m.t.hands

i had posted earlier about the same problem alot of people on here are posting about, hard loading sabots, mainly t/c guns. this is on a friends gun a used encore 209X50. we went to buy some pb's today and ran into a gunsmith, we told him what was going on and he suggested lapping the barrel with compound from brinnel, we didn't have anything but the j-b bore paste, he still recommended lapping the barrel, long story short we went to his place he gaves us three compounds course med and fine and we did what he suggested and i think we have a shooter, we ran out of light and there calling for rain tomorrow, but at 50 yards with mag express sabots it does look hopeful . i would not recomend this to anyone else but were 2 weeks before our m/ler opener and my friend felt he had nothing to lose, it's his only m/ler and he didn't want to be barreless. i'll post more later, thanks everybody on here for your help also. btw someone had mentioned running a maxiball thru and checking we did and the maxi looked terrible, if i can figure out how to put my dig camera pic on here i'll do so.

UncleNorby

Well, how's it shoot/load now?

slugman

lapped before , but never a gun barrel

m.t.hands

its a friends gun, and we have not shot together since the day we did the work and ran out of daylight, i talked to him monday and he says he is shootin 2" groups @ 100, and he seems happy with it, he is not the type that will do a lot of experimenting/shooting different loads so for him i guess its ok. when he bought the gun you'd swear you were going to break the ramrod, even after complete cleaning. it now loads reasonable easy and seems to shoot decent groups, that could probably be tightened up a little if he was willing to work on it.

what we did

100 strokes w/240 grit lapping compound
100 w/320 grit
200 w/400 grit
100 with the jb bore paste to finish out the polish

i'm not sure the barrel was ever lapped by t/c, just a thought, my friend bought this gun used and within a few minutes we thought we knew why the guy sold it, i have the same gun and have never had any problems.