Shotgun Barrel Polishing Flex Hone

[mc15426378]

Anyone have any experience with these?

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ ... LEX%20HONE~

Mike

[Silvers]

Good morning Mike, I guess it depends what you're looking for. I've used them and while they work well for polishing barrels I've never been able to visually see where pits were removed, nor read with a bore mike where anything more than a tenth or so (1/10,000 of an inch) was removed. I prototyped a series of them from coarse thru fine on an old Syracuse Arms damascus barrel, and a lightly pitted blown-up Fox B grade Krupp barrel = same result, good polishing but ~ zero effect on pits. You didn't say what you want to do with them but if for removing pits I'd suggest sending the barrel to Briley and let them do it with a Sunnen or similar hone made for that purpose. However if you want to polish out some light tarnishing they should work very well. Silvers

[mc15426378]

Thankfully no pitting issues. What I do have though is fouling/deposits (those nasty stripes) that are mainly in the forcing cone area and sometimes in the first section of the bores. These, for me, are tough to remove. A friend recommended these for the chambers/cones/bores which would polish them, he claims, so that deposits would not have any roughness to latch onto. I have a high grade Spaniard SxS which appears to be polished from the factory and these deposits rarely happen with this gun. I like to use the foaming bore cleaners which do a great job otherwise. Some 0000 steel wool. soaked in oil, wrapped around a bore brush and spun in the barrels with a drill works ok but I get tired of having to do this frequently.

So what I am asking is if other folks have used these to remedy the above problem and if so do they accomplish this? Any downside to using these hones in a vintage double?

Mike

[Silvers]

In my mind the only downside of using these hones in a shotgun barrel is getting the barrel too highly polished if you use the finest grit hones. I know that sounds wrong, but all things equal, high polish will effect the patterning of the gun and you may not get the downrange performance you expect. Also, it may not look "right" in a vintage Fox or whatever barrel. One of the best modern barrelsmiths, Kenny Eyster and his sons, always use a moderate grit paper when backboring and honing competition shotgun barrels. Eysterized barrels are not highly polished nor mirror bright, etc. I've talked extensively with Kenny while in his shop getting barrels done and hanging out with their dogs, and he related many times that a barrel can be too highly polished. I've proven that to satisfy my own curiosity. I know this is contrary to what you might read in books and articles where mirror-bright polishing is written up as being desirable. Also, may be too technical for readers here who are primarily hunters. But target guys are pretty particular about patterning, yield and efficiency, and it is known by some at least that bore and choke polishing will affect patterning.

I believe it's best to scrub out a shotgun barrel every 100 rounds or so using solvent and the heavy duty bronze brushes sold by Brownells. Once a barrel is cleaned of streaks it's easy to keep it that way if you don't overheat by heavy repetitive shooting, which tends to melt wads and deposit plastic in the bore and choke. Silvers

[jentb737]

Get your bore polishing brush directly from the manufacturer at --

http://www.brushresearch.com/brushes.php?c2=6

They are more economical when purchased from the maker.

I buy them 6 at a time, 3 of each grit.

They wear down pretty fast. They clean everything out of your barrel. They work great. I love them.

Jent