Ugly bore

[Roudy]

I have a Mosin Nagant M38 with a really ugly bore. The rifling is still prominent, but the grooves are dark and rough looking, and regardless of how many patches I run through the bore I cannot get a clean patch out.

I've read about "fire lapping" somewhere in the last few years but have never tried it. I have some medium and fine valve grinding compound and lead bullets of the right diameter. Can I use these components?

How do I go about cleaning (smoothing) the bore of this rifle?

Has anyone done this before?

 

[Fumbler]

Get some JB Bore Paste or Remington Bore Cleaner (the Rem stuff can be found at Walmart).
Those two cleaners have mild abrasives that won't hurt the bore but will clean all the crud out.
They will also slightly polish the bore the same way firelapping works.

You may also want to try a bronze brush.

As far as firelapping, I don't know how well it would work to use valve grinding compound. I don't know how fine your grinding compound is, but I believe the firelapping kits they sell are real fine, up in the 1000 grit range.

 

[Koobuh]

I have a similar problem.

How well does your m38 shoot despite the ugly bore? I have trouble staying on paper at 100 yards, patterning all over the place with my M44. It looks like a rifled sewer pipe in there, nice high lands but the grooves are horrifying.
I suspect my Bushnell Trophy holosight has a wandering zero, so I will be putting the iron sights back in at some point, but I'd like to know if there's even a point in trying.

 

[pax]

Dang, I saw the thread title and thought y'all were talking about some of my relatives ...



pax

 

[dakotasin]

i've fire lapped, and would generally reccomend against it.

it polished my bore right up, cleaning was a breeze, and i never did get another decent group out of that gun - on average, my group sizes doubled, velocity was slightly lower, and standard deviations increased dramatically.

what i would do w/ a mosin like that if it were mine, would run experiments on it. check the distance to the rifling as it is, fire off say 100 shots in a slow fire method (maybe every 45 seconds), and check throat wear. then, i'd run 100 thru it as fast as i possibly could w/ minimal or no breaks, and then check throat wear again to determine if shooting a hot barrel erodes the throat faster than shooting a cool bore (it does, but getting a barrel that hot is fun anyway, so i do it whenever i can). then, i'd cut the barrel off to 16", shorten and lighten the stock, and keep it in my truck.

sorry... your post started me thinking of all the abuse i've heaped on cheap guns (mausers, especially), and it brought back warm fuzzy memories... thought i'd share so you could have some fun, too.

 

[Roudy]

How well does your m38 shoot despite the ugly bore? I have trouble staying on paper at 100 yards, patterning all over the place with my M44. It looks like a rifled sewer pipe in there, nice high lands but the grooves are horrifying.
I suspect my Bushnell Trophy holosight has a wandering zero, so I will be putting the iron sights back in at some point, but I'd like to know if there's even a point in trying.

Last week I shot at 50 yards, three of five shots in about 1 1/2 inches, the other two were off the paper plate target.

 

[Roudy]

then, i'd cut the barrel off to 16", shorten and lighten the stock, and keep it in my truck.

Why would you keep the rifle....to use it as a club? If a rifle can't hit what you are aiming at of what use is it?

Maybe I'll just have to get another rifle....guess I could have some fun with this one first though.

 

[palerider1]

sounds like lead build up. did you try running a brush through it multiple times?

 

[iamkris]

sounds like lead build up. did you try running a brush through it multiple times?

Given it is a Russian surplus rifle, I doubt it is lead build up. What he describes is the common sewer pipe bore of a rifle shot often with corrosive ammo and cleaned little.

 

[cracked butt]

That dark fuzziness probably will not come out no matter what you do.
If JB bore paste doesn't take it out, try shooting it until its really hot and cleaning it while hot, then repeating. If that doesn't work, you can try one of the electronic bore cleaners like Outers Foul Out. Its pretty likely that the grooves are pitted pretty good and the pits are filled in with jacket metal, if you remove all of the fouling, its likely that the grooves will look like a lunar landscape and will eventually fill back in with fouling again anyhow.

My advice: shoot it the way it is, don't go hogwild on trying to get the bore to look like new because it never will.

 

[salty]

Nice rifle - should be able to keep on paper plate at 75 - 100 meters. Three products to try in concert with each other - JB's bore cleaner, Breakfree CLP and a foaming bore cleaner (any one of them as they all appear to be the same mfg. Outers, CLP, etc.). Use them one after another over a 2 or 3 day period as you need to leave some of the cleaners in rifle for at least an hour. Use the foam first and you should get blue on your patch - the JB's followed by CLP - repeat a few times and see if you get improvement. I am not a big fan of firelapping for your application. Good luck.

 

[db_tanker]

I was going to suggest the foaming bore cleaner...they have two, I believe...one for lead and one for copper fouling...did you buy it wrapped in paper or was it "secondhand" off of a person and not a dealer?

It MIGHT be lead fouling, so you never know...plug the muzzle and let that bore foam work for an hour or so...use CLP to finish out...had my winchester badly fouled with nasty cast boolits and the foam worked like a champ...had to do it twice...now it shoots HARD cast with Trailboss and no leading.

D

 

[ARperson]

My husband has a nice (on the outside russian SKS) with a really bad bore. He quit cleaning it after firing because he found that once all the pitting was full of copper, it shot much better.

 

[Roudy]

Just bought and tried some Break Free Foaming Bore Cleaner for the first time. I've just used Hoppes, elbow grease and brass wool previously. The foaming bore cleaner is some neat stuff! I could actually watch the foam turn from white to ugly gray as it took the first layer of crud off.

Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[Meplat]

I've read about "fire lapping" somewhere in the last few years but have never tried it. I have some medium and fine valve grinding compound and lead bullets of the right diameter. Can I use these components?

How do I go about cleaning (smoothing) the bore of this rifle?

Has anyone done this before?

Fire lapping is normally done with jeweler's rouge....a VERY fine grit abrasive. I don't think I'd want to use anything as aggressive as valve grinding compound.

I've never done it myself (firelapping) but have a couple of friends who have. Their results varied. One's accuracy decreased, one saw a slight improvement.

 

[Meplat]

My husband has a nice (on the outside russian SKS) with a really bad bore. He quit cleaning it after firing because he found that once all the pitting was full of copper, it shot much better.

I have an old .22 Glenfield that I counter rooked an old gun trading buddy of mine on for ten dollars. (Hey - it's karma - he rooked me first on a Detective Special ). That thing would nail a quarter everytime offhand at forty yards. Then I screwed up and cleaned the bore. Accuracy fell apart til I had fired it MANY more times, then returned. Have had that little rifle now for 25 years, still pot every squirrel I get in the crosshairs, and nope, never scrubbed the barrel again. AFTER I did it the first time, read an article that said to NEVER scrub the bore of .22. Had this not happened, I'da roundfiled the article as "junk" and forgotten about it.

 

[db_tanker]

Just bought and tried some Break Free Foaming Bore Cleaner for the first time. I've just used Hoppes, elbow grease and brass wool previously. The foaming bore cleaner is some neat stuff! I could actually watch the foam turn from white to ugly gray as it took the first layer of crud off.

Be sure to let us know how it works at the range, okay?

And also don't forget to slug the bore...go to Academy or Wal-Mart and get some lead sinkers that approximate the dia of the bore. Wooden dowel from Lowes or Homless Depot and a good hammer.


D

 

[Roudy]

db,

I tried to slug the bore last week using a 45 cal pure lead ball. Not going to do that again! The bore was so rough that the lead slug broke apart and part of it stuck in the bore, took forever to get the lead out of that barrel. So slugging is out unless the bore magically turns shiney, which I doubt.

Just hope I can get it to keep all shots on an 8" paper plate at 100 yards.