deep cleaning and polishing barrel

Jason
click on the blade bait special at the top of this screen see where that takes ya.

i have a browning cynergy and benelli sbe both chrome lined barrels. so polishing them i cant do but i can deep clean them. the first picture is with out the deep clean and just a bore snake before i shot 3.5″ winchester 6’s and 10″ circle at 40yds. did hit a bit high so i added tru-glo sight that clamps to the barrel rib. the second picture is with a deep clean and 3.5″ hevi13 7’s both shot with a jellyhead .670. there is alot more shot with 7’s but the pattern is tighter and more even. bigger shot tends to do better out of more a open choke and smaller shot out of tighter chokes. the 6’s shot better out of my kicks .680 gobblin thunder but not even close to what the hevi13 7’s did out of jellyhead .670. my benelli did just as good with hevi13 7’s with a .665 jellyhead and could go tighter .660 or .655 maybe. benelli and remington have standard 12ga bores and browning and mossberg have over bored barrels. the mossberg is close to a 10ga bore at end of barrel. this is why my cynergy likes .670-.680 and blew out with the .660 i shot with dew to a bigger bore than rem and benelli. you can do a search on the web and find articals on how to polish your barrels. and guys that do are seeing great results some have old hevi shot that shoots better than the new shells and are getting 310 pellets in a 10″ circle. well thats what they claim. its the hard to say not being there. but i have shot as tight as 289 in a 10″circle at 40″ with hevi13 7’s. so i can see it happening.

so what i did on a deep clean is take a empty 12ga and 20ga shell and drill where the primer was so it fit a cleaning rod it acts as guide so you dont hit the sides of your barrel. then with a 12ga barrel i used a 20ga brush wrapped a scotcbrite pad around it and sprayed it with kroils kreeping oil and J&B bore cleaner. take the end of the rod and hook it to you drill. now insert from the end of your barrel with the forcing cone or action would be. make sure to put a open choke it. as you move patch back and forthin the barrel make sure not to spin in one spot keep moving.i made 50 passes from one end to the other. then cleaned barrel with bore cleaner and a dry patch. i didnt want to do more and harm my chrome lined barrel. but in the end it was clean and as smooth as i seen.

Now that is a pattern! I’ll be studying this post quite a bit in the coming weeks. I don’t want to attempt anything mid turkey season like this, but maybe for a backup gun?

Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom with us!

Joel

I’m glad you posted something about the older Hevi shot sometimes out shooting the new stuff. That is spot on as far as I’m concerned. I shoot Hevi shot 13 3″ 1 5/8oz #6. I couldn’t find any and my stock is down to less than 20 bullets left so I picked up some 2oz… It still patterns well enough to down a turkey at 40yds but there is a noticable difference compared to my old loads. My father came up with the same results. I hate the thougt of changing choke tubes again! I’m shooting a plane jane Remington 870 Express and my father is toting a Remington 11-87. When I get time I will take pictures of our test patterns/combos. We shot 8 different chokes and about a dozen different shells. Sure wish I wouldn’t have sold all those tubes that didn’t pattern quite as well! They may work fine with 2oz’s of shot.

from what i read from others hevi shot had a batch lot #s that they changed something and it didnt pattern as well, but all in all it will still get the job done and still is a great product. just not putting out the monster numbers as before. they seem to be better now. as far as playing with your pattern on your gun you dont want too tight of a pattern for the up close and personal shots. but thats where iron sights and scopes are key. i think that you should have a good even 10″ pattern but still have enough in a 20″ circle to allow for wiggle room. Its easy to get carried away in the lets see what this rig can do idea. what fun would it be if you could shoot birds a mile out and not work them and fool them

I almost learned the hard way on how tight is too tight… I had a bird come from behind and walk within 5 feet. At 10yds I pulled the trigger only to see the hillside explode behind him…. The follow up shot at 45yds dropped him stone cold. Sights and scopes would have been EXTREMELY helpful. It there a general rule for a optimum turkey hunting pattern?

dont know if there is a general rule other than make sure you have enough pellets in the kill zone at a given range. so if you have a modified choke shoot and see whats your max range that produces a pattern that will kill and not wound him.around a 100 pellets in a 10″ circle is a rule that i hear people going by and thats a solid killing pattern

100 in a 10″ will give you room for a little error in distance.

Absolutely. As a general rule of thumb, 100 pellets in a 10″ circle gives you a little room for error around 40 yards. It however, is not transferable to the 50 yard line…..I’ve got a few friends who’ve unsuccessfully tested that theory over the years.

I’m more comfortable with 150 or better pellets in that 10″ circle at 40 yards, but have also had things like wind, humidity, and poor shooting make a winning load/choke combination yield wildly variable results; going from optimal 200 pellet/target shots to less than 80 pellet/target shots.

Thanks again for this discussion Henny, crucial to effective kills!

Joel