Thread: Borescope images

You have to be very careful with borescopes, they will show you a whole lot of magnified "issues" that aren't

All that matters is what the rifle (and driver) will do on the target

I have seen plenty of horrific sights with my bore scopes & when you shoot the rifle there is clearly "nothing to see here"

However once you get the hang of driving them and can recognise, rust, corrosion, copper, carbon, lead fouling, fire cracking & damage etc they are a helpful tool especially on brand new rifles....

As above. How does it shoot? Have you had a drop in velocity?
Cool toy but can cause more worry than needed.

Originally Posted by Kiwi Greg

You have to be very careful with borescopes, they will show you a whole lot of magnified "issues" that aren't

All that matters is what the rifle (and driver) will do on the target

I have seen plenty of horrific sights with my bore scopes & when you shoot the rifle there is clearly "nothing to see here"

However once you get the hang of driving them and can recognise, rust, corrosion, copper, carbon, lead fouling, fire cracking & damage etc they are a helpful tool especially on brand new rifles....

This what Greg said
More harm than use to the average hunter

Sent from my SM-S916B using Tapatalk

borescopes highlight issues. Often they do that before those issues manifest themselves with regards to a rifles accuracy. By the time a gun does no longer shoot well because of corrosion/pitting it is too late.

Seen many a barrel. Looks like rust to me too.

I had a 6.5-06 that had the screw hole for the rear sight drilled through into the barrel (whoops) and it still shot superbly - 50mm 10 shot groups at 300m in competition were not uncommon. Of course, AR15's have a hole deliberately drilled into the barrel, and they can be tuned to extreme levels of accuracy - what I am trying to say is that a hole, some pitting or surface imperfections aren't necessarily the end of the world accuracy wise.

If it was mine I'd clean it back to bare metal with an abrasive on a patch, shoot it and see what I had. Consistent, repeatable accuracy is more important than borescope photos.

Thank for the input so far. I am actually very happy with the accuracy of this rifle. 5 shots well under the inch at 100m. later today I will give the barrel a wipe out with JB's bore cleaner and see what it look likes after that. As @kiwigreg says bore scopes do tend to open a can of worms but its hard to ignore what you see.

Never run a bore scope down the barrel of an accurate gun lol. It'll often show "problems" that aren't really problems. Ignorance is usually bliss in this case, imo.

Originally Posted by ChrisW

Never run a bore scope down the barrel of an accurate gun lol. It'll often show "problems" that aren't really problems. Ignorance is usually bliss in this case, imo.

Especially to the untrained eye

Sent from my SM-S916B using Tapatalk

I have had a borescope for a few years. I do agree what you see sometimes needs interpretation. In saying that I have rifles with new barrels and one can see machining marks in them. Looking at a new Remington barrel compared to a cut and lapped S&L barrel is chalk and cheese.
Where I find them useful is checking cleaning and copper defouling regime is working, and also buying second had rifles.
What is intriguing is how good some of the barrels I have in some of my older rifles. Some of most beautiful barrels I have are an early Winchester 30.30 1894, Gevarm .22, and Browning .22 auto.
But the bore scope has saved me from laying down big cash on high end rifles with supposedly mint barrels.
My 2cents worth.

Never seen rust like that in a stainless barrel. Rust is usually a mass of pitting or worm tracks and that is not apparent here.

Seems more like a coating that is burnt on. Try wrapping a bronze brush with patches and bore paste, with a bore guide and stainless cleaning rod....give it lots of passes and check a specific area by marking the borescope position......it should come up bright and shining. It needs to come out otherwise corrosion is guaranteed to work away hidden underneath.......!

I think the main issue in using a borescope effectively is interpreting the images as you see them. here are 2 images of the inside of a 6.5 Creedmmor barrel with a low round count. The directly down the barrel image looks like the inside of a drainpipe but the side view shows a different story. In those 1st images I posted I believe the bright spots were just the light of the borescope reflecting of either a small piece of copper fouling or a small imperfection on the barrel surface.

One thing to bear in mind is that a land may only be 2-4 thou tall. You're able to see imperfections at a tenth of a thou level to give some sort of scale to this.