anyone used it yet ? i have the kit for my 30.06 but havent been able to convince myself yet seems like it would help wear rifle out quicker but hand lapping has been done for awhile now havent heard much about fire lapping

never done the tubbs thing but i have read some stuff here they say it works. i use firepower-10 and scochbrite and scour it for about 20-30 strokes dry patch then go shoot.good luck

I used tubbs final finish bullets on a 257 Roberts. The barrel would be copper fouled in 5 rounds. This after "break in"of the barrel.
Simply put it did not work as advertised for me. The barrel still fouls the same (as far as I can see). The idea sounds good for a bad barrel. But I was disappointed.

muck

I used it on my .243. I didn't notice an improvement in accuracy, but I did notice a dramatic improvement in how easy the barrel is to clean.

LWD

Posted 09 November 2008 19:14 Hide Post
I have never used the Final Finish bullets in one of my good barrels but have experimented with them in rifles I intended to cannibalize. Sometimes they improve and sometimes they don't but the throats never lengthen appreciably the way they do with abrasive fillers like Puff-Lon. I have even considered using the TMS bullets in a match barrel to see if they do any good.
Posts: 49 | Registered: 28 November 2007

I have never gotten around to the TMS bullets. I've got too much else going on.

I also have never used the Tubbs kit, but have used the Wheeler kit from Midway which comes with 220,320 and 600 grit abrasive and two steel plates used to embed the compound into bullets, directions are included. It will clean up a rough throat very nice and can improve accuracy, especially in an old milsurp. It will move the throat forward FAST, especially on a rough, pitted throat, but the finish will improve accuracy. IIRC 10-220 grit-clean,10-320 grit-clean, 20 600 grit clean lengthened the throat .032" on a mauser of mine(that's a bunch with just 40 rounds), but accuracy with cast bullets improved a bunch. I've used it on revolver throats too and it worked good. Does the Tubbs kit come with bullets impregnated with different grits? If it does you could always skip the cutting grit 220 and just use the polishing grits.

quote:

Does the Tubbs kit come with bullets impregnated with different grits?

The kit comes only with the two finest grits. Ten bullets of each. If you purchase the unloaded component bullets it comes with 5 different grits. I think the instructions may discuss not using the coarsest ones.

LWD

the directions say just to polish with barrels .5 inch groups and to cut and polish 1.5 or more .

I don't know why anyone would want to ruin their barrel by firelapping. I think you'll deplete the barrel life by firing some kind of abrasive bullet down the barrel with the kind of pressures that occur. I'm a believer in Varmint Al's method of break-in
http://www.varmintal.com/ashot.htm#Break

quote:

Originally posted:
I don't know why anyone would want to ruin their barrel by firelapping. [/URL]

How about because done correctly it doesn't ruin barrels? I would not do it to a .5 MOA barrel, but then I wouldn't do anything to those barrels.

But I HAVE done it ito 2 MOA barrels and had them come down to 1 MOA or less.

One really good reason to do it is to save a barrel which is not a very good barrel to start with. What life has the barrel lost if it didn't shoot well enough to use, to start with? So, a person only gets 1,600 rounds out of it with good accuracy afterward (to pick a SWAG number)? If he did not get ANY dependable good accuracy before hand, it seems more like a strong gain of useful barrel life to me.

i tried it today will make some loads and test groups tomorrow . i was concerned about ruining the barrel also but if it does work it wasnt ruined and if it doesnt i would like a better barrel anyways so i will post my results when i shoot . thanks for everyones input

I would agree with AC . If you have a Bench rest barrel quality tolerance WHY use anything ?.

It's already been done for you . If your trying to make a 2" MOA a 1"MOA good luck with that .

If your attempting to reduce copper fouling use moly or you can try what I've been doing for years .

I have special Bore plugs ( Caliber correct Dia.which are cut like rifling and threaded on one end

I simply use a mop with polishing compound start at the chamber end use a bore guide .

Follow the rifling remove the mop when it comes out the barrel repeat and repeat .

This is for factory barrels or less expensive replacement barrels .

I use the slugs at the end so I can identify burs or irregularity's in a bore .

I load them with jewelers rouge and repeat the above process . Works for me .

I also check crowns inside edge for shift burn or erosion . Re cut if necessary .

quote:

Originally posted by rcamuglia:
I don't know why anyone would want to ruin their barrel by firelapping. I think you'll deplete the barrel life by firing some kind of abrasive bullet down the barrel with the kind of pressures that occur. I'm a believer in Varmint Al's method of break-in
http://www.varmintal.com/ashot.htm#Break

I am not sure how you can be certain that any lapping compound applied manually is wearing evenly when applied on a patch and jag. I have never put a patch on a jag that did did not have some folds after it exited the muzzle which does not make for a circle but something of an irregular but generally round shape. As such there are high and low spots on your makeshift plug and your compound will not have even contact. It also does not lap evenly from one end to the other; ends are slightly over diameter after lapping. That is why cutom barrel are marked at the muzzle and cut and crowned short of that point. The breach end which is also slightly enlarged is going to be cut out with the chamber reamer so it doesn't matter.

Abrasive bullets are much finer compounds embedded in a uniform jacket. If you are not using a handlapped(prior to fitting, chambering, and crowning) barrel they offer you more control of the type, amount, and direction of compound being put down your bore and past your crown. Even match barrels suffer from the effects of heat and pressure and the TMS system seems as good a system as any for extending servicability. Turning back and rechambering only works so many times and it's really the throat you are breaking in as it is what has residual tool marks as they should have been lapped out the remaining length of the bore.

FYI ; My mops are not what your thinking of for gun cleaning .

they are special tightly woven muslin cylinders 1.25" in length with the thread in the end dead center.

I proceed after lapping with my plugs with a dye coating inside the bore this allows me to see

Via bore scope where irregularities reside and how much more work I must do .

I'm simply trying to polish slight imperfections an burs which grab jacket material .

I've proven by loading and test firing before an after it works .

Again this is on Factory or less than BR grade barrels . Which I only break in by fire clean fire methods .

process removed .0002 tightened groups .25 on most of my loads cleaning is a lil easier but truthfully didnt see the results i had hoped for . dont think i would do it again .didnt hurt anything but .25 inch is less than bullet diameter .

quote:

process removed .0002

.0002"! WOW that's a mighty small amount to even be able to measure, the average curly red one is 15 times that big.

yeah i wonder if my kit didnt just have the polishing bullets there was no noticable difference at all in the projectiles

Rick -

From the little you have said describing the bullets you used, I can't tell, but it may well be you only had the finishing bullets.

No one system is a cure-all for barrels. But, the object of fire-lapping kits is not to re-machine a worthless barrel. It is to take burrs, tight spots, etc., out of mediocre barrels. (And ALL makers occasionally miss a medicore barrel and ship it to some end-user.) I know I wouldn't give up at this point if I had gotten the results you got with just one trial. Actually, .25 MOA improvement is significant. The next thing I would try is just repeating what you have already done.

If you want to be more aggressive, you can buy the grits for application to your own bullets from either Midway or Brownells among others.

Get two flat pieces of either steel or plate glass. Smear some of the abrasive paste of whichever grit you chose to use, on one of the plates. Put a bullet on the plate, then use the other piece of steel or plate glass to roll the bullet back and forth through the paste, with fairly heavy pressure.

The object of the rolling is to embed the grit in the bullet's jacket. Wipe off the bullets so that only the embedded grit is left on them. (Not wiping the bullets off may result in unnecessary throat damage.) Load, and fire. Thoroughly clean barrel. Repeat with each finer grit you choose to use.

As the barrel is not satisfactory to you as-is anyway, there is no risk, only the chance it may be improved. If it is not improved, what have you lost? The one "bad" possibility, I suppose, is you might end up with a barrel that you wouldn't use but wouldn't feel right about selling to another shooter either.

BTW - Do you still sell guns, etc., through the Gun List (now called the Gun Digest)? If so, I hope you will put them up for sale through the free Classified forum here also. And welcome aboard.

I haven't seen an exhaustive test that showed that Fire Lapping does, or doesn't work.
Until then, I'll hand lap barrels.

Don

I can tell you I have personally been involved in or firelapped myself a bunch of barrels. Over 30 now. The Tubbs system works. Period.

I have seen results from unreal to very moderate, but always some improvement. Throat erosion varied as well, from very little to a max of around 25 thousandths. As to premature wear, I guess you could say that any throat erosion caused by the process is wear--it is in my book-- but not 'undue' or anything like IMO, but what I have seen as an average is a real plus in barrel performance.

Several of these barrels have shot well over 500 rounds since being firelapped, and are still performing great. All of these cases I describe have been with handloaded rounds,using the entire spectrum of the Final Finish 'grits' with a slow velocity load, and in many cases with low power Blue Dot loads that were developed from load data Seafire gave the basics on.

good luck with your rig!

ok i spent 2 hours cleaning my barrel and played with seating depth very little i am now getting .75 4 round groups have to say i would do it again but you definatly have alot of seriuos cleaning to do as for premature wear if you get the accuracy it wont take as many rounds to hit where you want . plus is more fun to shoot