barrel floating
 

I posed a question on another thread and it got lost. I am new to muzzleloading and find all of your posts both informative and entertaining. Could someone explain to me what barrel floating is and is it necessary with all muzzleloaders. I have a CVA Optima.

RE: barrel floating
 

Barrel floating is the idea of fitting the barrel into the stock so there are no pressure points exerted on the barrel itself. Some rifles come floated like Thompson Center's Black Diamond XR. Is it necessary? Many rifles shoot excellent without a free floating barrel. Another option is to bed the stock to distribute all the points of the barrel into the stock. Unless my rifle was having some serious accuracy problems I would not get too concerned about it.

RE: barrel floating
 

Thanks for your reply. May I ask you another question? On another site there is detailed instructions on lapping a barrel. The primary component is teflon which I assumes seals the pores inside the barrel. The writer of the article recommends this once a year. Do you or anyone else on this forum do this?

RE: barrel floating
 

He recommends lapping a barrel once a year???? I would have to disagree with that very strongly. Lapping a barrel removes metal from the inside of the bore. While there are occasions where lapping is maybe a last resort or a way to smooth out a real ruff bore, why would someone intentionally want to wear out the rifling of a barrel that shoots good?

Instead of lapping get some J-B Bore Paste and use that in the barrel. First put some oil on a clean patch and oil the bore. Then take a patch with J-B Bore paste and start to stroke the barrel in as long a strokes as you can without getting the patch stuck. Give the barrel 50 strokes and then clean the barrel in a hot water bath. This paste will pull all the impurities out of the rifling and bore and make the barrel shine, without removing metal from the barrel.

After using bore paste be sure and clean the rifle good and put a good coat of oil in the bore since you took it back to bare metal..

RE: barrel lapping
 

Thanks again! I am going to leave it alone. The lapping article was a component of having a new muzzleloader or a new barrel. As stated earlier, I just purchased an optima and want to make sure I treat it as it should be treated.

thanks again for your knowlege.

RE: barrel lapping
 

With your new rifle you might want to get some bore size conical bullets like great plains or similar to shoot initially which will help to smooth up the bore. Plastic sabots will not do the job and that is why some lap or at least use JB bore paste. I used the paste in my stainless Omega as I did not have the time to shoot a lot of conicals and needed it to be settled down for an upcoming hunt. The JB did a nice job of making the bore shine like a mirror. Most muzzleloaders will shoot better after several shots have been through it. Doc White says he recommends 200 or 300 shots before he thinks the barrel has broken in. I don't think I have shot that many through my Omega and I have owned it for three years. Just don't have the time to shoot like I would like to and the range is too far away to be handy. Cayugad has the set-up I would like.

RE: barrel lapping
 

200-300 shots! I've only had one session, this past weekend. I better get busy!...lol. I have been using the 295g powerbelts but I will get some of that paste to help the process along. How often do you use the bore paste? Just in the beginning? or part of an overall maintenance program other than routine cleaning?

RE: barrel lapping
 

dont let all the barrel lapping get to your head. Most rifles dont even need it. All the muzzleloaders i own never had any of that stuff. Just shoot those powerbelts and get on sight. You'd be better off with loose powder by the way. Lets you fine tune your load to fine that sweet spot that it likes.

RE: barrel lapping
 

The way I felt I was fumbling around with the pellets not sure if I wouldnt have more powder on me vs in the barrel. Once I get the routine down I'll definately try the powder. By the way, can you mix pellets? ie if you wanted to try 80g go with 50 and a 30?

RE: barrel lapping
 

Yse you can mix pellets.

RE: barrel lapping
 

Hodgdon's site has the muzzle velocities for a fair number of projectiles charged with 1 50 gr. and 1 30 gr. Pellets. For my rifles and my chrony, their publishedvelocities tend to be conservative.

http://www.hodgdon.com/data/muzzleloading/index.php