Borescoped barrel and it is blue

[acloco]

The lights in the borescopes are LED. Most LED lighting casts a blue tint.

Combine that with light reflecting off mirror, light reflection off of bore, and the two reflecting into the camera lens.

 

[cmysix]

What cartridge, bullet and powder? Maybe Tikka is buying some barrel steel from the Smurfs?

Oh no not the Skokie smurfs

 

[shoot4fun]

Tikka/Sako barrels are hammer forged. I read one thing they do very differently is they hammer forge the barrel and chamber as one process. I am guessing the heat treat process follows the hammer forging and maybe why that barrel has a slight hue.

 

[dgeesaman]

First post on the forum, although I've been reading for a while.

I recently got a borescope, and have been using it to examine copper/carbon fouling before/after cleaning my rifles. One strange thing that I'm not sure how to interpret is the almost consistent blue coloration of my Tikka T3x barrel. None of my other barrels exhibit this coloration and I have been cleaning them similarly. This condition is pretty consistent from throat to muzzle, but the chamber and the very start of the throat are white metal.

Does anyone know what this is? Is the entire barrel coated in a thin layer of copper? I'm not really concerned because the rifle still shoots well enough for my purposes (well under 1 moa @ 300yds), but I'd be curious to know.

Attached are pics of the bore from the borescope. I have a video as well but it was too large to attach.

Sometimes the Teslong digital camera doesn’t color shift correctly and everything that’s really shiny stainless shows bluish. Sometimes letting it get a view of something outside of the bore gets the color properly balanced.

 

[46and2]

Heat treatment/stress relief colors. CHF barrels require a stress relief after rifling, same as button barrels. Usually it’s more of a plum color, but that’s what it is.

This has my vote. Tempering.

Some else who has a Tikka needs to post a borescope pic to compare.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

I've looked at a fair number of Sako/Tikka bbls and I can't say that I've seen this...so I must lean toward lighting or similar, but anything is possible.

 

[ebb]

Don't they make all the hummers blue?

 

[ducky101]

I believe msalm is correct.


Tikka t3x 6.5 barrel, 16 rounds fired, thoroughly cleaned.


For comparison, brand new MullerWorks 6.5 barrel.
Pictures taken with same borescope moments apart.

 

[LCazador]

It's a stainless barrel. Today after shooting (these pictures are older) I used iosso very conservatively in the bore for the first time and the only thing I noticed that changes is that there is now absolutely no black carbon in the barrel - I believe the pictures above show a couple streaks. The blue 'finish' remains. Only a couple of strokes with a plastic brush, and I try not to short stroke - I'm scared of ruining things!

Is the plastic brush blue?

 

[matchu865]

Is the plastic brush blue?

No, I have a blue one for a 30-cal but my 6.5 brushes are black.

 

[LCazador]

No, I have a blue one for a 30-cal but my 6.5 brushes are black.

Have you tried not using plastic brush? Maybe the culprit.

 

[ExPiney]

I have older tikkas that do not have the blue hue. I have 2 newer ones that do. It's not from the camera. Both of the newer barrels shoot basically everything into 1/2" groups, foul slowly and clean up easy.

It's cool to know what it is. I assumed Tikka had some coating they were putting on the inside of their barrels, but it doesn't seem to shoot out or clean out.

 

[ebb]

Does Tika have a customer service line that could give an answer? Short of that i think Nsalm is right.

 

[msalm]

Pretty good visuals on what you’re seeing there. Final lapping removes this on custom barrels, but quality hammer forged barrels don’t typically need the lapping. Colors like that wouldn’t cause me any concern at all.

 

[clowdis]

Might be some color left after an annealing process post rifling.

 

[spitfire_er]

Tikka's proprietary coating that makes them shoot good.

 

[Markg308]

My wife has a ctr 6.5 creedmoor with stainless barrel that’s the same way

 

[acbrunton55]

My Tikka T3X 6.5CM barrel is blue. Shoots well. Cleans up well. I'm on board with msalm.

 

[FNSafari]

Might it be the wavelength of light being emitted by your borescope? Or the computer monitor's interpretation of the signal it is receiving? Do you know anyone with a Hawkeye borescope? If so see if you are seeing the same thing with that.

 

[Dimner]

I have the same borescope and three tikka barrels. 30-06, 270 and 308. All look silver like the MullerWorks pictured.