Shotgun Barrel Polishing

[Azrial 1,091]

I have considered polishing the bore of my S12.

 

I have read and been told by old time Smiths that polishings will reduce the effort to clean the weapon and improve patterning. I feel fairly confident that it will in fact make it easier to clean, but I am not so sure how much improvement one can expect with patterning, particularly for a buckshot gun.

 

So I would love to hear all opinions, particularly learned ones.

[HillBilly2 9]

I worked on a lot of "Turkey Shoot Guns" 10-15 years ago. I've still got most of the back bore and chamber reamers and hones somewhere but haven't used them in years. With a regular barrel it will help with cleaning. Patterning, not so much as there are way too many other variables involved. If polishing did improve patterning I always felt the improvement was more from getting the bore clean than from anything else. The Saigas have a chrome bore which gives pretty much the same thing as a polished bore. I'd say do not use a hone of any kind on it, it would damage the plating.

 

When i did backbore and hone a barrel the last step was a final polish where I wrapped some 0000 steel wool around a bore brush, chucked the cleaning rod in an electric drill, and spent a half hour or so running it up and down the barrel. The bore came out mirror bright. A couple of minutes of something like this should not hurt the plating if done in moderation, It would remove any plastic residue and give you a super clean bore. Dip it in Hoppes for added benefit and effect.

 

If your talking about using polishing compound, I would probably be reluctant to use anything very aggressive. No diamond compounds or anything abrasive that would abrade the chrome. You should be OK with a chrome cleaner or something like Dupont #7. Flitz would probably be OK as well.

[BobAsh 582]

The Saiga bore is pretty smooth, not sure how much improvement you'd get.

[Azrial 1,091]

Duh, I had forgot about the chrome! I also assume that any improvement in patterning would be seen with birdshot loads, which of less interest to me. HillBilly2 seems to indicate that even that improvement would be minimal at best.

 

Oh, well that is what I get for wasting my time reading the "fine" shotgun boards!

[6500rpm 670]

Azrial, I'm actually glad you brought this up. hillbilly hit on something from my past that might be more common than I thought. My brother-in-law passed the better part of 10 years ago, but in life he was a master gun smith for Browning for over 30 years. He had a Turkey shoot specific shotgun that he used to clean house with at the shoots. They check for chokes with a stick (chokes aren't allowed), so he took a flex hone and carefully worked the inner diameter of the barrel so the shot could expand in the center, then contract toward the business end and tighten up his groups if I've got it right. I know this has nothing to do with your post, but it's kind of a cool little trick if that's what hillbilly was talking about.

[Azrial 1,091]

Yeah, I am now afraid of damaging my chrome, but am still considering a heavy swap loaded with Flitz or some other mild polish to give the tube a little better surface finish.

 

Backboreing and other tricks would destroy the chrome. I was talking to a old Gunsmith the other day about this and he said that many of these tricks had diminished effectiveness with modern wad design.

 

It is still an interesting idea!

[HillBilly2 9]

The 0000 steel wool trick really does work, and it should not damage anything. It really cuts the plastic residue that builds up from the wads over time. Its suprising how much this stuff builds up. Give this a try before you use the polish, that way you will get the polish to the metal instead of pulishing the plastic

 

Taking this thread off subject for a moment, The Federal Tactical 2 3/4 inch 9 pellet OO buck load with flitecontrol wad is the most impressive thing I've seen. Patterns at 30 yds of 6" or so. This stuff makes good sights mandatory.

 

The "fine" shotgun boards are mostly focused on clay shooting with small shot. A lot of their tricks like back boring and long forcing cone reaming helps produce more uniform patterns, not smaller ones. They want a consistant distribution of shot all across the pattern with no clumping. This helps to give more reliable breaks with the marginal shots where just the edge of the pattern hit the pigeon. Their goal is to increase the score.

 

6500rpm, I've done that in the past. Used a brake cyclinder hone with a homemade extension. It will work, but is less effective than a good choke. It's also amazing how long it takes to remove a few thousandths. It was a killer mod for the shoots that had rules where they gauged the barrel though.