How can I tell without a borescope if I have a ringed barrel??

[Adui]

a few years back, Probably 5 or so, I let myself get distracted while loading and didn't ram the ball ALL the way down. I cant remember where it stopped, but i remember the distinct sound the rifle made when it went off and realizing my mistake.

I inspected her as best I can, no bulges and no visible rings with a borelight dropped down the tube.

She has always tended to build a crud ring about 8" up from the breech after several rounds fired, but its been noticeably worse since I came over to the dark side and started using real black, 3f powder instead of Pyrodex or Black MZ.

While at the range this past Monday it got bad enough that I had to run a wet patch down the bore and let it sit at the ring during a cease fire to soften it enough to get it cleared.

My concern is that maybe there is a ring at that point, and that is why its building the ring of crud so badly. Is there a way to tell without investing in a borescope? (I know of cheaper ones and intend to buy one eventually but not just now.)

 

[Kansas Kid]

If you don’t feel it with a clean bore and a snug oiled patch then it’s not.

 

[bang]

Yep, tight patch will tell the story.

 

[Sidney Smith]

Sounds more like a rough spot in the more than a ring. A rough spot will collect more residue from firing than smooth areas.

 

[Zonie]

Expanding a bit on Kansas Kid's comment, "If you don’t feel it with a clean bore and a snug oiled patch then it’s not." if I may:

In a clean bore, if you push a tight fitting, oiled patch on a jag down the bore, if the force needed to shove it all the way to the breech plug is about the same, your barrel is not "ringed".

If the force needed suddenly becomes much less and it then returns to the same amount, your patch has just passed thru a ringed area of the barrel.

Often, the amount of "ringing" in a rifle barrel is only in the order of .010 or so. This is only .005 per side. The thickness of a average human hair is .003 so you can see why it's almost not possible to see a "ring" in a rifle barrel.

Because they are thinner, shotgun barrels often are bulged well over 1/32 of an inch when they are ringed so it's pretty easy to see them.

If your rifle bore is ringed .010 or so, that can definitely hurt its accuracy.

 

[EC121]

What patch lube are you using? Changing lubes might help the crud problem.

 

[Adui]

What patch lube are you using? Changing lubes might help the crud problem.

Moose milk, one of the many variants using Murphy's and water soluable oil.

As for the tight patch, in a clean bore even with the tightest patch I can run down (oiled) there is no discernible change when passing the offending area, so I will assume there isn't a ring based upon the advice here. Which leads me to think she has a bit of a rough spot there then, and I'll just have to redouble my efforts to keep it clean as I know this kind of thing can lead to an area that isn't clean enough and thus gets rust...
The good news is a wet patch left in the spot of the crud ring for a few seconds cleans it right out.

 

[FishDFly]

Since your question has been answered, a couple of things come to mind to try, clean/wipe between shots and try some Scotch Brite to clean up the suspected place.

 

[EC121]

Seems to me that a tight patch would also drag on a rough spot. If a wet patch cleans it, maybe it is some really baked on crud/lube. After 8-10 shots I always get a crud ring by the ball, but it comes right out. I use mink oil or coconut oil for lube. Sometimes mixed. Feels to me like they(organic type lubes mixed with the powder crud) take the cleaning solution better, and the junk wipes right out.

 

[hanshi]

A tight prb load usually fouls less than a looser one.

 

[rich pierce]

I found the muzzleloaders shooters paradox Hanshi refers to, late in the game. The tighter the load within reason, the easier it loads without cleaning between patches. Sometimes I think I need to understand something before it’s true. In reality a things veracity is independent of my understanding.

The only satisfying explanation is that 1) the right combo burns better and 2) the tight load cleans the bore each time the gun is reloaded.

 

[Adui]

In retrospect, I noticed the issue as an actual problem after switching to a can or Elephant powder I was given. (Free is a wonderful price! Thanks to the donor who will remain nameless unless he chimes in). Until now I have no experience with this powder, but I've heard it is a bit dirtier than Goex...

 

[Loyalist Dave]

In retrospect, I noticed the issue as an actual problem after switching to a can or Elephant powder I was given. (Free is a wonderful price! Thanks to the donor who will remain nameless unless he chimes in). Until now I have no experience with this powder, but I've heard it is a bit dirtier than Goex.. .

"A bit dirtier than Goex.." ?

Elephant and it's stepchild Diamondback are/were A LOT dirtier than GOEX. Elephant is from South America and when that company folded the facility opened back up making Diamondback. The ingredients didn't change, and I don't know if it's the charcoal that they use or impure (compared to other powders) potassium nitrate that they use, but the stuff is horrendous, in my experience. I will add that I burned a lot of both in the past.

Elephant and Diamondback were for a while super cheap, so we used it for reenacting blanks and for live fire. That "ring" phenomenon isn't unique to your rifle either. In fact it's unconfirmed that the lone report of an India origin Bess that split its barrel was using Diamondback, and the theory is that such a hard ring had formed in that barrel, that the owner simply didn't realize it. Then through what we in my job call a "training scar" in the loading and firing procedure, a clump of unburned 3Fg built up at that ring, and acted like a barrel obstruction when the musket fired.

We've gone back to GOEX "reenactor grade" or to Graf & Sons powder for blanks, and GOEX or Graf & Sons for live fire.

LD

 

[Boomerang]

If you have a micrometer, you can measure the outside diameter or flats of the barrel and see if the barrel is larger in that section.

 

[Adui]

If you have a micrometer, you can measure the outside diameter or flats of the barrel and see if the barrel is larger in that section.

Did that when I originally had the incident. It isnt

 

[Britsmoothy]

With out trying to sound offensive or condescending, is there any evidence that a ringed barrel degrades accuracy?
I have read an account of a meticulous target shooter noticing accuracy of his rifle increased after an accident that caused a ring.
I ringed a 22 once and while I have no proof distinctly noticed an improvement and not a degrading of accuracy!

Now I expect some barrels maybe affected negatively but is this another one of those mythical lores? Do all ringed barrels result in a degrading accuracy? I don't think so!

B.

 

[Ames]

If you have a micrometer, you can measure the outside diameter or flats of the barrel and see if the barrel is larger in that section.

Wont necessarily work. You have to take into account how much you draw filled the flats of the barrel to begin with. Discrepancies the thickness of a human hair can be easily left behind when you build a gun.

 

[Grenadier1758]

The ring, if not too large of a change in the internal diameter of the barrel, may act like a jug choke and make for better engagement of the ball as the ball leaves the barrel. Just speculation, no proof.

There is evidence of some target barrels being choked a few thousandths at the muzzle to improve accuracy.

 

[Zonie]

With out trying to sound offensive or condescending, is there any evidence that a ringed barrel degrades accuracy?
I have read an account of a meticulous target shooter noticing accuracy of his rifle increased after an accident that caused a ring.
I ringed a 22 once and while I have no proof distinctly noticed an improvement and not a degrading of accuracy!

Now I expect some barrels maybe affected negatively but is this another one of those mythical lores? Do all ringed barrels result in a degrading accuracy? I don't think so!

B.

Perhaps in the modern guns you mention, ringing might not cause a problem but I think rifled muzzleloading guns shooting patched roundballs is different.

The one gun I bought that had a ringed barrel was a old CVA Mountain rifle. I didn't know when I bought it that it had this problem and had heard that these guns shoot very accuretly.
My first trip to the range proved differently.

Regardless of the ball and patch I tried, the group size at 50 yards was all over the 12" X 12" target and this was shooting off the bench with my left elbow firmly planted on it.

After finding some of the shot patches I found that they all were badly burned and torn at the place where the ball had contacted the bore.
When I got home and started to clean the gun, it became obvious the barrel was ringed.

IMO, the patch was probably doing fine as it and the ball moved up the barrel but when they got to the ringed area and the "fit" suddenly became looser the hot gasses blew past the patch and burned it badly. From that point on, the patch not only didn't seal the bore but the patch lost its grip on the rifling resulting in the poor accuracy.

 

[Boomerang]

I wonder if anyone ever tried to un-ring a barrel with a hydraulic press or a good strong vise with shims on the high spots?