long-term accuracy

[vermontfreedom]

So, here's a topic for discussion:

Why determines how long a ML will stay accurate?

or

What degrades accuracy long-term?

That is, besides obvious things like shooting rocks or nails out of the bore, not cleaning your bore and letting it rust away, or letting a segmented cleaning rod rub against the muzzle crown each pass while cleaning or loading....

I ask because (1) it's time for some discussion here and (2) interesting that you occasionally see in these books about old rifles that a bore was found "with a trace of rifling" suggesting it was shot many many many times and/or the iron was really soft and degraded quickly.

I'm hoping any discussion here will help instruct some newcomers to take care of their rifle bores and remind those of us "old hats" the importance of 'careful caretaking'.

[Wyoming Mike]

Other than not taking proper care of a gun, I would say the biggest problem is muzzle wear.  The new barrels are not iron like the old ones and don't wear out like they did.   The ramrod picks up all sorts of grit that works like rubbing compound can wear the muzzle when used a long time.

I have two rifles that have seen heavy use for over thirty years.  At first I just used the ramrod in the rifle.  After four or five years the accuracy degrated and I thought I would have to replace the barrels.  I didn't really want to do that because one was a Sharon that wasn't made anymore and the other was a Mountain Rifle with a Douglas barrel that could not easily be replaced either.

I found an article in one of the BP magazines about recrowning to bring a tired barrel back.  I ended up cutting an 1/8" off the muzzle on both rifles and recrowning them with a shallow crown.

It brought the rifles right back.  At that time I started using a range rod with a muzzle protector.  The only time the ramrod with the gun gets used is when I am hunting.  Both of these rifles are still shooting great after the surgery 25 years ago.

[Captchee]

i think also the amount of shooting  should be considered .
 one of my rifles has a iron barrel .
  my wife bought the rifle for me used in 1991 . it was originaly made in the early 1970 .
 i have no doubt that i have put at least 10,000  rounds through it . who knows how many were put through it before i owned it .
 today its just as accurate as it was when i got it .

 so through the years i have came to think that many of these iron barrels  were shot out simply from 1000 s of rounds being fired . that being added to that the barrel may have started out with  light  riflings to begin with . that added with  contaminates , both from the RR and in the lubes  that may have been used .

 today  i think its  about cleaning . this is both how you clean and how often .
 i see some folks that scrub , scrub and scrub somemore . wire brushes , you name it .
 myself i have never used a brush  in any of my  barrels .
 i also dont clean  tell a batch comes out  white as if new .
 i clean tell the patch comes out a nice  light grey color. then i lube  tell the bore is well coated .
 i have never noticed any pitting from this  and  in my iron barrel i can shoot 30+ rounds without running a patch . of course this depends on how good the powder is . dirty powder fouls more .
 which brings up another real  possablity .
 if the powder used was low grade and dirty  in its make , just the process of cleaning can scrub the bore .
 those of us that  have  shot  the old Dupont powders  can attest to how they fouled  in comparission to  the Swiss and Goex  of today .

[greyhunter]

My first TC Hawken flinter, after many shoots and deer seasons,not sure of timeframe, lost it's accuracy. I guess over ten years of use. It developed a slick spot (tight,loose then tight at loading) about a foot down the barrel. I cleaned it as good as I could then unbreeched it and looked at the bore to the muzzle. Couldn't really determine anything different in rifling, so put it back together and tried different patch thickneses, same thing. I assumed that the barrel had opened up in dia. from the powder burn getting hottest at that point.  Shot out? Anyway I traded it off and picked up another one. Should have made the barrel into a pistol and rebarreled the rifle. Haven't worn one out that way since. Your thoughts Capt?

[Captchee]

well  IMO the  highest pressure and hitest temps in burn ar at the breech to within about 12 inches of the breech .
 the further down the barrel the charge moved s , the lower the pressure and the lower the temps . this is speaking of BP of course . synthetics act a little differently .
 Inspecting  original iron barrels its not uncommon to find this original area  where the ignition starts , to be larger . This can be from poor cleaning practices or just plain use .

 With modern steals , something many folks don’t think about is loading and RR use..
  Some times if we  think about it  we find that  the wear comes from being consistent . IE
A)  we use  X length short starter that pushes the ball to that spot
B) this is the area where maybe your RR drags  when  removing it  
C) when cleaning   sometimes , I know with myself , ill find myself swabbing the bore  and then realize  I was only scrubbing one area more then others
D) Lube . Ya lube ,   namely things like bore butter. See when the lube  gets old , it gets hard , it collects dirt and dust . Then when you load it  , It get  slammed with the short starter  to a point in the barrel . Then taped  with the RR . This I believe causes a slick area to form    as this is  may be the area that  the dirty lube is  pushed away

 Now if you have ever shot conicals ?  Leading can also act in strange ways  and will effect accuracy
 The other thing to consider is  was the rifle ever accidentally short started. this can happen  and  happens more then we want to think .
 If this happens 1 of 3 things will happen
1) Nothing  to the visible eye . But if one uses one of those longer short starters , over  time the pressure can effect the  barrel  for a few inches  just back of the  area  where the ball stopped .
2) the barrel  acorns . .
3) the barrel fails  completely and its walls get breeched

 I would bet though you probably will find the cause though in A, B, or C rather then 123
 There are many things that cause  things to happen , your problem could be any number of them
 But IMO to often we say . ‘I shot the barrel out “  when really what  needs done is the barrel freshened .
 IE Lapped , leading removed . Plastic removed .
 Yep plastic . If your not using 100% non synthetic blended patches  or wads , your burning plastic, just as any sabot shooter would be doing .

  Again , a lot of things could cause this . But my point is , very few folks actually shoot enough to  have the shooting alone , wear  the bore

[GS-Guns]

How the one and other may know, I'm new to muzzleloaders.

Could it happens, that barrel wear would increase while shooting hot loads with "fast" velocities. Of course, muzzleloaders would never reach bullet velocities of modern cartridge loaded guns - but the barreldesign is also different. So, this could maybe also a part of influence.

But please excuse, if I waste your time, because this is a dumb idea!

Marc

[Captchee]

no GS , not a dumb idea at all  and welcome .

 i gotta run , got 420 miles to drive today before i get back home .
 be safe fellas

[vermontfreedom]

How the one and other may know, I'm new to muzzleloaders.

Could it happens, that barrel wear would increase while shooting hot loads with "fast" velocities. Of course, muzzleloaders would never reach bullet velocities of modern cartridge loaded guns - but the barreldesign is also different. So, this could maybe also a part of influence.

But please excuse, if I waste your time, because this is a dumb idea!

Marc

Wilkommen....

Sounds reasonable to me. Certainly it's the case for centerfire rifles. We've probably all heard about those varmint rifles that spit little bullets out at 4,000 fps wearing out much sooner than slower cartridges/rifles.

All else being equal, if you shoot 1800 fps loads from your ML, the barrel will get "shot out" or accuracy will degrade quicker than if you're shooting 1600 or 1400 fps loads. What IS the difference? I have no idea - might be dozens or hundreds of rounds, but we're still probably talkinga bout being able to get thousands if not tens of thousands through.

[Loyalist Dave]

One problem is not knowing the provenance of the older guns when comparing to modern guns.  Was the gun well cleaned and cared for?  Was it fired every day?  How many total rounds were fired from it?  What was used to clean it and to prevent rust??  Really tough I think to compare stuff like that, and I have read alot about cutting off a couple of inches on a barrel to restore accuracy, so did ramrod wear mess up the crown at the muzzle back then???

As to accuracy..., If I can't see a deer well enough to engage it beyond 50 yards, and today my new barrel shoots under 1" at 50 yards, and 30 years from know the same barrel shoots inside 4" at fifty yards (assuming that I can still see at all) is that the same as trying to hit a 6" bullseye at 100 yards?  Of course not, so in my example my rifle is still accurate as it is sitll harvesting game, but of course I wouldn't be on the paper at 100 yards in a contest.  So I wonder if an antique rifle was not used to it's maximum capability,  the original owner might've used it well beyond the life of its "accuracy".  So might we??

LD

[M1Tommy]

Sounds reasonable to me. Certainly it's the case for centerfire rifles. We've probably all heard about those varmint rifles that spit little bullets out at 4,000 fps wearing out much sooner than slower cartridges/rifles.

All else being equal, if you shoot 1800 fps loads from your ML, the barrel will get "shot out" or accuracy will degrade quicker than if you're shooting 1600 or 1400 fps loads. What IS the difference? I have no idea - might be dozens or hundreds of rounds, but we're still probably talkinga bout being able to get thousands if not tens of thousands through.

From what I've gathered from some match rifle (modern rifles) shooters, the older magnum cartridges were inefficient and a good bit of the powder was not burning in the cartridge casing but was burning as it moseyed down the down the barrel.  One theory of throat (the barrel area just in front of the cartridge chamber) erosion is that the unburnt and still-burning powder physically erodes the steel away.  The .243 Win. got a bad rep. for being a barrel-burner, as did a couple of the older .22 caliber varmint cartridges.  Nowadays, better powder selection can help or eliminate that greatly... so I hear from active shooters.  The .243 win. is a great cartridge just not shot in matches as the 6mm whooper-scooter rounds are sooooo efficient.  The newer "short magnums" are very efficient, and burn their powder inside the cartridge casing..... another reason many modern rifles are having shorter and shorter barrels.    
How this pertains to ML?  well, there's no cartridge casing of course, but I'd figure the the more powder is burned in the chamber area, before the barrel proper, the better for barrel life.  

Oh, and I think that a lot more barrels are ruined by improper or over-cleaning, than from just wearing out by shooting.  I know of smallbore (.22 rimfire) match shooters who rarely if EVER clean their barrels, shoot thousands of rounds a year and shoot at a bull about the size of an aspirin pill at 50 yards.  That, from a fairly dirty burning, inefficient round too.  

pardon the ramble, HTH a wee bit.
Moderators, tell me if I'm straying into modern stuff too much.  For some reason internal ballistics fascinates me.

Tommy who will NOT chuck a steel brushed cleaning rod in a drill to 'open up' a rough spot!    

P.S.  scary pic for the day... a borescope photo (not mine) of a throat area....

[Captchee]

well i think some good thoughts , thats for sure . but lets also remember that  the relation to center fire 'smokeless powders  is minimal .
 the velocities and pressures that they achieve  is only for the most extreme cases  concerning BP .
 not to mention the effects on the lead projectile  pretty much cap us at below 2200 fps .

 now im thinking heat could play an effect  especially on iron barrels . however most muzzleloading barrels today use  better steels.
 over time  things grow old  and wear is  accumulated.
 Everything at some time must return to its basic make up ..

 There was an old saying that we used to use a lot  in scale model aviation  
   It went like this .
Everything has a built in self destruct date . There is nothing we can do about it .
 Proper maintenance can prolong  the time of that date  but at some time , it will still come   of that  we are sure