Removing LARGE burrs/raised edges on lands

[HighUintas]

I picked up a percussion gun as a backup for a hunt in September. I shot it for the first time today and it really likes to cut patches on the lands and occasionally burns through as a result. It's a Uberti Santa Fe Hawken. Proof Mark says made in 1982. I think the nipple was original and measured around 0.042. so it's been shot some but not a ton. The bore and muzzle didn't look like it's been shot a ton . Maybe a couple hundred times? Hard to say.

 I've got 0.526 balls and a variety of patches. I started with bull denim (0.020) and mink oil. These put a good number touching at 50, but also threw a lot of wild ones presumably from blowing patches. I also tried duck canvas (0.022-0.023) with mink. These held up a lot better but are much harder loading and they still were cut/frayed but not as badly.

I shot swiss 2f, both 90gr and 100gr with comparable results.

Patches were really hard to find due to area I was in but found enough to know that the bore needs fixing.

I cleaned the barrel up yesterday and used a bore scope to check it out. The edges of the lands are raised, almost like a consistent burr over the whole length. Not the whole length but most of it. I ran some 0000 steel wool really tight on a patched jag up and down the bore for about 75 strokes. It didn't seem to do much but was late so I called it done, cleaned it and went to bed. I also smoothed the crown using Daryl's method. The crown is good to go.

The results today show the lands are an issue so I need to remedy it.

I'll get some pictures later to show exactly what is in the bore... I have a hard time believing that steel wool is going to knock those edges down. Maybe green 3m pad, but it seems that I'd damage the rest of the bore going at it long enough to knock the edges down.

It's the first time I've seen something like it. It almost looks like the cutter was dull or something when they cut the grooves and pushed that edge up. The grooves don't look rough though. They look smoother than my colerain grooves.

When running a tight patch down the bore, it feels really smooth , so I don't know.

What do you guys think? Run a tight green 3m on a jag a few hundred times up and down the bore, or should I just get 300-400 balls and shoot the heck out of it over a weekend?

[rich pierce]

You can try swabbing with valve grinding compound on a tough patch. It’s less complicated than making a lead lap. That would be my next step. When done lapping, flush with brake cleaning compound. Works a charm.

[HighUintas]

You can try swabbing with valve grinding compound on a tough patch. It’s less complicated than making a lead lap. That would be my next step. When done lapping, flush with brake cleaning compound. Works a charm.

Thanks. You'd do that before a 3m pad or shooting it a lot?

Also, I've never used it. That stuff is usually available at auto stores, like AutoZone or Napa, right?

Tough or tight patch?

[rich pierce]

Yeah, I find shooting a hundred rounds inaccurately a lot more frustrating than lapping. Autozone or NAPA auto should have some. It’s gritty. Tough patch and undersized jag is my recommendation. Even a .50 jag and a double canvas patch if your regular jag snd patch embedded with compound is too tight. Embed the patch with compound evenly and liberally to the edges. You probably aren’t planning on unbreeching the barrel but that would be ideal so you could lap from the breech with the jag never leaving the muzzle. If you can’t do that, put the barrel in a vise and clamp a vertical board 2” away with a ramrod-sized hole centered on the barrel bore. Run the range rod through this. Perfect alignment and no worries about messing up your nice crown.

Some do a hybrid approach - shoot about 20 round balls with the patches loaded with lapping compound. Again, a .490 ball and doubled canvas patch would carry a lot of compound. I’ve never tried this but some say it’s effective and quick.

[HighUintas]

Great. Thank you for the details! I had thought about unbreeching it, but I worry that the factory may have torqued it on super tight and I wouldn't want to mess up the browned finish. I only have a regular cheapo bench vise and wrenches for breeching, which works fine when the gun isn't finished.

I'll probably either try clamping a board as a guide as you suggest or shooting some balls with the patches loaded with it.

How many strokes do you do typically do before replacing the patch or refreshing the compound?

Any thoughts on the permatex brand? It says it breaks down from 120 to 220grit. That's a bit coarse. Maybe follow it with maroon 3m and JB paste?

[rich pierce]

Since any tiny grooves left from the grit run lengthwise, I don’t find its feels “not smooth” after lapping. I hadn’t noticed choices in grit before. I’ve not had patches wear out when lapping a new barrrl or an old one not badly pitted.

[Eric Krewson]

Maroon scotchbright is more aggressive than green, it slicks up a bore well and doesn't seem to do harm to the barrel.

Here is a Hoyt recut barrel before and after 100 strokes with maroon scotchbright, I changed the pad every 25 stokes.

Before;

 

After;

[Birddog6]

I try a Bore Paste called IOSSO Bore Cleaner on a really tight patch & watch the jag close as not
to come out of the barrel. Do it 20 times, pull it out & reapply paste & continue.
Do full length strokes down & back counted as 1 stroke & do it 200 times. Have also done it with
0000 steel wool with Fine valve grinding compound if it feels excessively rough.
If the barrel is out & unbreeched, you can run a dry cotton patch down the bore & back & hold it
to a light & see if the rifling is catching cotton fibers.
If I do the valve grinding compound, I do the Bore Paste after the valve grinding compound.
The bore paste is very fine & looks like white toothpaste.

[Habu]

Some do a hybrid approach - shoot about 20 round balls with the patches loaded with lapping compound. Again, a .490 ball and doubled canvas patch would carry a lot of compound. I’ve never tried this but some say it’s effective and quick.

Best results when fire-lapping seem to come with light powder charges.  In a .54, I've had good results with 20 grains of FFg/.535" round ball/.021" oiled patch smeared with Clover 280 grit valve grinding compound.  I cleaned the bore after each shot, and fired a test group after 5 lapping rounds.  The worst barrel I've done needed 15 lapping rounds before patch-cutting stopped.  The whole process took about as long as pulling the breech and lapping the bore in the conventional manner.

[HighUintas]

Thanks for all the other suggestions.

I'm sort of in between using a 3M pad and valve grinding paste. I'm hesitant on using the permatex brand because it basically starts as 120 but breaks down to 220 as you use it. Starting at 120 would have me a little worried I'd remove too much metal.

Eric, for the 3m that I have, green is more coarse than maroon. I've read this in various places online and the industrial hardware store I got these from had them marked as such. This green also feels more coarse than the maroon. I have read that the green is somewhere around 300 grit and the maroon is around 600, if I remember correctly.

Here's a few pictures. I got a couple of spots where the raised edge is more gnarly and burr like, but most of it looks more like a smooth raised edge and it exists through most of the bore.  Other than that, it's really dang smooth!

[rich pierce]

That would cut a patch.

[Hungry Horse]

 Keep in mind that those guns are .530 bore even though the barrel may be marked otherwise.

  Hungry Horse

[HighUintas]

Keep in mind that those guns are .530 bore even though the barrel may be marked otherwise.

  Hungry Horse

Yup, that's why I'm using.526 balls. I did some researching on it and I think they are 0.533, which also explains why I was able to load a 0.530 ball. That was super tight though, so I think I'll stick with a 0.526 so I can use a thicker patch (0.022).

[HighUintas]

I'm on child duty this morning, so I tried some green and maroon 3m pads because I have it on hand. I realized that I ran out of the green pads from the industrial hardware store and bought some from home depot. I think these green ones are different than the ones I used to have and the maroon actually felt more coarse.

So, I did about 100 with the janky green and 100 with the good maroon, on a patch with oil. Had to use a mallet to get it started.

It does look like it knocked em down a touch, but I think I'd have to repeat the process about 5 times!! Maybe I'll try some permatex valve grinding compound later today when I can get out and about

[recurve]

Chuck Dixon told me years ago take a brass brush wrap it with 0000 steel wool ad gun oil a few drops 50 stokes clean and repeat till burrs are gone
before
after
I now do all my new barrels

[HighUintas]

I put probably several hundred complete strokes down the bore with a variety of valve grinding compound, maroon 3M pad, green, and 0000 steel wool. I tried a couple of patches of the valve grinding compound, But I lacked the fortitude to keep going on it. The grit size looked pretty big so I didn't want to use it very much.

And then went through probably four pieces of maroon pad, 50 full strokes, each, green pad, and then 0000 steel wool.

After cleaning the barrel out, I took a look and the raised edges are still there and some of them are still jagged looking, but more rounded. It does look better, but it still looks pretty scary. I was starting to get a little bit nervous about removing too much metal in the wrong places, so I called it good and decided to go shoot to see if there's any improvement in the cutting of patches and precision for larger round count groups.

There's eight shots on this target, and seven of them are 0.526 ball with bull denim and a mixture of ballastal and water in the group up and left. I ran out of my mink oil patches which is why I was using ballastal and water. Clean bore fouling shot is the highest in that group. The single shot that is out of the group low and to the right is a 530 ball with a bear grease mixture. I only shot one of those just to see if it would land in the same POI.  All shots were 90gr 2f Swiss. Also, in those seven shots I alternated between rws 1075 regular, and rws 1075 plus caps to see if there is a difference. Difference. The plus. Shot a hair higher, so there's actually two groups in there. Four shots 1075 plus and three shots 1075 regular. So, individually the group is even smaller when considering cap type.

Considering the rear sight is factory stock and is a tiny v, I'm pretty happy with the group. It's pretty hard aiming with the factory sights and I'm going to have to do a little bit of modification to the rear.

How did the patches look? Not a clue. I couldn't locate a single in of these due to all the trash at this range. It is quite infuriating that people treat public land as they do.




I also shot a 3 shot group of 0.530 balls (I think mostly a bit undersized at 0.528-0.529) with duck canvas (0.022-0.023) with ballistol and water. It was getting dark, so I had trouble seeing the sights. Otherwise I think the group may have been better. It was a little over 1" but I don't have a picture of that one.

I did locate one of these patches and it looks better than the canvas ones from yesterday that I shot with 0.526 balls.







Overall I think it's probably better and probably didn't destroy the bull denim patches but I wouldn't be surprised if they're still a little torn.

Considering the group of the bull denim, I may not want to monkey with the bore anymore.

[Eric Krewson]

The maroon is the coarsest, followed by gray and then green, if you look at it on the rack at Lowe's that is what you will see on the package.

I looked it up, the maroon is listed as 220 grit, the gray as 320 and the green as single "0", this for the 3M pads.

[HighUintas]

The maroon is the coarsest, followed by gray and then green, if you look at it on the rack at Lowe's that is what you will see on the package.

I looked it up, the maroon is listed as 220 grit, the gray as 320 and the green as single "0", this for the 3M pads.

I see that you're right! It's been a couple of years since I looked at the pads at that hardware store, but I could have sworn that they had the green listed more coarse than the maroon. Now I'll have to go back and check to see if I'm crazy or not!

Thanks for the correction, Eric

[longcruise]

I have firelapped many ml rifles using the LBT compound.  Best results were embedding it in pure lead bullets.  About 25 shots.  No lube on the bullets.  Barrel thoroughly wiped between shots.  The Wheeler-342303-Bore-Lapping-Kit  also works.  For lead bullets the .533 is a problem.

The LBT  compound also did pretty well on a thick patch.

I'm surprised to see a Hoyt re bore that rough.  I've had three done and they were good to go from the git go.

[HighUintas]

I have firelapped many ml rifles using the LBT compound.  Best results were embedding it in pure lead bullets.  About 25 shots.  No lube on the bullets.  Barrel thoroughly wiped between shots.  The Wheeler-342303-Bore-Lapping-Kit  also works.  For lead bullets the .533 is a problem.

The LBT  compound also did pretty well on a thick patch.

I'm surprised to see a Hoyt re bore that rough.  I've had three done and they were good to go from the git go.

It's not a hoyt rebore. The Uberti Santa Fe Hawken rifles were 0.530-0.533 bore from the factory although marked as 54 on the barrel.

[Maven]

"I see that you're right! It's been a couple of years since I looked at the pads at that hardware store, but I could have sworn that they had the green listed more coarse than the maroon. Now I'll have to go back and check to see if I'm crazy or not!"


I think 3M has that information on their website, HU.  If they do, it would save you time and a trip to the hardware store. 

[recurve]

here are my hoyt barrels with the 0000 wool treatment










upload images

[HighUintas]

Here's a few pictures after the smoothing work I did yesterday. I think it looks bit better, right?

Maybe a few hundred more strokes will have them completely removed!

[Maven]

A marked improvement!

[Daryl]

Looks better to me, if in the same location.
In 50 hesrs of shooting black powder rifles, I've never observed this problem until now.