Would Flitz work for lapping a barrel?

A long time ago I contacted flitz and was told that an American biatholon team was using it to polish the barrels on their 22's. I kind of took it with a grain of salt but I have used flitz on patches on guns that seemed to have alot of fouling. The patches start getting black after a few strokes and you get a metallic smell that goes with the blackness. I guess it's my opinion from what I saw that metal is definately being polished and possibly microscopically removed. Not sure how this would compare with something like JB but my answer to your question would be YES.

I'm not an authority by any means, but in the "Varmintal" website there's a discussion about JB and Flitz. He claims there that Flitz is 1/2 as abrasive as JB. If you can't trust varmintal who can you trust?
Shotgun

Varmint Al states that Flitz is slightly more aggressive than JB. But JB makes JB Bore Brite and JB non-embedding bore compound, he doesn't say which he's comparing to. He uses JB for barrel lapping in his break-in procedure.

http://www.varmintal.com/ashot.htm#Break

http://www.varmintal.com/arelo.htm

quote:

Flitz is slightly more aggressive than JB. I took a piece of mild steel with a reasonably smooth finish and polished it with Flitz and JB. The left end was polished for about 2 minutes at 500 rpm with Flitz and the right end for about 2 minutes with JB. There is no detectable decrease in the diameter on either end measured with my high-precision Mitutoyo Micrometer. It was a very easy test. Try it for yourself.

For a novice to lap a barrel is the perfect way to hasten the demise of that barrel, but don't let that stop you as I like doing things myself, too. Why not just use a real fine (finish)lapping compound?

Pegleg,
IMHO, lapping is wear and the best way to lap a barrel is shoot it a couple of hundred times, I suspect more barrel are ruined by lapping and cleaning rods than are shot out.

Ray- You are a wise man! I'm with you 100%

If I thought lapping was the key, then I would have a pro do it.

In Europe we have a product called Autosol, its a Stainless steel and crome polish, looks like Flitz imo. It seems very acidious, it cuts thru the hard layer of oxides that way i think. But im not a chemist..

I don't think Flitz does much, other than take a few burrs down, but I like using it. It's more user friendly than JB's, and thus nice to cut through layers of carbon/copper in a hurry.

That said, every new barrel gets a couple of hundred strokes with Flitz. It doesn't take any metal off, but it might smooth a few machining marks. It's not sandpaper, it's just a polish. JMO, Dutch.

Lapping or burnishing a bore these days are being done by certain military units and their AR10's with Mr. David Tubbs Fire Lapping system. Have not used them myself, like Ray I shoot the thing a bunch, clean carefully and it is ready to go.
Might want to check out Tubbs system for would say he knows what works and what does not work.
Top line barrels really do not need that much work to have in pristine shape based on my experience with Krieger's and Obermyers.

What about using flitz for lapping lugs or smoothing up an action i.e. a ruger.

Just as Ray suggest and as Jerry Clower would say, " shoot that thang!!!"

It's interesting, to me, the pics of the polished bar would seem to say that the JB is more agressive. It seems to have a rougher finsih than the end polished with the Flitz....

One thing I can tell youfrom experience, is theu don't remove much metal at all, and I agree with whoever said use lapping compound for lapping. I actually have used, or been involved in using the Tubbs Final Finish Lapping bullets in a bunch of rifles. It works well, but can lenghten the throat a bit.

I would second those who say shoot it a couple hundred times with cleaning along the way first.....

George, I tried smoothing up an action with Flitz, and other than making a real mess that was a REAL pain in the ass to get out of the action, it didn't smooth things worth a toot. I would look at using a lapping compound for that too if I was gonna do it. I had a a bunch of guys say just work the action a few hundred times and it would do it--it didn't help much--maybe just a pinch--and I cycled this action a couple THOUSAND times. The best thing I did was to put a really thorough coating of EEZOX on the bolt lugs and races, it did make a discernable difference.

I polish all of my new guns with JB non embedding and then flitz. I usually do about 100 strokes with the first and 300 with the second, brings the bore to a mirror finish and I feel better about the gun once I know this has been done.

Used guns I will clean very well, down to the bare metal and then I shine them with flitz(couple hundred strokes changing the patch every 50 or so).

I do factory barrels with JB and custom barrels with butches bore shine and carb cleaner to get out the carbon.I did a rem mod 7 7mm-08 with Jb this year and before I did it it was shooting around 2 inch groups at 100 and after under an inch,the factory tubes are pretty rough and can use some jb but my match barrels are lapped and clean pretty easy.

Which ever method you chose proceed slowly. I had good luck by shooting, cleaning and then taking the rest of the crud out first with a few strokes of Flitz and then finishing with enough Break Free "Bore Paste" for the patches to come clean, brushing lightly with solvent in-between patches. The rifle will now put one hole through the last all day, the brake in process took months but was worth the effort.

WARNING-Do not use abrasives on premium barrels as they have already been lapped!