Barrel manufacturers use borescopes?

[DShortt]

I've identified several barrels with off center necks/throats. I figure that even finding one before I shot it was well worth the cost and I'd have never guessed one source would have shipped anything like that. I've also identified damage from my previous cleaning/storage practices. And I changed my habits because of it. So once again I learned you just can't take anything from anywhere for granted.

 

[D Coots]

OP asks, do barrel manufactures use bore scopes?
I make cut rifled barrels for a small company. Drill, ream and rifle. Yes, we do. Every single one.
That being said the barrel I won the 2020 F Class 600-yard Nationals with was one ugly barrel. 7 tenths of rachet and 7 tenths of choke and the chamber looked like someone drug a file across it. (This was before I worked there)

So looks aren't everything.
If it shoots it shoots.

I had a girlfriend like that....

 

[dnellans]

Remember, this opinion is from PRS where the precision part is getting impacts on 2 to 6 moa targets. Different needs.

Now that said, I have more than just cleaning uses for borescopes.

As someone who is in the top 100 shooters for all time points in PRS, I don’t think that is a fair characterization of PRS or it’s precision requirements.

While we like to joke about our meatball big targets, the reality is that very few targets are larger than 3 moa and very few under 1moa.

We also have no sighters, multiple distances and wind directions, and the winners usually hit more than 90% of the targets (it gets higher every year). You don't take a 1 moa rifle to try and make a first round hit 1000 yards on a 2moa plate, if you miss you wouldnt know if you misjudged the wind or if it was the rifle.

I don't know anyone successful who would take greater than .5 gun to a national match anymore and most guys want to see consistent groups in the .3's at 100 in good conditions to feel
like they're not giving anything up to the field in terms of gun. Very few bother to try and get smaller, as our conditions vary so much and you have to pre-load 300 at a time smaller than that won’t hold up.

Now without access to benchrest paper, distances, and windflags , do those groups hold up at distance across a 200 round match? No. But if it only degrades to .5 at 600 yards or .75 at 1000 then you're in great shape.

I only know a couple people who literally don't clean their barrel and just throw it away when it stops shooting well enough. Almost everyone else cleans after a match. There are a few still who clean in-between days.

The OP's gunsmith is the exception, not the rule in PRS. I'd be more concerned about if he tells you a 1 moa shooting gun is fine than his cleaning regimine. I guarantee you he's not shooting a 1 moa gun, clean or not, and he's testing groups size before each match.

PRS shooters love to brag about how little they do load dev or clean or practice. It creates this false sense they're some mythical shooter. It's all hype. I can tell you 2/5 of the top shooters at the finale this year put over 15k rounds down range practicing, not including matches. Think about that, 100 round loaded today, shot tomorrow, everyday of the year (if you arent getting free factory loads).

The guys who are winning national matches aren't just getting off the couch with some gun off the rack at Cabellas.

 

[Brians356]

My smith says to throw my borescope away.

Hmmm ... straight into his trash can?
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[Brians356]

... a typical land is about .004" tall.

When you look at a typical worrisome "scratch" through a scope, one can readily guesstimate that (if it is a scratch) it's far less than 1/10th as deep as a rifle groove. It's hard for me to imagine a scratch on the order of 1/5000" deep would have an appreciable disruptive effect on a bullet in its hellish dervish-like transit through the bore.
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[Capt. Oblivious]

I wonder how many barrels have been scraped and replaced because they were in need of a proper clean and scrub

 

[Andy Work]

Interesting thread. A couple shooting buddies and I where discussing how it would be nice to have a borescope, but they where cost prohibitive. A barrel cleaning thread on here had a video linked where the guy was using an $89.00 Teslong scope that was pretty impressive. For that price, why not own one, as was mentioned earlier. I came to the conclusion that I may (probably would) wind up obsessing over things that I shouldn't.

 

[Shinbone]

Just like with women, looks ain’t everything, but they sure do help.

 

[Rat Rifle]

At the Supershoot one year I was listening in on a conversation outside the Shilen loading trailer. The Shilen guys, Buckys, , and Boyer were discussing evaluating a new barrel. Boyer was mostly listening. When the conversation died down he said....."there ain't but one way to know if a barrel is going to shoot."..... with that he went on about his business.

I use My bore scope for various things.

But this is the answer to shoot or don’t shoot. IMO

 

[Kurz]

I wonder how many barrels have been scraped and replaced because they were in need of a proper clean and scrub

Or how many barrels of this type get saved by a gunsmith with the knowledge and capability to recognize the problem and resolve it for the shooter?

Lots of good discussion and lots of opinions expressed going every which way. Reading and forming opinions from properly presented information is one of the strong points of great forums. Knowledgeable members are invaluable.

I've owned a borescope, Hawkeye Rigid Borescopes | Gradient Lens Corporation, since they hit our market decades ago. Ridiculously expensive for most folks to afford but now there are other alternatives. I have a couple of the other, less expensive borescopes for the convenience of having them on more than one bench and readily available. Are they medical grade? Nope, not even close but they serve a purpose and not always for rifle barrels. There is a lot to be learned from looking in barrels but you need the knowledge and background to make proper assessments.

There is a comment above (no I'm not searching 4 pages) regarding how shooters determine which barrels are the best. I briefly spoke to Tony Boyer at a benchrest competition many years ago. I asked about how he chose a competition barrel. His response was that he often bought several barrels from the same maker then chambered and shot all of them. Most made their way onto classified ads as not being up to his standards. If he found one which satisfied his needs, he shot it. But he invested in his own talent to determine the quality of the barrel by shooting it not looking in the bore.

Now, I understand that even then, most of us wouldn't or couldn't afford to buy multiple barrels to test for any reason, competition or not. But this was his technique as imparted to me. No, we're not best friends or even good friends. He wouldn't know me for any reason. I simply asked a question.

Have fun with the discussion!

 

[D Coots]

I wonder how many barrels have been scraped and replaced because they were in need of a proper clean and scrub

Years ago when I bought my borescope I looked at the barrels I was currently using. There were layers of powder and copper fouling. I was using butches and sweets 7.62. They had changed the sweets recipe back then. Ditched the sweets and went to an abrasive....problems solved.

 

[ebb]

Borescopes have a lot of uses. i use mine to look for wear, fire cracking, and to check if i truly got it clean or maybe to see if its clean enough. It is my understanding no one can use one to tell if a barrel is going to be a shooter or not. it seems like you should be able to tell, but that is not the case.

 

[BobbyJ]

Are you asking if every barrel gets a visual inspection with a borescope? The answer is no.
Barrel making is a process. A good process has a good outcome.

In other words no inspection

 

[Dusty Stevens]

In other words no inspection

If your tooling is still in spec and not broken after rifling a barrel that measures perfect then its good to go.

 

[BobbyJ]

If your tooling is still in spec and not broken after rifling a barrel that measures perfect then its good to go.

I'm sure it is but at some point someone had to check to know that it was really good to go. Otherwise how would they know?

Could be they had a tech named Jimmy doing quality control was only catching 1 percent errors with the bore-scope and was let go to save money. Let the customers catch that 1 percent.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I'm sure it is but at some point someone had to check to know that it was really good to go. Otherwise how would they know?

Could be they had a tech named Jimmy doing quality control was only catching 1 percent errors with the bore-scope and was let go to save money. Let the customers catch that 1 percent.

They still air gage and such

 

[LVLAaron]

Remember, this opinion is from PRS where the precision part is getting impacts on 2 to 6 moa targets. Different needs.

Now that said, I have more than just cleaning uses for borescopes.

Yeah, but we still want to poke fun at their 5000 dollar rifles they don't clean.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Yeah, but we still want to poke fun at their 5000 dollar rifles they don't clean.

And they like to use the cartridges that are the worst for feeding

 

[LVLAaron]

And they use up all the Berger 105's in their dirty guns.

 

[INTJ]

Correct. He had 3000 rounds on his last Dasher before he rebarreled it. Never cleaned it.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing for PRS. PRS doesn't require BR level accuracy. It requires other skills, and perhaps he understands where to devote his time.