bronko22000

I guess this is where to put this. Some of you may know that I recently got a T/C Impact from an online auction. The exterior of the rifle looked pristine from the pics. I had it sent to my friend's house while I was down in FL. I picked it up last week and checked it out. The bore was so rusted that you couldn't even see the rifling! I thought it was total scrap especially when I couldn't get a .50 cal brush down the bore and had to start by using a .45 cal.
After about a half hour of scrubbing, swabbing and complaining I finally got it down enough so that I could see the rifling and the pitting all through the bore. Then I got an idea with nothing to lose at this point. I had a bottle of Frontier's Shoot Out. A product used to smooth out rough bores. I soaked a couple patches in it and started swabbing the bore. Maybe about 300 or so strokes back and forth. I then soaked 20 pillow tick patches in it and grabbed a box of .490 balls and went out to the pit. Using just 35 gr of FFFg I shot these balls at a target at 25 yards swabbing the bore every 4th shot to remove the fouling. I was really surprised at how well the rifle was grouping the PRBs just shooting off hand. So the last couple I shot off the side of my pickup. Really good for a 1:28.
When I got home I cleaned the crap out of it with Baristol/water about 60-75 patches. Looking down the bore I was astonished at how well it looked. The bore was shining like a mirror with nice clean rifling lines and just some very minor pitting in a couple spots. I swabbed the bore with an alcohol patch and then a dry one then sprayed a bore mop with CRC Moly Lube and swabbed the bore then set it in the corner muzzle down to drain out any excess.
The bore looks like brand new. What I thought was total scrap I believe now is going to be a great little shooter for me. And a plus is that it is so light. Be great for carrying.

sabotloader

Bronco, we all need projects and seems you got one and then saved it - good work!

Semisane

Good review Bronko. Glad it worked out the way it did.

bronko22000

Thanks guys. Me too. I have so many pans in the fire now but I'm soon going to get out there and do some load testing with it. I have several different 300 gr bullets I can try and I have some cast 250 gr bullets. I know my GM barrels shot 300 gr Shockwaves and XTPs really well so I'll try them first.

toytruck

I wonder if those products would help a tight bore. I bought a NIB Ridge Runner with a tight spot half way down. The bore is spotless an shiney after cleaning out the storage grease. The cleaning patches never showed a tight spot, but sending a bullet down sure did.