If you were to have a marred bore from rust, rough machining,etc, could you shoot it smooth?
Would shooting ultimately wear it smooth? Not wear it out, just naturally clean it up.

Perry

It will smooth it somewhat. Casting a soft lead lap and lapping the bore would help smooth it out in a controlled way. Any lapping beyond max spec represents bore wear. I have several rifles I cleaned up this way. A couple shoot very nicely, even with fine pitting remaining.

Rust in a bore can be fairly successfully removed by swabbing with KG2. It will get the rust above surface level and in pits but not rub out the pit itself. Other bore polishing compounds should work similarly but apart from paste Autosol I haven't used any. I like KG2 as the formulation is liquid and easy to apply.
I don't think these compounds will smooth out rough machining or pits as found in hammer forged barrels. They might ease rough edges but any metal removel is so negligible as to be unoticeable. Afdter a treatment with KG2 if you push a dry patch down the bore you can feel how much smoother the bore is.

Enough shooting might eventually smooth off the bore but I suspect by then the throat would be gone to the extent that it might be new barrel time.

Do you have a barrel with an issue? Or is this a hypothetical question?
It all depends on where and how it is compromised. Many barrels can shoot well enough for most purposes.
Post a picture.

Rifle bore or shotgun bore

This is a hypothetical, sort of.
I have an old m70 I got from a buddy's uncle many years ago, it has a marred bore but it shoots very well. It was rusty so I cleaned it up with WD40 and some steel wool around a brush.
It got me thinking about "what ifs".
I do not plan on messing with it as it shoots really well.

P

Ok, the rule is, clean it, and inspect the muzzle and last two inches of rifling. That is what makes most of the difference. If that looks good, then it will hit a deer at 100 yards. I have had a lot of military rifles with less than perfect barrels that shot 3 MOA easily. The new spec was not much better.
It also depends on your definition of "marred".

The gun is 1" at 100yds all day long. The bore is scratched up, probably micro pits.


Perry

Sounds like a non problem.

Correct.
Original question was about shooting it until it is polished, not accuracy.

Perry

By the time you'd put enough bullets through the bore to "smooth it up", you'd have worn the throat. David Tubb make a 'system' for smoothing rifle bores. Abrasive coated bullets and in some case loaded ammo. The results are, and can be debatable. It is known as 'fire lapping'.

I use Corbin's bore lapping liquid; it's not very abrasive and will clean out and smooth up bores.
Fire lapping was a very bad idea and turned out to be disastrous in use.

I prefer to re-barrel or rebore. rust is rust and not a good thing..

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
I use Corbin's bore lapping liquid; it's not very abrasive and will clean out and smooth up bores.
Fire lapping was a very bad idea and turned out to be disastrous in use.

I do have some of those fire lapping bullets.

A friend sent me some in various calibers.

Whoever thought of that idea must have been nuts.

You would imagine it was obvious the throat will get hammered every time a shot is fired!

I fell victim to that fad 25 years ago and bought a box of 22s to fire lap a bore on a brand new Browning A-22.

Fortunately, the gunshot well enough, and I was lazy enough, that they are still in the box somewhere down in the basement...

perry - Shooting it a lot would be a waste of ammo.

You already did a good thing with the steel wool wrapped brush clean up. I've brought back a few bores doing just that. Just stop every couple inches to scrub back and forth so the bristles can deep clean the pits. No worries on the remaining pitting. The bullets might even create less friction skipping over the pits. Not sure if any velocity would be gained. Wild guess, not much if any. Shoot it and be happy.

quote:

Originally posted by perry:
This is a hypothetical, sort of.
I have an old m70 I got from a buddy's uncle many years ago, it has a marred bore but it shoots very well. It was rusty so I cleaned it up with WD40 and some steel wool around a brush.
It got me thinking about "what ifs".
I do not plan on messing with it as it shoots really well.

P

I just bought a Win 63 with a bore rusted pretty bad, nobody's fault just the climate I suspect. I bought a new original factory blued 63 barrel from Jack First for $150, they have/had all 63 parts, but only one new barrel remained, and a 20" rebore. I would never be satisfied with a rusted bore or rebore..

Win btw sold all their parts from Win some years ago and have a huge inventory of 63 parts..