Thread: Just machine markings or...

Recently acquired a borescope and for up to now have only concentrated on the bores. I cleaned my Tikka 223 earlier and decided to check the bore, and spent a little more time on the chamber. I picked up these three areas in the chamber. The one is a tooling mark, but the other two is a little more concerning. Are these two marks only dirty tooling marks (they are on the same depth into the chamber) or something else, and what?

Boroscopes are great but they can sometimes give you more things to worry about. You're correct about the first mark, that's definitely tooling. The other two... mmmmm... needs more investigation. Are you able to get that gunk out of there to have a better look?

You would hope these are not cracks. I'd be surprised if they were... more likely to be deep scratches but until you can quantify the depth its a little hard to tell. Good clear photos though - well done. You should see some of the boroscope photos my customers send me, expecting to get a technical analysis on.

Using a borescope is a bit like knowing how sausages are made. Some things you are better off not knowing about. If the sausages taste good then eat them. If the rifle shoots well then shoot it. Don't try and solve non-existent problems but concentrate on correcting what is not working properly. If you can't see barrel damage with the naked eye then it isn't a problem.

Thanks guys. Manage to clean the gunk out and pretty confident that both are machine marks.