Okay so you just bought a new Remington, Tikka, Sako, Weatherby, Browning, Ruger, etc.

Many of the brands listed have good quality steel in their barrels and they are almost always good and straight.

Spending more money on a custom match grade barrel like a Lilja, Shilen, Walther or Kreiger is going to provide a much better quality bore finish. I consider this to be the major contributing factor to the superior accuracy of a custom barrel. Unfortunately a person has to spend $500.00 for these, not $50.00

IMO rifle accuracy is broken down into 2 categories:

A) Bore system: (Action/Barrel) This includes the headspacing, lug contact, true concentricity, bore finish, and crown.

B) Stock/Action intergration: This is how the stock and barreled action integrate during and after each shot.

Minor additional things like trigger pull and stock fit also contribute to accuracy but they are more involved with the shooting aspect of the firearm vs. the pure physics of the firearm itself.

The major factory brands I listed above, again, are generally well made and offer good quality steel and reasonable tolerances in machining and straightness. One thing you can do is get the bore finish the best possible shape you can, although it requires lots of work.

No, I am not talking about hand lapping the factory barrel. That requires special equipment and attempting it without experience would most likely result in a uneven lap.

IMO, the best $50.00 a person could spend on a brand new factory rifle barrel is the:



Neco Firelapping bullet kit

http://www.neconos.com/details2.htm

http://www.neconos.com/shop/?cart=261941&cat=20

If you have only 1 new rifle to lap, I would get the NECO Pre-imbedded Bullet Kit for your caliber. This gives you 50 bullets with the abrasive already imbedded in the bullets. All you do is load them in brass and fire them. It also includes the bullet slugs to check your progress as you work. This is $50.00

If you want to be cheap and not spend much, yet have lots of bullets already you can use, I would just order 2 of the stand alone abrasives you can apply to your own bullets. They are $15.00 each and I would get the #220 and the #800 grit values. You can also order the test slugs to check your progress as you work for $5.95. The disadvantage to buying these individual grit is you do not get an instruction booklet. The instruction booklet is super detailed and if you follow it to the letter using the test slugs, you can monitor your progress each step of the way.

So why don't more people do this? Because it is lots of cleaning. I recommend cleaning after every single shot. I do not recommend traditional folklore advice to shoot 5 shots then clean etc. This is not what is going to lap the bore and create a nice even finish. You must get rid of all powder residue and metal fouling completely from the bore before each new shot. This allows the abrasive to cleanly contact the rough tooling marks made by the rifling machine and smooth them out.

50 shots with 50 cleanings is lots of work but take my advice if you can't afford a match grade barrel and you will be glad you did. This can result in shrinking your groups by 3/4" if the factory barrel was rough and average improvments of 1/2"

This means if your gun shot 1.5" then it could easily shoot under MOA after doing this work. If you gun shot MOA already it could approach 0.5 MOA or less.

If you start with a good quality factory brand that maintins good machining tolerances in their action's and have straight barrel's(I prefer the Japanese made Howa's (Vanguard, Browning)) then the results realised from lapping the rough tool marks out of the bore can be astonishing. Provided the action is bedded properly to the stock, all that may be needed is another $50.00 spent on a re-crown and check the lug contact. A few choice dollars spent in the right area's on a factory rifle can result in a tack driver!!

I have good luck with David Tubb's final finish kit.

http://www.davidtubb.com/finalfinish.html

I have never tried it but the idea of sending a grit covered bullet thru the bore of my rifle makes me want to lay down and put a cold rag on my head.
I have read enough articles that gave mixed reveiws to the various "systems" to know I don't want to try it. Finn Aagard said, after giving one of them a try, if all else has failed you might as well give them a try as you have nothing to lose.

interesting, how many factory barrels have you performed this process on, and what were the individual results and typical improvements?

If cost is your concern, why not just use some JB bore compound? I have not found any difference. Either way, all you're doing is lapping the bore. Unless you are a snob or a BR shooter, it really does not matter. I take alot of pride in my handloads and the way my rifles shoot, but I'm not going to mind screw myself into believing that they are BR worthy or would be w/ a new barrel. 1/2-3/4 groups make me smile and all but a few of my rifles have factory barrels.

I have a Neco lapping kit which I won as part of one of the prizes at a benchrest match, of all places.

Anyway, the system does work FOR OTHERWISE TOMATO-STAKE GRADE BARRELS.

I have tried it in both lousy barrels and truly great high-grade benchrest barrels.

My results were that it greatly improved the lousy barrels, and it didn't hurt the really good ones. At least it didn't hurt the good ones in the short run...but of course I'll never know how much barrel life it may have cost me, will I?

As an example of a lousy barrel it helped, I have a chrome-lined, heavy, fluted Bushmaster barrel which simply would not produce better than 3" 3-shot groups for either me or them at 100 yards, with anything we could find, buy, or build to put through it. (I sent it back and they shot it, then returned it to me unreplaced and unimproved, together with their targets.) After AGGRESSIVE fire-lapping, it will shoot 10-shot groups at 100 yards of just under 1 MOA.

Then again, when getting ready for a national tournament one year, I bought a Ron Smith (Alberta) gain-twist barrel which was about as good as they get. I fire-lapped it, trying to make it even better, with no visible success. But it didn't appear to hurt it a whit, either. It still shoots every bit as well as it ever did.

I know lots of folks get the "willies" just thinking about putting an abrasive down their barrels. Yet those same folks sometimes clean their barrels with abrasives. And, really, many top barrelmakers do lap their best barrels as the last step in the process of making them. They use abrasives every bit as sharp and as hard as the stuff in the NECO kit.

When you get down to grits finer than about 600, you are not "abrading" to any meaningful degree anyway...just polishing.

It is a myth that JB will lap a bore....I have built injection molds for the last 22+ years.
Let me tell you, it is realy hard to remove metal by hand lapping.
There is litle to no abrasive in JB compared to the amount used to lap a barrel.

Wahl, EVERY rifle I own, factory barrel or custom, has had 500 (yup 500) strokes of JB run thru the bore. I, of course, use a bore guide and run the cleaning rod through the barrel from the chamber end. Then I put a used bore brush on it and knead a patch into the brush. Then I knead a gob of JB into the patch and brush and pull it through the barrel. This way the excess is pulled off at the front of the barrel rather than in the chamber.
Anyway, it is a tedious job and I'm not gonna make any great claims about increased accuracy. However, If I didn't think it helped, I wouldn't do it. I'm certainly not going to claim any .5" improvement. Although I've bought a couple of old junkers that a good cleaning helped. I do know for a fact that the barrels collect copper at a slower rate, clean up faster, and you can shoot longer sticks w/o having to clean.
I don't understand how hand lapping could cause a lop sided bore. Please explain.

Ted Thorns post came up while I was posting mine and he is correct. JB is not a lapping compound. I THINK it's made from buckwheat hulls which has some kind of silica in it. It is mildly abrasive however and will clean your rifle to the metal and smooth any small irregularities.

I am 100% confidant that you could take a peice of 4100 sieries steel plate and lightly mill one side with a brand new 1/2" carbide end mill as smooth a finish as possible and use a case of JB and a rag to hand/rub the mill marks off and it wouldn't move not one single one. A jar is in my cabinet along with an aray of cleaning solvents but I have to say it has no cutting properties.

In a nutshell...it will not remove measurable stock.

I would only use one of these fire lapping kits on a barrel that I was already planning to throw away. It would be a last resort before giving up on the barrel. I certainly wouldn't use it on a sporter that shot 1" groups.

A test conducted several years ago using a fire-lapping kit also employed a bore-scope. What was learned was that fire lapping did not work uniformly, but rather showed much greater results closer to the chamber that diminished as distance increased.

During the same test it was found that brush-lapping with J-B compound produced positive and uniform results.

Seems to be two strong camps.
If you want to shoot grit covered bullets down your barrel, go for it. I'm certainly not going to try to talk you out of it.
If these various grit bullet companies want to give me a WRITTEN guarentee that using their product will shrink my groups between .50" and .75" without eroding the hell out of the throat of my rifle, instead of sending some shill around to give an unpaid advertisement, I might give it a go. Whoops, did I see the grit bullet version of the crawfish shuffle?
Your bench shooters are quick to latch onto anything, real or imaginary, that will shave .1" off their groups and I haven't heard of them rushing to take advantage of these systems. Hmmmmm

EVERY shot laps the bsarrel, some ..
if you have a 2 moa gun, and have no factory recorse, give it a try..

I have been involved with firelapping a bunch of rifles' barrels. There has never been one that shot worse. A very few showed no measurable accuracy improvement, but were still easier to clean/fouled less after the process.


All barrels were with handloaded Tubbs Final Finish system. All these firelapping systems will push on the throat a little, the largest amount we have been able to measure is around .002, usually it is pretty undetectable, Tubbs actually offers a 'version' that is just the finer grits basically, which is to polish out the throat as it develops wear during shooting called the 'throat maintenance system'.

Using JB to clean a bore is one thing, what Ted Thorn says is proven to me by my borescope, firelapping or lapping in general is done by something abrasive at an order of magnitude beyond JB. pWith JB,perhaps it polish's the bore a bit, but it ain't moving any marks as Ted said!

I have seen some amazing results with barrels that were firelapped, and this has been on factory barrels--I've never had the need or ocassion to firelap a match grade aftermarket barrel, i.e. Krieger, Lilja, Kostyshyn, Bartlein, Walther, and a few others I've owned. I have seen, and own a couple, rifles that went from 2" guns at 100 yards, to <1" guns at 100 with nothing else having been done but firelapping.

I am a fan of the Tubbs system.

You can keep that crap out of my bore thank you very much.

I have to agree that every bullet shot down the bore laps the barrel. you get a new gun it shoots good groups, then after a few hundred rounds it shoots better, then after a few thousand it starts to shoot worse. this tells me that I am polishing the barrel,and efter to much polishing it wears out. To me it makes no sense to rush wearing out a barrel.

What would a patch with a little rubbing or polishing compound do to a barrel? Would shooting with a very small amount in the barrel destroy a factory barrel? Just curious.

quote:

Originally posted by boltman:
I would only use one of these fire lapping kits on a barrel that I was already planning to throw away. It would be a last resort before giving up on the barrel. I certainly wouldn't use it on a sporter that shot 1" groups.

Take a lead slug and run it down a new factory barrel. You might change your mind.

What is the issue?

The reality is factory barrels are not finished properly and have tight spots and tool marks.

Custom barrels also have these same irregularities of course. This is why many are hand-lapped and the process is a very tedious job.

quote:

Originally posted by Winchester 69:
A test conducted several years ago using a fire-lapping kit also employed a bore-scope. What was learned was that fire lapping did not work uniformly, but rather showed much greater results closer to the chamber that diminished as distance increased.

This is correct BUT is not a problem as the bullet passes down the bore. It is actually a beneficial result of firelapping. It is not as effective as a custom hand lap for even-ness yet it does not deter accuracy. The bullet is gradually carried down the bore in a gradual taper.

What deters accuracy the most is lop-sided marks and wear on a given side vs. the opposite side of the bullet. Hand lappers use custom jigs and perfect centering to ensure even wear all around.

quote:

Using the same test it was found that brush-lapping with J-B compound produced positive and uniform results.

Borescope is beneficial for viewing a bore. Yet does nothing to indicate accuracy results. Shooting the rifle is the most important and this is where JB does not perform. My experience with JB has not been beneficial to shrink groups as effectively as firelapping shrinks groups. It does not have enough abrasive action to cut tool marks on new, non-hand-lapped factory barrels.

JB is a polish.

quote:

Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Your bench shooters are quick to latch onto anything, real or imaginary, that will shave .1" off their groups and I haven't heard of them rushing to take advantage of these systems. Hmmmmm

That is because they are using custom match grade hand lapped barrels.

Run a lead slug down a new custom match barrel like a Lilja and you will find NO tight spots.

Different story on a factory barrel.

Hope that answers you hmmm...

quote:

Originally posted by Fish30114:
I have been involved with firelapping a bunch of rifles' barrels. There has never been one that shot worse. A very few showed no measurable accuracy improvement, but were still easier to clean/fouled less after the process.

All barrels were with handloaded Tubbs Final Finish system.

Tubbs has good product. Unfortunately bad procedure directions.

The most important step on a new factory barrel is the initial knock down of heavy tool marks using #220 grit, and the final polish. The #1200 polish isn't really needed because it isn't important to get the bore shiny smooth. In fact, Dan Lilja has found decreased accuracy getting the bore too polished.

The #220 and #800 are the most important and carely checking with a slug in between shots and cleanings can show that. Shooting 5 shots as Tubbs recommends between cleaning is a waste of time and product. If you want to sand down a piece of wood, you don't throw a coat of tar on it before you start sanding. You have to cut through the tar before you even hit wood.

Cleaning carefully and completely between each shot, especially the initial #220 grit shots is what is going to make the difference in improving accuracy.

Then using the #800 as your fine work/polish is all that is needed. Again cleaning completely between each shot. You can certainly use the #600 grit as it will save time yet again it is another $15.00 to buy.

Being the broke, cheap person I am the #220, #800 and a (10) pack of lead slugs for $6.00 is what I prefer. $36.00 total.

quote:

Originally posted by hoggunner:
To me it makes no sense to rush wearing out a barrel.

It's not a barrel until the tool marks have been removed and decently polished. It is only a steel tube till those are done.

This gets people more riled up that saying that a .30-06 is over rated or thy should use a .223 for deer! I have used Tubbs Final finish on two so so barrels with very positive results. I think it would be better to use a lead bullet and lapping compound with lapping paste at 1200 fps. Both guns were quick to grab copper and fell of in accuracy fast. Both now shoot 3/4-1" . Did I take some life out of the barrels, yes. Will I EVER fire enough rounds down either to come close to wearing them out, hell no.