Bore scope and over thinking

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  • Last Post 21 July 2016
Duke M posted this 20 July 2016

Last month we had a little cast bullet military rifle shoot here at Thorn Hollow. One 03 Springfield sporter purchased at a pawn shop for 225 and rebedded, recrowned, and equipped with a Leupold M8 6x target scope with a one minute dot became the darling of the assemble throng and was subsequently used by 5 different shooters. Now we are shooting silhouettes, small buffaloes at 210 yards, sitting from cross sticks, and the .311” lino 311284's with the old Lyman brass checks, Ben's red in the rear groove, and BLL over coat, are basically dropping right under the dot time after time, 50 buffaloes with out a miss, and the extra tie breaker sitting cat silhouette also. The gunsmith who performed the bedding and crown work had a Lyman bore scope along and was scoping some bores during a bull session before supper. Another old sporter with a new 2 groove 03A3 barrel got the first barrelanoscopy and looked very nice. Some minor reamer marks at the throat, a couple of striations in a groove, but over all very nice.  You can guess what happened next. The scope was sent probing up the tube of the match winning rifle and horror of horror, all manner of offensive defects were observed. I got to see cracking or crazing that resembles the bottom of a California drought stricken lake bed. Some leading, even though my patch exits the barrel with nary a sparkle even after a few hundred rounds have passed. God forbid, there was a pit, a black an evil looking thing, just waiting to wreak rusty havoc on future projectiles. The good gunsmith tried to remind me that we were looking at tiny issues under extreme magnification. A shooting buddy observing my dismay, tried to console me, reminding me that the proof is in the results. All true, but had I had a barrel scope with me at the pawn shop, I would never had bought that rifle.  Rationally, I can tell myself that indeed I am having fun with this rifle. It is not fussy, any reasonably assembled cast bullet load seems to shoot well as long as bullet is at least .310". I guess the point of my rambling diatribe is that I was reminded how easy it is to over think this hobby. Next month I plan on taking this rifle to Van Dyne and try it on paper against other military rifles and see ho we fare. I hope to eventually forget the trauma of the scoping and just relax and shoot. Duke

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Ed Harris posted this 20 July 2016

Owning bore scope is like patterning a .410 skeet gun that you shoot well.

It messes with your head. If the rifle shoots well, don't distract yourself.

I once shot four Finn M28 and 28/30 rifles with cast over a whole summer. A Civil Guards rifle with salt & pepper bore out-shot three others with bright, shint ones. After that I sold the bore scope and instead cast chambers and bought custom molds which “fit".

73 de KE4SKY In Home Mix We Trust From the Home of Ed's Red in "Almost Heaven" West Virginia

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billwnr posted this 20 July 2016

Duke, you didn't say anything about how far off center the chamber was. I have one that's a few .000 off and based on how fast they were rifled (and probably chambered) I would think that off-centricity isn't that uncommon.

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Duke M posted this 20 July 2016

billwnr wrote: Duke, you didn't say anything about how far off center the chamber was. I have one that's a few .000 off and based on how fast they were rifled (and probably chambered) I would think that off-centricity isn't that uncommon.Good grief, yet another thing to worry about? I was all atwitter because I can inter change Lee collet neck sized brass fired in 5 different Springfields and therefore was bragging about how the Government used to be able to something right. It is nice to be able to neck size mil-surp brass, run a 31-R M-die in and out, dump in about 16 rains of one flavor or the other of 4227, and top it with a Lee 312-155-SP or what I've heard called the SKS bullet. Alloy, not important, size it .311", BHN of 8 to 21, Lyman checks, Hornady checks, aluminum checks, no matter. Walk out in the yard and blaze away, less than the 10 cents per round we have come to expect as the new normal for 22 lr. Oh heck, the thunder storm just passed and I hear some steel chickens just begging to get knocked off the rail and into the mud. Duke

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gnoahhh posted this 20 July 2016

I looked at a rifle once that the store owner graciously ran his bore scope through for me. What looked like dust and cobwebs turned out to be craters and lakes. I then passed on it. A buddy went over later and bought it anyway. You guessed it- the thing will bust Necco Wafers at 100yds. all day long.

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Duke M posted this 20 July 2016

We shooters do love to over analyze things. A guy yesterday was telling me that he measures the length then weighs 17 dollar a box 22 match ammo. We were shooting at 10"x15” buffalo silhouettes from a bench at 300 yards.

Satisfaction comes in many forms. Minutiae can be fascinating.

Duke

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John Alexander posted this 20 July 2016

I am not surprised at Duke's tale. Bore scoping allows you to see bore condition, badly cut throats and sometimes all sorts of horrors. I am a curious sort and wouldn't be without one. However, it will NOT tell you the barrel will shoot well.  It may sometimes tell you that a barrel won't shoot but I have never had that experience. I once scoped four different Savage M-12 10-12 years ago.  Some looked like the Alaska Range and none were close to smooth.  All shot well under 1 MOA.  A new hammer forged Remington I have looked like a mirror but only shoots fair.

I once bore scoped a dozen Winchester 52s, that had been used in a rec center, and then shot them. There seemed to almost be an inverse  correlation between bore appearance and how well they shot.  The very worst looking bore with all sort of damage in the last half inch at the muzzle was the best of the lot.

This matches over a hundred years of evidence that having a good or even decent crown has no effect on accuracy as I reported in  Fouling Shot # 130. John

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RicinYakima posted this 20 July 2016

"Satisfaction comes in many forms. Minutiae can be fascinating." The fun, for me, is in making it shoot the “best", not necessarily the most precise. I have been accused of counting the grains of 2400 I load in my '03 match rifle cases.

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gnoahhh posted this 21 July 2016

RicinYakima wrote: "Satisfaction comes in many forms. Minutiae can be fascinating." The fun, for me, is in making it shoot the “best", not necessarily the most precise. I have been accused of counting the grains of 2400 I load in my '03 match rifle cases.

Do you pick the fly sh*t out of Bullseye  pistol loads too?!.>

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