Friend messed up barrel....

[bsumoba]

A friend of mine getting into F T/R bought a Model 12 F T/R rifle. He went to go clean it and in the process of cleaning it, started to put ever so small chatter marks on the lands of the rifling. I have no clue how he did it. Anyways, I went over and was looking at it with a flashlight about an inch from the end of the barrel and I can just make them out. They were not huge, but to the naked eye, it was there. No need to borescope it....

His question is this...

He has not shot it yet, but I told him to go ahead and shoot it. He asked me what I think will happen and I told him since it is on the lands and the lands directly contact the bullet, that it just might "lap" itself and it might be okay. The other thing that might happen is those chatter marks will rip the copper jacket off a bit and you will get coppering, but hopefully it will lap itself and after the "break-in" period, they just might disappear. I also told him in his case, to do a strict break in and after 1-3 shots, to clean it...properly this time.

What are your thoughts?

I looked at one of my barrels and I only have longitudinal lines that follow the rifling. His are small vertical marks on the lands themselves.

 

[JRS]

Is he using a bore guide ???

 

[SteveNC]

Came from factory like that.....but I assume he did not use a steel jag and pound it through the barrel though...LOL.

 

[GrocMax]

Normal for a mass produced button rifled barrel.

 

[SG4247]

My bore scope shows chatter tooling marks on button pulled barrels all the time.

Unless it is hand lapped, the marks are a result of the manufacturing process.

Cleaning will not create the marks you see.

 

[bsumoba]

So he was not using a bore guide. He was using some sort of plated bronze/brass jag and nylong brushes. He was using a non-coated cleaning rod.

As far as he can tell, the chatter marks were not there before, but I can't trust his word.

I am comparing my bartlein barrels to his factory savage barrel, so that might not be an apples to apples comparison.

I guess the only way to see if it is an issue is to shoot it. Him and I are going to try out his gun tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Hal]

Shoot it and see how it shoots. Some Savage barrels have a rough finish and shot great.

Hal

 

[ridgeway]

Sounds like a typical savage barrel to me...

 

[338 Mollett]

Sounds like a typical savage barrel to me...

+1 He did not put that in there.

 

[Concha]

Ive seen more than one like that and they have all shot acceptable groups for a factory gun.

 

[Larryh128]

They were there originally. I had a Winchester barrel that looked horrible, full of reamer tracks that I was certain would become a tomato stake. Probably the most accurate factory barrel that I've ever seen.

 

[Barlow]

My 308 FTR barrel looked the same as his, brand new. Barlow

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Savage barrels look like railroad tracks, complete with cross ties. Somehow, they still shoot.

 

[savageshooter86]

Yes definitely not comparing apples to apples vs a Bartlein. If he wants a good rifle throw that barrel away and buy a prefit. No joke

Will save him money and time. I been there and done that. Get a Shilen or Criterion.

My smooth looked at my savage barrel and said he had never seen anything that bad inside. Looked like railroad tracks with ridges like on side of interstate. He let me see them

 

[mikecr]

He can break-in with Tubb's FinalFinish(~20shots) and his bore will hold a lap more like a bartlein.

 

[dmoran]

bsumoba -

Every Savage barrel I've looked down is chattered and tool marked.
Some a little better and some worse then the picture above.

Tell your friend he's off the hook, and that Savage is why !.!.!
Donovan

 

[BoydAllen]

As the others have said, your friend did not cause the chatter marks. The barrel came that way and he did not notice them until after he cleaned it. Savages that I own, and have owned have had interesting bores to one degree or another. Tell him to shoot it for a couple of hundred rounds and see if the tendency to copper foul decreases with that use. I have a friend who has a Savage varmint rifle in .223 that shoots very well and does not have any unusual copper fouling issue, and yet its interior looks rather rough under bore scope inspection. I would leave it alone and continue to shoot it. You may need a more active copper solvent in the beginning, but that need may decrease over time. IMO, particularly in the case of a stainless barrel, the sharp corners of these kinds of features are the problem and they will probably dull with some shooting and cease to be an issue. What I have seen have not so much been chatter marks, but rather reamer tool marks that were not touched by the rifling button as is made its pass.

 

[Macropod]

How does Savage manage to create chatter marks so badly with a button rifling process?


Those photos are interesting to say the least!

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

Just speculating here, but bare with me for a minute.


There are inherent differences in the level of production that Savage does and that of custom barrel makes...obviously. When button rifling a barrel, there are great pressures involved, but for varying reasons.
An overlooked aspect of the whys and hows of this are seen in the amount of pressure it takes to force a button through reamed blanks vs. reamed and honed blanks. A smoother finish to the bore carries less lube for the process of button rifling of gun barrels..as an example, as many makers are finding out...and creates more pressure to button. A larger reamed hole or a smaller button gives dissimilar results but still produce a barrel that acceptable to Savage and still performs well. If Savage deserves credit anywhere, it's well served for producing an accurate rifle for generally less cost than its competitors..although not as much so in recent years as they have evened the price gap to some degree.


That and the production levels of a huge factory rifle maker....along with their acceptable production tolerances as such,may well allow them to make a larger reamed hole that is likely faster and produces less tooling wear, during manufacturing...lowering production costs.
In other words, as I think Boyd said...the hole is too big for the button to iron out all of the roughness..but it still shoots. FWIW--Mike Ezell
p.s.--sorry for the rambling text. I made this at about 6 different times..at least....Interruptions!

 

[Dos XX]

Put some Varget and a185 Juggernaut in it and see what it does. The factory barrel on mine shot pretty dang good. It could stand to be throated longer unless they changed the chamber specs.