What in the world ????

My brother owns a Savage 112 BVSS in .223. He only shoots occasionally but he cleans the rifle after every outing. Yesterday we were at the club and he was shooting a variety of handloads that I made up for him. One particular load with a 69 SMK and Varget repeatedly printed into an inch at 200yds. I was impressed for a factory Savage rifle and a new shooter.

When we got home I put the rifle up on the bench and threw the Teslong into the bore for the first time. The barrel was filthy and loaded with carbon. We cleaned as usual with Eliminator and a brass brush. Plenty of carbon remained so I soaked the barrel with BoreTech C4 for a few hours and then short stroked a few patches down the bore with Flitz bore cleaner. After a through flush of the bore, I went back to the Teslong. Here is what the entire bore looks like.

Opinions??

Never bore scope a savage.... just shoot it and be ignorantly happy. Had a savage barrel 15 years ago. It shot good and lasted as long as my custom barrels, looked like it was rifled by an angry metal chewing beaver. Decided the teslong only got pulled out when a problem arose.

You got it clean!

Clean enough to see the tooling marks and possible pitting.

Probably take several shots for it to act "right" again, no worries I wouldn't think.

Someone posted a picture of a Savage barrel on this sight a couple years ago that looked like an old sewer pipe. He also posted pictures of the groups it shot, and they were impressive. Sometimes logic does not apply. But as Phill said, it will probably take several shots to get it shooting good again.

One thing that I was surprised to see is that the bore returned to a mirror like finish. None of my customs returns to a finish like that no matter what I do. However, the entire bore looks pitted. At first it looked like loose debris but I carefully patched out the bore and then ran several dry flannel patches down. The bore condition didn't change.

I'm shocked that this rifle was shooting .5moa @ 200yds before I cleaned it.

Just small inclusions...I've seen worse. Keep shooting it.

Ive had a couple that looked worse. Still shoots .625 moa consistently. Most of them look similar. Maybe that's why they're called "Savage".

Heck..I will start leaving all my rifles outside in the weather...hoping they will pit-up and shoot .5moa at 200yds.....

Wow! I spent a couple of hours cleaning a barrel (Proof) and never got it mirror clean. Maybe I don't want to. Bore scopes now lead me to much more effort in cleaning. I rarely leave solvents in the barrel for longer than a few minutes. I just started using Bore Tech Eliminator.

If that Savage shoots .5 MOA, then I don't know what to think about the importance of barrel quality. I guess harmonics trumps rifling and bore condition.

I've had factory pawn shop/ used rifle barrels look like that after cleaning. Some apparently put away full of carbon and never cleaned so they became pitted.
Most still shot fine.

That one shoots fine so I'd roll with it!

As comfisherman said.
"Never borescope a Savage barrel"!!

They never look pretty, but they shoot!!

Gonna take you 50 rounds to get enough copper back in it to smooth things out.

A little bore butter from David Tubb should keep the pressure down on the first few shots, until the voids are filled with carbon and copper.
Im just starting to use it, so after cleaning I'm not firing on a "dry" barrel.

Phil Rizzo said:

A little bore butter from David Tubb should keep the pressure down on the first few shots, until the voids are filled with carbon and copper.
Im just starting to use it, so after cleaning I'm not firing on a "dry" barrel.

Click to expand...

Had that problem… lots of friction and bite on those first few shots after a squeaky cleaning!

My Sav m12FV 223 seems to love the 69gr SMK from any factory ammo that loads it.

With 75gr amax hand loads its shoots .1-.3, 3 shot groups and 1" groups at 300.

Need to scope the bore for laughs, but it has always shot and fed great for a factory rifle