did something stupid, need suggestions...?

[the Black Spot]

here is the short of it. dry balled. used puller. puller came loose. ball now stuck 4 inches from top of barrel. puller will not grab ball. used long deck screw. thought it was centered and it wasn't. ball is out, but now i have badly scored the lands and grooves.
any suggestions on what to do with the barrel.

[R.M.]

BlackSpot.
Steve is probably right, but before you go to such extremes, why don't you try shooting it just to see how much the damage has affected the group size.
Worth a try in my mind.

[melsdad]

I agree with R.M., you may be lucky and the damage may not have  affected accuracy. If not wyosmith has offered the best advice. Good luck to you.

[Hank in WV]

I also agree with R.M. but cleaning may be an issue.

[FG1]

Before wacking it , I would take a piece of ram rod split in half ,then put a little split in it to hold some 320 wet dry sand paper so i could reach in and take down any burrs and or use a swiss needle file to dress them up then use the sand paper gently. Go over it with steel wool and if it hangs up go thru the process again till it dont catch the steel wool. Unless they are REAL deep they should clean up pretty good .

[Captchee]

now here is a thought .
 now im not one for coning but if the  problem is close to the muzzle, , coning may take it out .

as others have said , try shooting it , you might just be suprised . i have seen some pretty bad bores through the years that shot  wonderfuly

[Gordon H.Kemp]

I agree with all the good advice above. The only thing I would suggest is to re-seat the ball after working a little powder through the vent and shooting the stuck ball out instead of trying to pull it; thats of corse if it were ever to happen again? I have pulled several dry-balls over the years, and shooting tnem out is less work, safer and will not damage the rifle

[the Black Spot]

thanks for all the replies. i shot the rifle today.

25 yards i got a 5/8" group
50 yards i got a 1.25" group
all shot over a rest.

load used is a .490 hornady rb wrapped with a mink tallowed(from TOTW) linen patch backed by 60 grains of schuetzen 3f

all i did was put steel wool over the cleaning jag and run it up and down over the damaged area quite a bit.

[Hank in WV]

Is that about the same group sizes as before the dryball incedent? Looks like it's shooting pretty good.

[jbullard1]

Thats better than I can shoot  

[the Black Spot]

Is that about the same group sizes as before the dryball incedent? Looks like it's shooting pretty good.

actually if i remember correctly these groups are better than before i dry balled.

[Kermit]

I 'spect that if the little spiral groove things are real boogered up and you didn't want to go whacking off a few inches of the barrel and spoiling the looks and balance of the piece, you could have a 'smith chuck the barrel up in his lathe and just ream out the necessary front inches of the bore. Sort of make the last couple of inches into a smoothrifle. Might make loading easier too.