow up with a good bore scrubbing to get rid of any of the steel wool residue.

Another question - any tips on keeping the polishing consistant throughout the bore (to keep from having any "high-spots and "low-spots")?

Thanks for any help,
Steve

 

[pauli]

have you cleaned it yet?

 

[Kestrel]

have you cleaned it yet?

No. Why?

 

[Dave McCracken]

Clean it first, Steve. Remington uses some thick preservatives. It may be all you need is those removed.

Once the bore is pristine, you can polish as listed above, though draw polishing will do a better job than rotary polishing.

Also....

Old style shells with fiber wads will polish the bore somewhat. These can still be obtained from Gamebore or made. Ballistic Products carries these and components. Ballistic Specialities may also.

We may be splitting hairs. We've all made some good shots with bores that were less than perfect. One old timer who took a lot of turkeys home from shoots let his bore rust,saying it shot "harder" meaning tighter. His results indicated there may be some truth in that.

 

[Hawk]

I had an older Elsie with sticking shells that enthusiastic cleaning mostly took care of.

This, however, works like a dream: hone

I only got the chamber hone but I'm happy enough I may have to get the set.

 

[Kestrel]

Thanks for the info. The bore has circular swirls throughout the length from a more coarse factory polish job. (Very light circles all the way through the bore.) I didn't know if this makes any difference in any way, since all my other shotguns have very smooth bores.

Thanks again.

 

[Nnobby45]

Get lead out

I have two 870 Combat shotgun barrels, 18 and 18.5". One is shiny and slick as a whistle, the other isn't very well polished, especially in the forcing cone area ahead of the chamber. It's too rough to polish, even with compound and steel wool. Don't know why the facory didn't do it.

When using large amounts of soft Foster slugs, both of them seem to collect more lead than the Dalton gang on their last visit to Coffeyville, Kansas.

Fortunately, I've found that using some of that curled up metal pot cleaning stuff (Scotchbrite?) makes short work of lead and cleans it right out of there. Wrap some on a bore brush and use after soaking the bore in solvent. The lead comes out so fast, it's almost fun to clean the barrel. --do it outside!.

What I thought was plastic residue from the wad or gradex (that cushions the shot) was actually accumulations of lead. Bore brush doesn't quite do it.

 

[HSMITH]

Wrap a tight fitting bore brush with a couple patches, chuck the rod up in your drill motor and polish in and out while turning with the drill. Coat the patches with lapping compound. I would start with 400, then 600 and then final polish with JB Bore Cleaning Paste.

 

[Fumbler]

I take a wood dowel and wrap enough steel wool to fit snug in the barrel. Chuck it up in a drill and spin it while going up and down the bore. After that I take the steel wool/dowel and push in and out of the bore (put the muzzle on the ground on a piece of paper so I dont have to try to pull it back through the muzzle) while turning it a tiny bit after each stroke.

My gun is a Mossberg 500 and I've never seen machining marks so deep. They look like rings going down the bore. It leads up a lot with foster slugs, but after the steel wool polishing it cleans out much easier.

 

[bosshoff]

Polish bore?

What is a Polish bore? Is this some kind of European pig?

 

[Nnobby45]

What is a Polish bore? Is this some kind of European pig?

No. It's a dull nitwit from a former East European satellite country.