RE: Slugged a barrel?
It really isn't a big deal unless you are trying to identify the caliber of an old rifle or are going to shoot cast lead bullets through a pistol/rifle.
This is how I do it:
I bought an assortment of egg and bullet sinkers awhile back- the purer the lead of whatever you buy, the easier the slugging will go, and fishing sinkers are pretty much soft pure lead.
Thoroughly oil/lube the barrel.
Take a sinker that is larger than the rifling diameter at the bore, using a short piece of wooden dowel or brass drift, tap the sinker into the bore, then use a wooden dowel to tap the slug through the bore. You can also tap it in a few inches and back out to get the muzzle dimensions, or more critically, start the slug from the chamber end and tap it back out to get the throat dimensions.
From the slug, you can measure the the bore, which will be across the low spots on the slug, and the grooves by measuring across the high spots in the slug.
The dimensions you get will be for the tightest part of the bore that the slug passed through.
You can also slug the chamber mouths and throat of revolvers- but someone else here will have to fill you in on the dynamis of that, I'm not a revolver guy.
Now the reasons for slugging:
Some foreign rifles have very inconsistant bore diameters- especially mosin nagants which can range from .308 to .314, if you want to use jacketed bullets, you can decide what would work best after slugging.
cast bullets- you want your bulets to be a bit oversized, so youneed to pick a mould/ alloy that will give you +.001-.002" on the bore riding portion of the bullet to the bore and the same oversized dimension on the driving bands to the grooves for the best accuracy and to reduce lead fouling in the barrel.
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