A good friend and local gunshop owner has recently started chambering barrels. He has a machinists background and also attended a well known school for barrel work. He has chambered a couple of barrels for me and his work is meticulous. I think he is capable of doing excellent work and is interested in all the nuances. Yesterday he told me that it has been strongly recommended to him that he slug all new blanks that customers bring to him for chambering. This would be to avoid problems arising from "bad barrels" and him being blamed for doing poor work, when in fact, it was an inferior blank. I have been playing the benchrest game for going on twenty years and have had numerous barrels chambered. So far, maybe I've been lucky, but I've never had a really "bad barrel". In fact, most have been excellent, with only a few even mediocre. I'm certain that none of those who have chambered my barrels have slugged them. So, my questions are, do most smiths habitually slug new blanks? Do those of you who do your own barrel work slug your blanks? Considering adding the recommended charge of $100 for slugging to the cost of chambering, threading both the tenon and muzzle end for a tuner, is this a cost effective idea for the shooter or the gunsmith? Rick
As a bullet caster, I have slugged many barrels. I fail to see what it may reveal, except for the groove/land diameter at the blanks tightest point. Possible a tight or loose spot in the length of the blank, but even that would be somewhat ambiguous depending on lubrication conditions and method used. I would think a bore scope would be better. Interested to see what the pros think. jd
I have never slugged a rifle barrel, only revolver barrels and cylinders. So I am certainly not the expert you are looking for. But I would be hard pressed to spend $100 to have a barrel slugged, not knowing how to interpret the results, or to decide what I would do with the barrel if somehow I felt it failed the test. The barrel maker isn't going to replace it for free based on slugging results. Slugging seems to be a pretty imprecise method for measuring relative changes in diameters.
I do not do it nor would I want it done to one of my prized new barrel blanks. the barrel maker knows way more than I do. if they dont shoot and I find an issue with the barrel they make it right. there is no slug in the world that will tell you if a barrel will shoot or not so why ram lead down a perfectly good barrel? if you have issues with barrels enough that you need to check behind the mfr then you need to find another mfr.
Slugging a barrel: I have decided I should not advise reloaders on the art of 'slugging', you will not believe this but I was giving advises and making a few suggestions to a few members; it is said they got dizzy and others passed out and then there was the topic of chamber casting. F. Guffey
Maybe , just maybe slugging a rimfire barrel unturned blank . Maybe . But I certainly wouldn't charge for it . Borescope yes almost always if the customer brings the barrel to me instead of it being ordered and delivered to me .
I would say that "slugging" a barrel is last resort. I have done it once, many years ago. The barrel was on a factory rifle with its original barrel which slugging it showed three tight spots. That barrel never shot well, new barrel fixed that.
One of the best shooting barrels I have had failed the slug test miserably. I am with Dusty, theres only one way to know it its a shooter or not. You have to shoot them.
Read what Bill Calfee has to say about slugging .22 rimfire barrels, I think you may think differently about any barrel. John
