Thread: Good barrel or bad barrel?

you take a wild punt buying ex-military rifles sight unseen or anything for that matter . . . and i understand the disappointment when you saw the condition of this barrel. The value to you is now much reduced to compared to what you thought it was.
But it maybe its not all bad, take a few shots and see how you feel afterwards.
i bought a .223 off TM from this really polite old gentleman, he was selling his sons hunting rifle, only used a couple of times . . . trouble is i reckon he just put the rifle back in the safe butt down without oiling the bore, the first 8'' forward of the chamber was just this huge pitted mess without any rifling visible, moisture had run down and rusted it out. Long story short, took it to the range after the hell clean with steel wool etc . .. absolute tack driver, still got it. After about 70 shots the groups go to hell and the copper fouling is something to behold . . . but until then its a reliable performer and plenty good enough for goat culling. Got a new barrel waiting to screw on but until this one dies it stays on.
and then there's the .303 stories . .. man i have shot some with ugly barrels, you would swear they are totally fckd . .. but no they are good to go.
My mate plays with the old stuff, sniders, all kinds of relics etc ... with care and attention to detail they can be made to shoot, so don't give up, you may have a keeper there.

good luck

The only way it would be a keeper for me is if it has historical/ex military value where a bad barrel may diminish the value but depending upon the rifle not destroy the value entirely as a collectable. As far a shooter goes you cannot make a silk purse out of it once it has become a sow's ear. No amount of cleaning and coppering it up will fix it now. The ole 30s for example that shot great with buggered barrels are just good stories/folklaw. I have seen 30s with claims like that (and similar condition barrels to the photos posted) where once the owner was pressed to demonstrate claimed accuracy the rifle couldn't hit a target at 100yd or if he did the projectiles went thru sideways. Once upon a time there used to be a 30 hanging on the back of every wash house door at farmhouses - never cleaned after firing. (@rossi.45 I have no idea of the degree of buggerdness of your example) If the desire in this case was to buy a shooter the time to get rid of it is as soon as possible. Messing around firing it will just delay the inevitable and add further expense with money wasted on ammo. The only amazing thing is the crown appears relatively intact so it may initially fire some shots into a reasonable (large) group b4 it spits the dummy.