cc: 50 Cal forum

Gentlemen a question if I can
I bought a Steyr H50
The gun comes in a case and is broken down a cleaning rod is stored in the barrel.
When the gun arrived and I picked up the barrel and removed the cleaning rod ,I noticed the rod was covered in a red rust dust.
Looking through the barrel it was hard to make out the rifling from the rust.
I seems that the barrel never had any rust preventive in it and was shipped lashed down on the bow of the container ship to Canada.
Anyway I send the gun back requesting a different gun.
It has been a few weeks now and my dealer yesterday was talking about cleaning it up and mumbling something about a different gun.
Now I will not except the same gun but I want to make sure that the gun they are going to send me has a good barrel on it ,after all we are not talking about a $700 Ruger here.

My question is ; can anybody give me a idea what a .50 barrel should look like?
I have a bore scope and do I look for a finish like my TRG Sako or a match grade Lilja?
Would it be not lapped but sharp and clear ?

Your help is appreciated
Regards Martin

Most Steyr barrels are hammer forged and I don't see why that one would be different so...it should be very shiney, sharp and crisp with minimal tooling marks, if any. I do not know if they lapped them like a Lilja but I doubt it.

While I have never looked in a Steyr 50 cal barrel with a bore scope I can say every European hammer forged barrel, Blaser, Heym, Steyr, or H&K that I looked into with a borescope, looked like a mirror on the inside, perfct lands and grooves, no tooling marks.

Steyr is the company that makes all the machines that all the other gun companies use ! That's been going on since the 1970s !
The only way to check the barrel is to clean it thoroughly and examine for things like pits and damaged rifling. Pits would make it difficult to clean as the pits collect copper or lead easily. If it's not shiney with clean rifling it's defective !

Just make sure there is no pitting. Light surface rust won't hurt it but you don't want and should not have that in a new gun.

Gents
Thank you so much for your repl .
At least I feel I have some guideline
And yes for $5500 I won't settle for second best

Thank you all
Regards Martin

take some blue wonder cleaner on a patch & run it through the bore a couple times. it will strip the rust and let you see what shape the bore is in