Hello, everyone.  I have a question concerning rimfire bore wear, I have a couple of .22 rimfire barrels  approx. 80 years old or so,  They have match type chambers.   One brl. has a land at 12:00 that when an Eley Tenex is chambered, just a light land mark is pressed into bulet surface.  The two lands to right & left are more distinct, but still are shallower than the other lands in lower part of brl.  The other brl. shows only scuff marks at the 12:00 position..no land mark visable. All other land marks are very light.  Now at 50yds., with Eley and Lapua match,  they both  will put 5 shots into a small cloverleaf..sometimes into one ragged hole.  So the accuracy doesn't seem to be harmed.  Everything I have read of rimfire shooting wear states it begins at bottom of bore and gradually works up both sides.  It seems strange if cleaning rod wear that both brls. would show at same 12:00 position...And only there?  Could this indeed be from shooting?  Thanks!

I've seen, via a borescope, excessive wear @ both 6 and 12, largely due to a particular owners geometry when misusing a rod. As critical as a proper boreguide is when cleaning, with vintage SS .22's it becomes a near impossability. The best thing you can do is use a good, straight, coated rod to clean, be consious of pushing in straight, and go slow. Nothing is more alarming than watching somebody "sawing" on a rod with a big bow in it.

When I shot bullseye pistol we cleaned our bores at the end of the season. Never touched them during the season, as it wasn't necessary, and it just lead to uneccessary wear. Our team gunsmith told us to leave them alone unless they malfunctioned.

marlinguy wrote on Jul 9^th, 2011 at 11:06am:


Agreed.  I was once reminded by my gunsmith, upon looking at my High Standard Bullseye gun', “Charlie, it is alright to clean these things!”  I guess I just kinda forgot.   

I do know more 22 barrels have been ruined by improper cleaning than by wear.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.   

Froggie

is it possibly erosion at 12 oclock not wear? That is where 10x was suppose to show the little crescent moon erosion

This is a good discussion; many years ago now, my father told me that you should never clean a good 22, because you run more risk of wearing the barrel by cleaning it then by shooting it. However I do clean my 22's, although I think it's important to carefully wipe down the rod with a patch and solvent beforehand, and a bore-guide is a good idea too. I think with high-pressure calibers, the bores can be destroyed by gas-cutting, but with 22's or low-pressure calibers, it's more an embedded cleaning rod that does the damage. 

One other mention concerning why the wear at 12 o'clock. It's quite possible that if the cleaning started at the chamber end, and the gun had a tang sight, that the person cleaning it might be raising the cleaning rod up towards 12 o'clock to clear the folded tang sight?
So it may simply be this misalignment that caused slight wear in that area of the bore.

RSW wrote on Jul 6^th, 2011 at 6:22pm:


Now that is something I never thought about