Hey gang,
I haven't even gotten my new ml yet, but I am asking anyway
I have read quite a bit about lapping or seasoning a barrel, and wondered what your thoughts were. I am getting a new Encore stainless steel .50. I have read about using bore butter to season, but also read that teflon works better on the harder steel barrels. Read a method by Rich Dunkirk, and also suggestions for using lead bullets with compound. Finally, I have read that I should just shoot a box of Buffalo Ballets through it first, and that would in effect lap the barrel.
Thoughts? Suggestions? What worked for you?
Thanks for your input, I am really looking forward to getting into mling!
Todd

trekker.. first off you got yourself a great rifle there. You may not even need to break the bore in. I would get some 250 grain Shockwaves and a pound of loose Triple Se7en powder. Load 100 grains of the powder and a shockwave and have at it. I think you will be surprised at how accurate your rifle is. Be sure and swab the barrel between shots.

Some of the rifles that need to broken in do benifit from shooting a box of ball-ets, maxiballs, or even roundballs through them. Some rifles do not need it. Some even need to be lapped.

This is not usually the case with Thompson Center because of the high standard of quality they use in their rifles. Try the rifle first before you do anything. Just clean it good when it comes to your door, tell it how happy you are to have it join your family, name it, caress it, Man I get carried away sometimes...... Really, just shoot it. I think you will not have to do anything to it. If you do there is always time for that. The Shockwaves will do a good job for you as will most of the T/C projectiles...

Forgot to add... stay away from the bore butter. Bore butter is a great conical lube but in my opinion I season a fry pan not a rifle barrel. Clean the barrel and oil it. There are many that will disagree with me... That's all right. Their rifle they way. I want a clean rifle. I run a patch with alcohol on it to clean the oil out before I load, pop a cap and load it as always... Swab between shots and your all set.

Good luck with your new rifle ..... keep us posted on it..

If you have a tight barrel like a lot of the T/C rifles you may find you cannot load the shockwave bullets at least at first. I would recommend trying 295gr. Powerbelts first as they are a lot easier to load and shoot great out of my Omega which has a barrel very similar to the Encore. I would also caution the use of Triple Seven powder as it tends to make a lot of hard fouling just forward of the powder charge which makes seating the second bullet on the powder difficult even with a swab between shots. I would start with pyrodex as it is available and not as hard to remove the fouling (makes a little more but it is soft). If you can find it try FFFG Clean Shot or (American Pioneer Powder) they are the same and are a lot cleaner than Pyrodex and do not make the hard fouling ring. My Omega barrel is getting better as I shoot it. I did lap the barrel with JB bore paste on a patch over a brass brush (about 100 passes up and down the barrel). Loads easier now.

I know my Knight responded VERY favorably to the shooting of a few dozen patched round balls thru it................ I imagine doing the same with conicals would do the trick as well.

I also use some bore paste in it once or twice a year.....................that keeps it really shooting fresh and accurate.

So I would suggest doing one of the two methods..................using the paste is faster and you still have plenty of paste for later cleanings - but it's hard to beat just plain shooting the iron as much as possible.

, i would be very careful doing this, i just did a friends barrel with lapping compound, but shooting a lead bullet with compound in the barrel, i mean how do you gauge the progress, i admit what we did on my friends barrel took a lot of time, but is hard to put that metal back, just wondering

"lapping a barrel" is total bunk! The process stems from YEARS ago when the process' used for making barrels was far and away different than todays machined technology. The results of lapping, "seasoning" etc... and such typically will just decrease the life of the barrel and possibly even ruin it before it is ever fired!

Likewise for BoreButter, thats old wives tale crap when talking about plastic sabots and modern marvels we call muzzleloaders. Even if you put enough of that crap into the barrel to "slick it up" you are only decreasing the pressures powders like Pyro and T7 need to properly seal and perform at. At that point all you have done is decrease the pressure, which decreases velocity, performance and possibly even a full burn. I think alot of the problems people have with 150grn loads (aside from not having enough ignition and barrel length to fire it in the first place!) is because they aren't burning the entire charge properly. T7 is very clean when ignited properly.

I dont understand why folks get worried about pushing a bullet down the tube. Is it that hard? If so get a Golds membership and stop being a girly man. A magnum sabot and 150grns of T7 is tough stuff and the pressures involved need quite a bit of seal too them. This aint pillow cases and lead balls we are dealing with here. Also, I would NOT shoot lead balls down the barrel. That will only leadfoul an otherwise match grade barrel. Such tactics is only a band-aide for other ails of improper use. So suck it up and STAND ON IT SON!!!

Good luck,
RA

Good post trekker, I bought a SS Encore last year and love it. Though I am going to shoot some maxi balls thru this year to try to loosen the barrel up as it is hard to load. Its a great gun in looks and functionality you should be happy. The drawback is the price but I plan on having it for a lifetime so its worth it. Good luck.

I'm not going to make this into a big debate but there are two things I have to mention. I do not recommend heavy lapping of the barrel with valve grinding compound etc. I do believe that JB bore paste used properly will polish the barrels (especially the stainless ones which as you know stainless tends to machine rougher than 4140 or other carbon steel). If the new barrels are so good why do the bench rest guys use JB Bore Paste. Obviously you have not experienced a really tight barrel. My Omega when received broke two ramrods (one supposedly unbreakable) trying to load Hornady sabot/bullet combinations. I had to remove the breechplug and drive the load out the front with a hammer and a brass rod. I don't weigh enough to push that down the barrel. After about 50 shots with Powerbelts and 100 stokes of JB Bore Paste I can now load some sabots as long as I use a solid very strong ramrod.

Good post Red... well... except for the girly-man connotation....lol

The biggest problem with seating tight-loading sabot/bullets stems from the manufacturer's choice of a ramrod that's fitted to your rifle. Most of these supplied ramrods are either not stiff enough -- not long enough & don't come with any type of T-handle for leverage. The 2nd biggest problem is having something sticky on the bore walls that constrict/restrict easier loading. Many times this occurs after the rifle's been fired. You want the least amount of harsh chemicals in your bore when ignition goes off. The 3rd biggest problem is buying bullets from ML manufacturers whose barrel-bores are wider diameter than "yours".

There are plenty of aftermarket range rods that aid ML shooters loading these sabots. Make sure your ramrod is stiff, unbreakable & carry along a screw-in handle for leverage. Make sure your bore is clean & dry & try to purchase bullet-packages with your rifle name on it.

how can two guns from the same manufacture be so different, red i have shot m/ler's long enough to know when something aint right, i've got a t/c 209X50 encore and my freind just bought one, we couldn't load the same things i was shooting out of my gun to load in his, even after a very intense cleaning, maybe i do need to go to gold's but at 5'10" 225 i think i shouldn't have the kind of problems we were having, we ran a maxi ball down the barrel of his and it looked horrible, when i figure out how to put pics from my digital camera on here i'll post them, your only response would have to be send the gun back to t/c, also when trying to run a cleaning patch thru it was rough/jerky, maybe t/c dropped the ball on this one. we used lapping compound from brinnell not valve lapping compound, and the problem has been solved. btw the gun is not "easy" to load now but it does load more like mine, and i agree you could ruin a barrel very quickly, but we had very little time to get ready for m/ler season and he didn't want to be barreless.


most people don't have a clue on something like this, stainless cuts very rough