ANY chance this barrel will shoot?

[Slowrunning]

Just bought this rifle on a forum. FN PBR XP in 300 WSM. Supposed to have about 50 rounds on the barrel, throat looks new. The barrel appears to be severely pitted, it's worst closer to the throat but the pitting exists the entire length of the barrel. Not sure what would have caused this, chemicals I would guess?

Before I borescoped it, I cleaned A LOT as there was tons of copper fouling. I got a lot of it out but there is still quite a bit left to clean. Seemed like way too much work to get all the copper out so I scoped it and found all the pitting.

Question is, is there any chance this barrel will still shoot OK, sub MOA? I suspect it won't, or even if it does it will foul up almost instantly. Wondering if it's even worth trying or should I put it away and just start planning a rebarrel?

 

[Paul Hilgedick]

I have seen some pretty rough barrels shoot. If it were mine I would run a few Fire Lapping bullets down it and see what happens.

Paul H

 

[DRK]

Run and see what it does. If it shoots OK, burn the barrel out and rebarrel it. If it doesn't, rebarrel it now. Not many other choices...

 

[DShortt]

People store rifles for years and only look at the exterior. Not much attention is paid to the interior and I'll bet if you look down that bore towards a bright light, it looks great. That was the standard for decades upon decades. Now we know better.

I'd shoot it like you've never scoped it and let the targets tell you if it's good or not.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Personally, I slather everything down with a thick oil and re-lube the bore after every range session and annually at a minimum. But that's just me and my opinion. And worth exactly what you paid for that opinion.

Oil is easy to remove. Corrosion pits are FOREVER.

 

[Jeff Porter]

Steel worms. I have had a few with spots like that that shot fine. I would try it before I pulled it. But would not fight it if it is hard to find a load that shoots in it.

 

[SVT_Tactical]

I had a barrel in pretty rough shape I used Fitz polish with a bronze brush on that barrel just to see what would happen before replacing. Shockingly it cleaned up really well and returned to sorting 1/4 moa. I made 20 passes at a time and cleaned for about 200 total passes. Worth a shot of you're going to replace anyway.

 

[DShortt]

Steel worms. I have had a few with spots like that that shot fine. I would try it before I pulled it. But would not fight it if it is hard to find a load that shoots in it.

So I'm curious. How do YOU sort 'steel worms' from corrosion damage?

 

[Slowrunning]

I like the idea of fire lapping a few rounds after reading up on it. I can't believe how much copper is in this barrel, I don't want to deal with this after every 20 round range trip. Copper is stacked up on top of the lands.

 

[msalm]

Strange to see that, I think all those FN bolt rifles had chrome lined barrels too, at least the SPR line did. Those barrels shot quite well so I would be definitely inclined to clean it well and shoot it.

 

[jackieschmidt]

If it is a Chrome Moly Barrel, it simply might have rusted in the gun case.

It looks really bad. But as others have said, shoot it and see. My guess is if you start with a 180 grn bullet, it might not weigh but 175 by the time it navigates it’s way through that bore.

 

[Slowrunning]

The corrosion is pretty bad, I won't downplay it. I'm gonna shoot it this weekend just to see what happens but I don't have high hopes.

 

[msalm]

Well it’s been awhile, so how did it shoot?