One man's guide to polishing a barrel

Erik

Member
Aug 29, 2016
660
9
The most accurate gun I have ever owned got a barrel polish by the guy who helped me aquire the gun. It was a .22 and capable of groups like this one:



He had a guide to polishing barrels as well, although it's in Swedish. But I ran it through Google translate and here it is, let me know if the translator messed something up:


- Clean the barrel as you normally do.
- Take a VFG felt plug (http://skytteservicealmhult.se/visa_produkt.asp?t=VFG+Filtrenare&id=491&lang=sv) and lubricate sparingly surface with VFG paste (http://skytteservicealmhult.se/visa_produkt.asp?t=VFG+Pasta&id=540&lang=sv). Thrifty is the word here, the surface should only be evenly blue so no bearing on the plug.
- For air rifle I use PatchWorm as I pull up / back through the barrel of 5-6 times. No matter how clean you think the barrel is after your newly made cleansing becomes substantially plug dirty.
- Switch to a clean blanket stopper and pull through the barrel again like that 5-6 times (front / tillbax). This is when you polish, the first step was to obtain a uniform layer VFG polishing paste in the race on its entire length.
- Change to either a well oiled patch or a felt plug and pull through the barrel. Replace with a new oiled patch / plug and repeat a few times. The oil will dissolve the paste and remove the remains from the barrel.
- Change to a clean, dry PATCH and pull through the barrel. Repeat until patches come out reasonably clean.
- Now, repeat the whole procedure with JB Bore Paste (http://skytteservicealmhult.se/visa_produkt.asp?t=JB+Pasta&id=222&lang=sv), which in turn gives a mirror finish.

Once you've done it all over again, you take dry patch or blankets and pulls (change to a clean patch after each move, or the saving can contact patch)
until the notes (or blankets) comes out white and clean.
If you are not going to use this gun in the near future a layer of lead is a good protection against rust, it is bare steel in the barrel now after all.
 
I think it's a bit too much if you use two different polishing compounds but I guess it'll work. I only used the JB bore paste to polish my barrels and they indeed get a mirror finish if done properly. The cleaning afterwards is about just as much work as the polishing itself since you don't want any residues left behind. With the polishing the fowling of the barrel decreased a lot, accuracy wise I can't really tell if it increased because I found the right pellet after the polishing.

Thanks anyway for the description! It might help some people here
 
I've never polished a barrel but would think it takes more than 5 or 6 passes. We're talking about removing metal. Granted, not a lot but polishing a previous unpolished surface isn't 6 (or 12) swipes with a smear of polish.

I would expect it would take a traditional mop with a moderate amount of paste and several minutes of vigorous back and forth action.

But I don't know. Looking forward to learning more as I have a barrel that seems to foul easy and have been thinking of trying this.
 
Dale,
I used the same general method as used in firearms. I used Clover brand Silicon Carbide Compound Grade #2A. I have a small (4"x4"x 1/4") cold finished steel plate that I put a dab of compound on and smear it thin over the whole plate and then roll the pellets around under my finger for 30 seconds or so to get a good coating on the high parts of the pellet then lightly wipe them off so no extra compound is "hanging" onto it, then shoot them.

I used Crosman Premiers 7.9 gr because they are a larger head size and harder alloy, shot 20 of them thru the barrel and did a very good clean-up. The barrel is really bright inside now and the accuracy is very good. Now when I clean the barrel I don't get near the amount of "dirt" that I was getting out of the barrel.

ART