doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Wooden dowel and emory cloth.

I remember reading somewhere about touching up slightly rough bores with these. Can someone explain the process. How is the emory attached to the dowel? Thanks

Miker Orlen can describe it better, but following his tips, I have done it several times. The dowel is slit on one end, about 2". Emery of the desired grit size is torn in a strip. The strip is inserted in the slit and wrapped round the dowel. I drive the dowel with my lathe but a drill motor would do the dame if the chuck is big enough. The wrap of emery needs to be fairly snug inside the bore. Run it in and out and it will remove a fair amount of roughness. It will remove more metal than the grit ball polishers that Brownells sells. Finish up with finer grit.

Thanks Jim, that is the info I was looking for.

I use Scotch Brite under the emery cloth as it takes up some of the space and provides some cushion with the emery paper. If you just use the emery paper, you have to get the size exactly right. I also use aluminum for the shaft as it holds up better. You can cut the slit with a drill and then smooth it up with a file. Don't cut/drill it all the way to the end and it will hold up better (but it does make it a little harder to thread the Scotch Brite/ emery paper) Stack them and thread them both together. If you use a reversible drill (1/2" is best), it doesn't matter which way you thread the abrasives as you can switch directions on the drill.

I cut and oil pieces of emery cloth to go over the end of a dowel and repeatedly "push" the emery patch through the bore from the breech. I am careful not to dull the sharp edge of the chamber at the breech. I think this is a bit more user friendly than using the drill, but the dowel and the size of the patch has to be carefully selected. A good coarse patch, well oiled, will last for many passes.

It appears that one must be especially careful about using such a method, especially in the area of the chokes. If used in the chokes how might this affect the POI ?

I've had good results cleaning a rusty bore with the use of an old phosphor bronze gun cleaning brush of the appropriate bore and putting it on a cleaning rod then winding steel wool onto the brush and using the cleaning rod in a hand drill and running it through. It's easy to add on more steel wool. Lagopus.....

Given that the dowel is rotating, I don't see a change in POI as likely, but certainly any honing of the choke will change its diameter. I've had 3 barrels that were honed by the same shop. All had their original chokes altered significantly. One barrel lost all the choke in one tube.

I actually used such a method to straighten a crookedly opened choke - opened from muzzle with simple reamer instead of from breach with brushed and centered reamer. Brought POI and POA together for a few loads. Never take a shotgun to a rifle/pistol smith!!!!

Niklas

4-ought steel wool gets the plastic, leaves the steel. "Cleaning up" with emery or even course ScotchBrite is a lot more aggressive.

jack