JHand wrote on Sep 16^th, 2024 at 4:47pm:


That gun glow stuff is looking close to the plastic/epoxy finishes popular in years past, not my taste

I use a 12 gauge bore mop coated with the red JB BoreBright spinning in a drill to polish my chamber.

I understand you do not want to over polish a chamber since brass cases can then stick to the chamber wall.

You can actually polish a chamber and CAUSE stuck cases - as I was advised by the gunsmith and barrel maker Ron Smith - RKS Enterprises. 

I have also seen this comment on a number of shooting forums as well.

A smoother wall means there is greater contact of the dry polished brass case to the surface increasing friction so it does not relax after firing and then sticks to the highly polished chamber wall.

Normally brass will relax after firing allowing it to be easily extracted.

A rougher surface prevents as much of the brass to adhere to the wall.

The chamber needs to seal enough to prevent pressure moving around the case wall but not sealled too much that it sticks from increased friction from more surface to surface contact of the brass to the chamber wall.

Schuetzendave wrote on Sep 22^nd, 2024 at 5:09pm:

  That's hard to believe.

You can polish too much, radially, not by getting too smooth, but you can cause a slight bulge in one area of the chamber, and it will sure stick then.  So, if you're going to polish by spinning something in the chamber, you can sure polish too much and create a slightly bigger spot that hangs up the case.  Particularly if you use a mop or brush or flex hone or such.  That gets started cutting in one area, and the bristles or nap or whatever flexible thing you use bend or flex or migrate to that area, and cut more, and more, and more until you have a sticky chamber. 

That's why I polish longitudinally.  Nearly impossible to cause a ring doing that.  You can egg shape if you don't pay attention to where you're cutting, so you have to both watch where you're cutting, and move that around the perimeter evenly to keep the polishing uniform.   

The same thing happens when you buff steel instead of polishing with sandpaper backed by a hard backer or stones.  Buffing allows the nap of the wheel to follow some areas of the surface, and create an uneven, wavy surface.   

You can also see that same problem on a round barrel that you wrap emery or sandpaper around and sand by pulling the paper back and forth perpendicular to the barrel.  It ends up wavy.  To get it smoothest and looking best, you need to polish longitudinally, preferably with the paper held on a hard wooden form bored to barrel size.  The final grit can be done radially if you want, as it cuts very little so the effect isn't noticeable.