setting a barrel back(throat erosion)

[CrazyIrishman]

I have an old sporter built on a '34 Mauser 98 action chambered in 22-250. About four years ago I sold it and then two years ago I re-acquired it. The guy I got it back from claimed that the accuracy was terrible. Since I never shot it during the short time I had it, I have no idea what it could do. When I got it back it was in rough shape .

Next week I want to have a gunsmith check out how much throat erosion the barrel has along with rifling & muzzle wear(and possible damage considering how the exterior looked).

Now for my questions. How far can the barrel be set back before the shorter barrel affects how the cartridge performs? Are there other calibers that can be used in place of the 22-250? With the muzzle, is it better to counterbore, or cut and re-crown? And...worst case scenario, at what point are you better off chucking the old barrel and buying a new one? The barrel was made by Douglas in May '57 and its marked XX PREMIUM.


THX
CI

 

[Sunray]

"...rough shape..." Give it a really good bath and shoot it before you do anything. Chances are it wasn't ever cleaned by the guy you bought it from.

 

[Jim K]

Throat erosion is fairly common in rifles of the .22-250 class, and can occur in as few as 1000 rounds. It won't affect accuracy as much as muzzle damage or wear. Unless the other owner shot that rifle a lot, I rather doubt TE is the problem, though.

Most sporter barrels can be set back enough to get rid of throat erosion when the new chamber is cut, so setting back the barrel is an option. But loss of accuracy (assuming the rifle was accurate to begin with) may be due more to general crud than TE or muzzle wear, so I would do as Sunray suggests and give the rifle a good cleaning. You should be able to check muzzle wear yourself and might even be able to see throat erosion if it is there.

After cleaning, check the accuracy yourself. I have had many people tell me this or that gun wouldn't shoot or wasn't accurate, and they were right. For them, no rifle could have been accurate because they couldn't shoot.

If you do have the barrel cut, figure about 50-75 fps velocity reduction per inch of barrel.

Jim

 

[CrazyIrishman]

I did clean it throughly using Hoppes #9 and while a little crud came out it wasn't terrible. While cleaning I did notice some marks around the end of the muzzle that were not there prior to my selling the rifle in the beginning. The rifling doesn't seem to be affected from what I can see.

As solvents go the only one I've ever used has been Hoppes #9. What other solvents can you recommend that do a better job? Also, what do you think about using J-B bore cleaning compund? A friend mentioned it to me but I though I check with y'all first.


Thanks for your advice!

 

[Firehand]

Might try Sweet's 7.62 or Hoppe's Benchrest; both good general cleaner and good at cutting out copper fouling.

I've heard both good & bad about J.B., I'd try the others first.

If you've got marks on the muzzle around the crown, might want to try the cleaning and shoot it, then recrown; doesn't take much there to screw with accuracy, especially with cartridges like this.

 

[Clemson]

When a Mauser barrel is set back, it is typically set back by one thread. That amount of shortening won't affect performance.

Cutting and crowning the barrel would be much more effective from an accuracy standpoint than counterboring.

That barrel is nearly 50 years old. It may be time to put a new tube on it. The Model 98 is one of the simplest actions to rebarrel, so it shouldn't cost you an arm and a leg to get it done.

Clemson

 

[CrazyIrishman]

Clemson,

The barrel actually is dated 27 May '57. Its one DAY older than me! How weird is that? Maybe I'll throw a party for the BBL. LOL

 

[BBBBill]

...The barrel actually is dated 27 May '57. Its one DAY older than me!...

I,ve got shoes older than you. LOL!

 

[Jim Watson]

As said, use some of the tough solvents; JB is not going to hurt anything.

Try seating the bullets out; if the throat is eroded you can recapture some accuracy by going to a longer OAL.

Setting a barrel back for a clean throat usually calls for an inch or more, look at the barrel contour to see if it can be done. A friend of mine has a Hart .223 that has been set back once and he wishes he had less taper at the breech to let it be done again. One thread setbacks are mostly for headspace adjustment.

Crowning ought not to cost much, but setback would. If you don't know for sure that it was accurate before, it might not pay to try to restore accuracy in a barrel that did not have much to start with.

 

[CrazyIrishman]

I,ve got shoes older than you. LOL!

Well....BBBB, they don't SMELL....ummm,OLD do they?


After looking at the barrel over good tonight I noticed that on the underside of the barrel is a stamp that reads FLAIG'S . Looked it up on the net and found out that FLAIG'S was a well known gunsmith in the Pittsburgh,Pa area. They supposedly used Douglas barrels almost exclusively and built custom rifles on Mauser actions, and sold barrels (for several makes)and barreled actions.

They were in business from the (mid) 50's until about '69- '70 building rifles and afterwards sold stock blanks according to available info.


Does anyone have additional information to add?