Carbon buildup or...?

daved20319 · Jun 20, 2024

So I've started to get a little more serious about cleaning some of my rifles, and using my bore scope more regularly. I'm a little confused by the bore in my Savage Mk. II .22 LR. About half the chamber is shiny silver, and there's also a section of the barrel for a few inches ahead of the chamber that's also shiny silver, the rest of the bore and part of the chamber looks like black chrome. I can still see the chatter marks from the rifling tool, the rifling itself is clean and sharp, but like I said, most of the bore is dark, almost as if it was nitrided. Is this normal, or am I seeing embedded carbon? I've put some fairly significant effort into cleaning it, with little if any change in what I'm seeing. Later.

Dave

2Wheels4Ever · Jun 20, 2024

Does is shoot straight? If so, get your eyes out of the bore and set them on a target. If it's not a good shooter, you could be seeing a section of previous corrosion.

daved20319 · Jun 20, 2024

2Wheels4Ever said:
Does is shoot straight? If so, get your eyes out of the bore and set them on a target. If it's not a good shooter, you could be seeing a section of previous corrosion.

It shoots inconsistently, although I attribute some of that to my haphazard selection of ammo. I'm not the original owner, and I only recently heard about the infamous .22 LR chamber carbon ring. A friend sent me a link to an interesting article specifically about cleaning .22's, it made sense to me so I dragged out my borescope and sure enough, quite the ring. The article called for using Bore Tech C4, which I had on hand, the first round got most of the ring, but that's when I noticed all that black chrome in the bore. Subsequent cleanings have made little if any difference, so I'm starting to think this is something else. I haven't been able to get to the range since I started this project, hopefully this weekend, maybe

. Anyway, I was just hoping someone had something a little more on point than "does is shoot?". Later.

Dave

red442joe · Jun 21, 2024

Linky please?
Be consistant with the ammo selection.
Pics would be cool, if you can get them.

Joe

daved20319 · Jun 21, 2024

red442joe said:
Linky please?
Be consistant with the ammo selection.
Pics would be cool, if you can get them.

Joe

Link as requested: https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/a-guide-to-22lr-barrel-care-for-the-precision-rimfire-shooter/. Yeah, I'm going to be doing a better job of ammo consistency going forward, I've tested a variety of standard and subsonic velocity ammo, so far CCI subsonic HP's seem to be the best. That may change as I get my barrel re-seasoned, but going forward I intend to follow the regimen in that article and see how it goes. I have no idea of this things history, and I haven't shot it much, I just haven't been that into rimfires, and the stock doesn't work for me that well. IF it turns out to be a good shooter, I'll do something about the stock, either mod this one to suit me, or buy something else. Sorry, no pics with the bore scope, but I'll see what I can do next time I've got everything set up. Later.

Dave