Flitz a pitted bore?

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wiscoaster

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I have this M1916 Spanish Mauser that's been shooting inconsistent point-of-impact. The bore is clean and not "shot out", the rifling is not too bad, typical of bolt-action milsurps of this age, modest rounding of the land edges, but the lands do look like they might have some surface pitting going on. That's to the naked eye, as I don't have a borescope. I suppose that could account for it spraying bullets all over the place?? And I suppose I could just keep shooting it until the copper deposits from the FMJ bullets smooth over the pits? But 7 mm Mauser is not cheap. I've Flitzed chambers before with rifles that had sticky extraction issues, and that worked. What do you guys think of Flitzing the whole barrel bore?
 
I would do a cleaning with a good solvent that will remove copper fouling first, Butches bore solvent would be my first choice. Then follow up with a non embedding bore paste and hand lap the barrel. I have not used Flitz on any bores.
 
Thanks; already done above, except for hand lapping. Not familiar with that process. Will look into it.
 
If the barrel is real bad you could try fire-lapping or bullet lapping, the other option would hand lapping.
 
GBExpat said:
Since the Throat & Muzzle are, apparently, OK, I would waste neither the Flitz nor the effort.

My next step would be to follow the advice offered by CoalCrackerAl.
Click to expand...
Yes, good advice, except I only have the one rifle in 7 mm Mauser, and while there's a pretty good variety of that caliber available, at $25 - $30 a box, following that advice could prove expensive. Probably not worth it for the one rifle, especially as it's not a really outstanding instance of its make and model.
 
I used a technique on all my milsurps years ago that gave good results. Almost all my milsurps had dark bores. Nothing super bad, but dark all the same. I cleaned them as per the normal routine and I then took a very old and clapped out .30 cal cleaning brush and wrapped it with a cotton cleaning patch (old t shirt/rag piece). Once firmly wrapped and ready, I slathered the patch with J-B Bore Lap and started working the patch through the bore over and over. After an undetermined amount of passes I mopped the bore with Kroil and dried it to observe. It was cleaner, the rifling looked a lot sharper to my naked eyes, and it cleaned up a lot easier after the next shooting session.

I referred to this as "patch-lapping" years ago when I did it, but was promptly corrected and told my terminology was wrong. I still call it that.o_O
 
I was gifted an old milsurp and the barrel was in pretty bad shape. Someone told me to get some Butche's Bore Paste and a few stiff brass brushes and go to work. I worked on that barrel for about 3 days and wore out more than 3 brushes, but when I got done the results were worth it.
 
I'm going to try the bore paste, but I don't have any on hand, and my Enfield came in yesterday, so it's at the top of the project queue now, and the Spanish Mauser will have to be deferred.
 
JB Bore Paste will do about all that's possible in a rough bore.
If you want you can finish it with JB Bore Shine to get the maximum out of the job.
 
wiscoaster said:
I'm going to try the bore paste, but I don't have any on hand, and my Enfield came in yesterday, so it's at the top of the project queue now, and the Spanish Mauser will have to be deferred.
Click to expand...
Try cleaning with CLR. Then go back to a copper solvent. Rinse and repeat until patches come out clean with both CLR and solvent.
If that doesn't work. Lapping is next.
 
If you're shooting blue-box PPU, I suspect their bullets are undersized, and have given me inconsistent accuracy in several milsurps. We are lucky they are around (being the only remaining source for so many old cartridges), and they go bang every time, but it is not match grade fodder for sure.
 
If you've got pits--actual 'holes' where barrel steel is gone--running flitz or whatever polish, isn't going to do anything for the pits...
except maybe temporarily fill them, with polishing paste.

If you have raised mounds of active rust, the polish might help wear off the residue, once you brush out the rust heaps.

All that said, if you shoot it and it's awful, might as well try it, if you tried everything else.

Don't forget to eyeball the crown. Sometimes gawdawful looking bores can shoot quite well, but a dinged crown will
mess up any barrel.
 
Steve762us said:
If you've got pits--actual 'holes' where barrel steel is gone...
Click to expand...
I had a discussion at a local range with another shooter about my problem and I think I don't have the expertise to distinguish between "frosted" and "pitted" and also I don't have a borescope to really examine it closely. It was his opinion that the bore was "frosted" and not "pitted".
Steve762us said:
Don't forget to eyeball the crown.
Click to expand...
The crown is fine, but good point to bring that up. Was checked before peeling out the bills to give the seller. ;)
 
What bullet weight are you using? Military rifles of that era have fairly tight twists. Make sure you are using a reasonable weight bullet for that twist.
 
Nature Boy said:
Consider getting a bore scope. There are some really good ones for under $100 on Amazon. Specifically, the Teslong bore scope.
Click to expand...
OK, thanks will check it out. The cheapest Brownell's has is the Lyman for some $300+ which is hardly justifiable for my usage.
 
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