I have done some research on rough bores and throat areas and I think I have a real candidate for the Bon Ami procedure.

I have a .257 Weatherby Magnum (Mark V Deluxe) that just does not look right from the chamber. Every rifle I have has nice, crisp lands that are easily seen by my eyes. I have a .243 Winchester, .270 Winchester, several .300 Winchester Magnums, and a 7mm Weatherby magnum as well as several .22's. I think I know what the throat should look like on a clean rifle.

This is where the .257 Weatherby comes in. My father bought it brand new about 15 years ago. He never shot it much (maybe 2 boxes of factory and maybe 20 handloads). Those handloads consisted of Nosler max load of IMR 4831 behind 120 grain Partitions. After that it sat in the gun safe for a long time before I really got interested in it. I started out working with it and the only powder I put through it for a long time was IMR 7828 under a 115 grain Ballistic Silvertip. I was roasting those pretty good with 71 grains of powder for ~ 3,400 fps. During load workup I was above that at times. After workup I fired probably 100 - 150 rounds through it, giving it the normal cleaning I did at the time which consisted of Hoppes Copper Solvent.

At some point later on, I learned a little more about guns and noticed that the lead/throat and about 6 or 8 inches of barrel were always noticibly rough when running a brush or patch through the barrel. This got me thinking I was shooting the barrel out...especially since the lands were in no way crisp or easily defined. I contacted a local gunsmith and he told me to go to work with JB Bore Paste and really get after it with the elbow grease. I followed his recommendation, and it got smoother, but the lands never really became defined. I sent it to him and he said he ran the foul out system in it and I must have gotten it as clean as it was going to get because he didn't get any more out of it.

When I got it back, it looked the same. I just figured that is the way it is supposed to be.

Fast forward a few years of minimal shooting of this rifle because accuracy has deteriorated to the point of frustration. I have tried accubonds, tsx's, partitions and ballistic tips with RL25, H1000, RL22, IMR7828 to no satisfaction. My brother in law has a .257 Weatherby that has a broken stock, but he wants to get it in order so before we send it off to the smith we decide to clean it. It's lands are crisp and very defined. I decided something is up with mine.

I have cleaned it with wipe out to eliminate all copper fouling. I have scrubbed it with Butches Bore Shine until the patches come out clean. I have JB Bore Pasted it. With all of that there are still three things that bother me. I can visually see small bumps in the barrel. The lands are not crisp. The patch or brush still feels rough going through that portion of the barrel.

The only thing I can figure is that I let the carbon fouling get ahead of me before I knew what kind of animal it was, and I have never gotten a handle on it.

The only other thing I could attribute it to is a shot out barrel, but I tend to think that is not the case because there is no way that gun has any more than 400 rounds total through it and I don't shoot more that three shot groups to keep the barrel from heating up too much, with the exception of one coyote that got twelve shots at once and no coyote

Anyway, I think I am going to try the Bon Ami trick until one of two things happen:

1. I get this crud out and have a decent barrel with crisp definable lands, or

2. I end up with a smoothbore from the amount of elbow grease it takes in looking for those lands

Any ideas, suggestions, or answers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

You should get it borescoped before doing anything.....that will tell you what you have on your hands. My eyes have got to be going bad. You are the second guy in a chat room that said he could see how crisp the lands are on a rifle with the naked eye. I just can't see that good.

My take is that it's a worn bore. It's a 257wetherby that should wear quicker than a 264win mag. 400 rounds max loads with insufficient copper cleaning (Hoppes doesn't remove much) and 12 rounds rapid (that must literaly have been glowing!) would do that.

My own 6.5x55 has a noticably worn throat and that sort of roughness which is at least in part barrel wear - that's from about 800rounds. I put this wear down to insufficient copper cleaning during break in (Hoppes!) and first 200rounds, use of double base powders, max loads and shihlen barrel (not much meat on the lands) Accuracy is still superb however so I don't really mind.

Weatherby rifles were notorious for their long, gradually tapering throats. This is the way that they got all that velocity without extreme pressures. Your throat may be normal. I second the suggestion to have it borescoped.

Well, I got after it last night...at least a little bit. Here is what I did, and here are the results thus far.

I already had a brush that was wrapped with a patch and charged with JB Bore paste that I had been working the barrel over with. I decided instead of mixing the Bon Ami with a solvent (Shooters Choice, BBS, etc.)why not just add some to the JB Bore Paste. That is what I did and just charged by brush/patch combo every ten full strokes of the barrel to make sure I had good scrubbing action. I did this until I had passed the bore 100 full strokes. Then I cleaned out all of the residue with Butches Bore shine and tight patches.

Results:

Before the Bon Ami scrubbing the barrel looked as described in the first post.

Before the Bon Ami scrubbing a 6mm patch was a good size patch to push through the barrel, but a 7mm patch was better if I cut a third off the width and a fourth of the length.

After the Bon Ami scrubbing the barrel still looks similar, but the lands are becoming slightly more distinct.

After the Bon Ami scrubbing I am pushing full 7mm patches down the barrel with just the right amount of resistance...pushing a 7mm patch down the barrel before was not possible, it would have ruined the cleaning rod when it bent in half.

After the Bon Ami scrubbing, I still get some grey on my patches that are pushed through dry and tight...although it is faint I believe this is showing me that I still have hard, hard carbon fouling in the leade and 1st few inches of barrel.

The barrel in total is much smoother than before.

I think I will continue with another 100 full strokes tonight and see where it gets me, but right now I am highly optimistic that this is getting me where I need to go.

I will keep you posted as this progresses.

I just went home for lunch and worked on it a bit more...you know how it gets on your mind and it won't rest until you get to the end...whatever the end is

Anyway, I scrubbed some more, and it appears to be getting smoother all of the time.

On the way back from lunch I thought of something that may be the problem, or may not. Before I started shooting Combined Technology Ballistic Silvertips through this gun I didn't know enough about barrels, cleaning, copper build up, carbon fouling, ect. to fill a thimble. Then I started reading more, visiting these sites and tinkering more on my own and have learned a thing or two along the way. Not that any of that really matters, but my thought at lunch today was that this may actually be buildup of a different sort.

What are the possibilities of the alleged buildup being attributed to the lubalox coating on the CT bullets? A lot of questions have been asked about what exactly lubalox is, but no one really seems to know. I do know that whatever is in the barrel is no longer causing any chemical reaction with Wipeout, Butches Bore Shine or Shooters Choice solvents. The only thing removing things are mild abrasives...at a very slow rate I might add.

Anyway, I got thinking that maybe this stuff might be the culprit, or at least a compounding factor.

I am sure I will never know the exact cause of the buildup, and that is probably not that important. What is important is that I now know about the animal and can keep it in check. I will keep plugging away at it this weekend and let you all know the results.

Hey 300Winnie, It sounds like Carbon or Residue to me too. Good luck with the Bon Ami, it is the only thing I ever used that would cut the H870 Residue left in my Mags.

Can't comment on the Combined Tech or Ballistic Silvertips because I've never shot any.
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Before you get too wild though, try shooting it and see how the Grouping is doing.

Best of luck to you.

Hot Core,

I was hoping you would jump in.

I have shot it to see how it was grouping and it is really what got me to this point. I know the gun is capable of better than what it has been doing. I have been trying to get a load worked up with a little tougher bullet such as the Accubond or the TSX. I have tried RL25, RL22, IMR7828 and H1000 with different combinations of these bullets with nothing really impressing me on a remotely consistent basis.

I figured it was time to get down and dirty with this barrel to see if it could be salvaged so to speak, or whether I needed to look into other options (rebarrel).

So far this looks promising, but it is messy and it is time consuming...but if it pays off in the end that is o.k.

Thanks for your previous posts on the matter, they have inspired me to go for it.

"Weatherby rifles were notorious for their long, gradually tapering throats. This is the way that they got all that velocity without extreme pressures."

That is what I am really starting to think about this barrel. The thing that confuses me is that my brother-in-law's .257 Weatherby is a Mark V, West German. His lands seem much deeper and more defined. I have a friend that just purchased a Vanguard in .257 Weatherby and he has never fired it. It looks really deep and defined (as is expected).

With the scrubbing I have done with mine I have gotten it to where it is fairly well defined now, but the grooves seem to have very little depth to them at the first. I can see where they start, and they all seem to start square from the same point of origin, it just seems that they have a really shallow angle of cut where they begin.

I'm just a little confused as to whether this is the way they cut these barrel/throats/lands at one time, or whether I have a worn leade. The only thing that makes be think it is not that worn is that I can see the origin of the grooves and they appear to all be square with each other.

I don't know if this makes any difference or not, but it was manufactured during the period they had them done in Japan.

Hey 300winnie, I've no idea either, but making small changes from time to time is just part of manufacturing.

I have a 308Win in a Wby U-Lt where the Lands actually start sooner than in a Remington. We hear all the stories about Free Bore and Weatherby rifles, but it is quite obvious they do not apply the same thoughts to non-Weatherby chamberings.

This particular Web U-Lt would be perfect for using all the Plastic Tip style Bullets with the typically long sleek Ogives.
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One thing I'd encourage you to do is take a single Bullet, measure the distance for it to just Kiss-the-Lands, record that distance on a piece of paper that will fit inside your Die Box, and store both that same Bullet with that piece of paper for future Reference. That way you can get an idea of how much the Throat is receeding in relation to the number of shots.

I have an Excel Program set up that has four of these sheets on it. It is set up like this:
1. Max Cartridge Length to fit the magazine, which I just call Magazine Length.
2. Initial Throat Length, as described above.

Then I skip down a line or two and have a series of lines for this info:
3. Type of Bullet
4. (Overall Cartridge Length)
5. And primarily the conversion to Overall Seating Die Length(OSDL) for each style of Bullet to just Kiss-the-Lands.

Each time a new box of Bullets is opened, the new OSDL is determined and entered if it is different from any previous measurement for that same Bullet(which it usually is). And it is also recorded on the actual Bullet Box. If the OSDL is on the Box, I know I'm using Bullets from it before using the same style Bullet in other boxes.
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Shoot the rifle, with plenty of time between shots and see how well it is grouping now. Hopefully all the scrubbing and cleaning you did had a positive effect.

Best of luck to you.

Well,

Last night I gave it the final scrubbing. That barrel is as smooth as I am going to get it. It isn't quite like a baby's arse, but it is darn close. Looking at the first few inches of barrel there is still some irregularity, but I guess with 350-400 rounds down the barrel that is to be expected.

I gave it another 100 full strokes, charging my brush and patch every five full strokes with Shooters Choice topped by Bon Ami. When I got done I flushed it with patches soaked with Shooters Choice until all came out white, then followed with dry patches, finishing up with a full sized 7mm patch which went through effortlessly...o.k. not effortlessly, but in my mind a perfect fit for cleaning purposes, and definitely smoother that before this final 100 strokes.

After I was done I gave it the visual inspection again, and the lands, although they don't look like what I expect from my experience with other lands, look fairly defined now. They seem a little rounded, but much, much better than what I experienced a week ago.

I talked to Jared at Weatherby about the gun and found out what a rebarrel would cost if I went that way. I believe he told me $405 for the high gloss barrel. In this conversation he also asked me how tight my guard and lug screws were. I told him I didn't know exactly as I don't have a torque wrench, but they were snug. He said that is what they need to be, but then asked how I tightened the barreled action to the stock. I told him that I have always tightened the lug screw first, then followed with the guard screw. He said that this may be part of my problem with consistency as they tighten the two together to get a more uniform pressure on the pressure point in the forearm. He also said for synthetic stocks they apply 55 pounds to each screw. That may help someone out there.

Anyway, I am going to adjust my method to meet that recommendation and then I am going to get out and shoot some more of the load that showed the most promise and see if my efforts pay off in decreased group size, more consistency, and less fouling.

I will keep you posted as to the results of my shooting.

Thanks to all for your help.

Hot Core,

I barely seated a bullet (110 Accubond) in a fresh case last night thinking I would start there and adjust down until I found the length that would touch the lands...chambered it, and the bolt closed without effort. That must be a looooooong leade!!

quote:

Originally posted by 300winnie:
...I barely seated a bullet (110 Accubond) in a fresh case last night thinking I would start there and adjust down until I found the length that would touch the lands...chambered it, and the bolt closed without effort. That must be a looooooong leade!!

Hey 300winnie, That Accubond profile is quite sleek and allows it to go farther into the Barrel than a lot of regular Bullets, but I know you are already aware of that.

That being the situation, don't get discouraged if the Groups are not what you want. Maybe you will hit close to a good Harmonic and then again maybe not. Seating farther away from the Lands is not always a bad thing. One of mine jumps a 0.264" gap to hit the Lands and shoots very well.

It sure sounds like you got a lot scrubbed out of it.
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For that kind of money($405), you could have a Custom Barrel with any contour, length, surface finish and "Throat" you desire. So, you have lots of options if you have to go that route.

Best of luck with it like it is though.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet(pun intended), and face the possibility that you have a crap barrel that won't shoot. Many moons ago I bought a German made .224 Weatherby that was to die for looks wise, but wouldn't shoot worth a crap. It got sold. Had a brand new .300 Mag Ruger 77 that was the same way. Also got sold.

A good soaking with kroil will get under the crud. Some JB will lift it out after it gets soft. Try breaking the barrel in again. Get it clean, 1 shot clean for 20-30 shots. Then every 3 shot after that for the next 50-75. I did this with a PIA 22-250. JB and kroil smoothed it up really well in about 100 rounds.

First thing I'd do is sand out the pressure points on the barrel . Proper bedding and free floated barrels are the go for consistent accuracy and zero .
Pressure points are there to hide the sins of a crappy bedding job and tame barrel vibrations from poorly tuned ammunition .First time the weather changes , so will your zero .
Look around at the current crop of high quality varmint or competition rifles and see how many incorporate upward pressure on the barrel .

Interesting thing this morning. I have some 115 grain Partitions laying around so I put one in a fired case with the mouth flattened slightly and marked it up with a magic marker. Slid it in the chamber and pushed the bullet in. Pulled it back out and it actually touched the rifling

Took it out to see what kind of measurement I would get and the cartridge fits in and out of the ejection port (which has been my max seating depth in the past). I pulled the bullet out and checked the amount of bullet that was actually in the case and it was just barely shy of a caliber width. In fact, if the bullet had not been a partition style in the back (crimped)it would have been right at a caliber width of actual grab on the bullet.

This really surprised me because I didn't think there was any way to seat the bullets out far enough to touch the lands and still function through the action.

I may just have to try those 115 grain Partitions to see what they do...

I tried the accubonds again using the same method. Held the bullet out as far as I could and still get it to hold in the case, pushed it in and still didn't get any resistance...

It sounded too good to be true...and it was. I did the experiment again at lunch with 115 grain partitions again as well as 110 Accubonds and 115 CT Ballistic Silvertips.

Not one disallowed the closing of the bolt when barely inserted in the case. All of them stuck in the barrel...barely...just enough to dislodge from the case, but since they weren't hardly in there anyway it's not much to get excited about.

Anyway, I am going to try and go out tomorrow and shoot some of the most promising load to date:

Winchester 7mm RM brass - fireformed-PFL resized for a nice "crush" fit.
Federal 215M Primers
74.0 Grains of Reloder 25
110 Nosler Accubond, seated as far out as I can get it and still work through the action.

This load has produced some acceptable groups, but hasn't been terribly consistent. We will see what happens with tightening the screws as per Weatherby's instructions and all the effort of cleaning the barrel on this thing.

Here are the better groups this load shot last fall:

quote:

Originally posted by 300winnie:
...I don't shoot more than three shot groups...

Hey 300winnie, Good for you. But that will still warm up that barrel pretty good.

If you try cleaning after those 3-shot groups, it will help speed the cooling and be easier to remove the residue.

And if you have time, I actually prefer cumulative 1-shot groups. You just clean after every shot, lightly re-lube the bore and send the next one to the target. It takes a bit more time, but I'm never in a hurry at the range.
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I know a lot of folks think highly of the "RL" Powders, but I always found them to be erratic as I approached a Safe Max. Never tried them in a 257WbyMag though, so they might be great.

I noticed H870 mentioned in the Hodgdon Manual for the 257WbyMag. The H870 is what I needed the Bon Ami to remove the residue with light for caliber bullets.

I'd probably re-try the H1000(since you have it) or some AA-8700. And I think Hodgdon has a new Powder between H1000 and 50BMG, but I don't remember the name and haven't tried it at all(maybe H869?, H896? or something like that).

Hot Core,

So there is no confusion, that group of four shots is actually two groups of two shots...just so I don't contradict myself

Anyway, last fall I was trying to improve things and I took "POP's" advice and tried shooting two shot groups to see how things turned out. It so happened in this instance the two groups printed almost a mirror of each other, just slightly lower and to the right (the two shots on the right were the first two and the two on the left the second two).

I do have some H1000 on hand, in fact I have 5 cartridges loaded up with them to test for pressure and velocity. I think I will try them tomorrow if I can get out.

There are a couple of new powders from Hodgdon that burn slower than H1000. They are RETUMBO and US869. I may have to give them a whirl as well.

Getting this gun to shoot acceptably is becoming an obsession

Hopefully I will have some results to post after tomorrow.

Thanks for all of your help and suggestions.

300winnnie