Bore Scope Results - Interpretation?

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Harry Marinakis

40 Cal
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I bought a 35-year old .50 cal flintlock last year, and I finally put a borescope down the barrel. Can anyone with technical expertise tell me what you're seeing?

The bore is pretty uniform all the way down, no particular damage in any one spot that I can see. The entire bore looks about the same.

I do see some area of blackened bore with shiny metal poking through (last photo). Is that what I'm seeing? Or is that lead stuck to the bore?

I've heard some people say they can shoot all day without swabbing their barrel, but this thing fouls up pretty good after only a few shots. I swab every other round, and that seems to keep it loading easily. 0.490 ball and 0.015' pillow ticking patch. I've tried 0.018" and 0.020" patches but ramming the ball down becomes quite difficult with thicker patches, even with a clean barrel.

I have soaked the bore with hydrogen peroxide and scrubbed it out good, but I'm too scared to put a brush down the barrel.

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Nylon and bronze brushes are softer than the steel of your barrel. I would prefer a good commercial black powder solvent, or even soap and boiling hot water to household items like peroxide or ammonia.
If you are still unhappy, get someone like Bobby Hoyt to rebore and rerifle to .54 caliber. Do not see your muzzle in photos but your barrel wall should be thick enough for that.
 
Phil Coffins said:
The bore looks etched...
Click to expand...
What does that mean, practically speaking?

I clean the bore with water and a little Murphy's oil soap. I've cleaned it a few times with a 5-minute soak with peroxide. I don't think that's enough to damage high-carbon steel. This is a well-used rifle from an active shooter, before I purchased the rifle.

SOLANCO said:
If you are still unhappy, get someone like Bobby Hoyt to rebore and rerifle to .54 caliber. Do not see your muzzle in photos but your barrel wall should be thick enough for that.
Click to expand...
Practically speaking, what would that get me besides a shiny bore?

andy52 said:
I'm with the give-it-a-try group, and may shoot well enough to hunt with.
Click to expand...
I have been shooting it for the last year. It shoots fine. Just seems to foul up pretty quickly, down at the breech and about a foot down from the muzzle.

Here is 50 yards off-hand. I'm not a great shooter, just a beginner. I have since tweaked the front sight.
IMG_3987 b.jpg
 
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Harry Marinakis said:
What does that mean, practically speaking?

I clean the bore with water and a little Murphy's oil soap. I've cleaned it a few times with a 5-minute soak with peroxide. I don't think that's enough to damage high-carbon steel. This is a well-used rifle from an active shooter, before I purchased the rifle.


I have been shooting it for the last year. It shoots fine.

Here is 50 yards off-hand. I'm not a great shooter, just a beginner. I have since tweaked the front sight.
View attachment 367378
Click to expand...
Etched means corroded or damaged by chemical action.

Hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, is a very strong oxidizing agent (oxidizing potential1 1.8 V, acidic conditions), behind ozone (2.1 V) and fluorine (3.0 V), and much stronger than hypochlorite (0.89 V). It has been used in dilute solution as a topical disinfectant, i.e. on wounds, although this is now thought to be disadvantageous to healing because of the damage it does to soft tissue. Even so, solutions of hydrogen peroxide are used for endodontic irrigation because of its disinfectant behaviour. Again, recalling the definition of oxidation as the removal of electrons, many organic substances can suffer this very easily:
(1.14)
thus creating the extremely reactive hydroxyl radical, whereupon many other reactions follow. This can also be done by transition metals, such as iron, in the Fenton reaction:
 
Last edited:
EC121 said:
Scotchbrite will clean it and polish the bore.
Click to expand...
AS said get the original not a knockoff green scotch brite and scrub the bore .start with a new piece very often and use a under size jag .cut the scotch brite in squares about 1 inch or maybe a bit larger you need to force it in the barrel to have enough force to scrub the bore you will be amazed at the difference if you do a through job . do not give up just keep scrubing
 
Harry Marinakis said:
I bought a 35-year old .50 cal flintlock last year, and I finally put a borescope down the barrel. Can anyone with technical expertise tell me what you're seeing?

The bore is pretty uniform all the way down, no particular damage in any one spot that I can see. The entire bore looks about the same.

I do see some area of blackened bore with shiny metal poking through (last photo). Is that what I'm seeing? Or is that lead stuck to the bore?

I've heard some people say they can shoot all day without swabbing their barrel, but this thing fouls up pretty good after only a few shots. I swab every other round, and that seems to keep it loading easily. 0.490 ball and 0.015' pillow ticking patch. I've tried 0.018" and 0.020" patches but ramming the ball down becomes quite difficult with thicker patches, even with a clean barrel.

I have soaked the bore with hydrogen peroxide and scrubbed it out good, but I'm too scared to put a brush down the barrel.

View attachment 367369

View attachment 367370

View attachment 367371

View attachment 367372

View attachment 367373

View attachment 367374
Click to expand...
I've had a high end bore scope (Hawkeye) for 20 years or so and have had to learn how to interpret what is viewed over time and experience. I see some light pitting, carbon fouling and in the last photo some lead deposits. I do quite a bit of lead slug barrel lapping with progressive grit sizes and then check progress with a set of plug gauges and measured barrel slugs.
The barrel shown is actually in pretty good shape as the rifling is strong and no deep pits have developed. Have you recovered your patches and examined them or do you only shoot conicals ?
 
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I did a little Scotch Brite cleaning, and took some new photos with the bore cleaned up some more. This is mostly down by the breech.

I talked with Robert Hoyt, looks like I'll send him my rifle after the New Year.
A .54 caliber is in my future.

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ZUG said:
No amount of scrubbing with ScotchBrite will polish up that bore - it is too far pitted. You either use it as is and live with the hard loading or have the bore re-cut.
Click to expand...

This is my "beater" rifle. I take it out in the rain and mud, beat it up. Keep it oiled and clean it up afterwards. Not too worried about it, but for the price of having the bore re-cut I'm gonna do it.

IMGP6453 b.jpg


IMGP5940.jpg
 
Do you know what brand of barrel it is? It looks like there are some longitudinal tool marks in the grooves. I agree scrubbing isn't going to cure the problem. Barrels in that shape will never come clean even though they might shoot ok. A 54 is a great caliber anyway. Or you might think about turning it into a smooth bore which would be a lot more versatile gun.
 
Scotchbrite won’t polish the bore smooth, but it will round off the sharp edges of the corrosion a bit.
Those patches are blown like they are too thin, but the spit patch in a “less than smooth” barrel also doesn’t help.
 

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