What is the best muzzle crown?

[jpwilly]

yea.., I don't have any power tools..

Hint...Harbor Freight!

 

[Maverick223]

Hint...Harbor Freight!

Would cost more...and I believe the only tools that they have that are worth buying are specialty (expensive and unlikely to use more than a couple times) and air tools...which are still of dubious (marginal at best) quality IMO. That said, everyone (to include women, children, and primitive screwheads) needs to have basic hand tools. A wise man (Walt Kowalski played by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino) said: Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone.

 

[jpwilly]

^^^ I've gotten lots of great stuff there but yes you have to step over some crap to find the good stuff.

 

[Maverick223]

I can say that they are the cheapest venue in town to purchase Goodyear Air Hoses...which are simply the best (particularly the red rubber version)...and they do have great deals...so perhaps I was a bit hard on them. Also the majority of their tools also have a lifetime guarantee, though the replacement is not likely to be of any better quality.

 

[zxcvbob]

A brass round-head machine screw and JB Bore Paste, and an electric drill. If the existing crown is *really* bad (like you just hacksawed the barrel and did a bad job of it) maybe use Clover valve grinding compound instead of JB.

 

[dubbleA]

If the existing crown is *really* bad (like you just hacksawed the barrel and did a bad job of it) maybe use Clover valve grinding compound instead of JB.

All the valve grinding compound in the world isnt going to help "Bubba" out with a hacksaw job.

The purpose of the crown is to protect the end of the bore(lands and grooves) from defects/dings. That's why they are recessed/counterbored or concaved.
The ideal crown will have it's face exactly 90 degrees to the bore and be burr free and as smooth as possible. This enables the bullet and it's gases to exit as evenly as possible. That is not obtainable with a hacksaw, at least IMHO it's not.

 

[PTK]

If you're hunting, have a hunting crown put on. If you're target shooting, have a target crown. Don't try to have a "do-it-all" crown for a target/hunting/plinking/rabbit/big game rifle.

The ideal crown will have it's face exactly 90 degrees to the bore and be burr free and as smooth as possible. This enables the bullet and it's gases to exit as evenly as possible.

I've never found that to be the case. My preferred target crown is an 11deg recessed, with about the .100" outside diameter of the muzzle not crowned. Other good crowns are simple polished hunter crowns (think everything even, but "melted", basically we just round everything over a bit then polish - REALLY hard to hurt the rifling with that) and full 11deg crowns (no recessing)