Polishing a Barrel?

[Crazy Coot]

I'm getting ready to pattern my 870 for the upcoming turkey season & someone recommended that I polish my barrel. Is this a common practice & have any of you seen improved patterns as a result? If so, what materials did you use?

 

[dfariswheel]

No real advantage unless your bore is really rough.

There are several ways to polish out the bore, about the easiest is to wrap some 0000 steel wool around a worn bore brush, chuck the rod in a drill and run the drill at medium speeds.
Keep the brush moving up and down the bore and chamber constantly.

Clean thoroughly after polishing.

Doesn't take much to shine the bore up, but again, no real advantage. If the bore is that rough, it needs to go back to Remington for repair or replacement.

 

[Sir Aardvark]

I have found that a brand-new Scotchbrite green scrub pad does a better job than the steel wool for me.

I lengthened the forcing cone in one of my shotguns and the steel wool didn't really do much, but when I put on the Scotchbrite pad, it slicked it up perfectly in no time. I used Breakfree CLP to act as a lubricant during the polishing.

The reason that I tried the Scotchbrite was that the instructions that came with my chamber-reamer suggested it.

Also, polishing the chamber might be more of a standard practice than polishing barrels - as dfaris suggests - you will likely see no change in anything by polishing your barrel.