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HELP !!!!For those of you with lots of experience running lap slugs up and down a barrel, please share any gotcha's or nastypitfalls to hand lapping as I am planning to do my 1st hand lap job tonight on the tight spots on my Marlin 30-30 barrel.

Ignorance is bliss....and i have to admit, I am very blissful...but why do you insist in lapping this barrel? Does it not shoot well? Is it a severe fouler?.....OOOOOOOOH, those dreaded tight spots! Me thinks, it is a waste of your time and besides the rifling in a Microshit barrel isn't much more than pencil line deep and I would be wont to run any aggressive compund through one. But, I know that I am not you and so forth. If the barrel was a sewer pipe, I think I may try the lapping trick and if the tight spots were actually rough spots, then I would do it as well. Otherwise, I'd shoot the damned thing and pretend I didn't know those tight spots were there.

I've made poured laps and used JB and it is a bitch. The laps wear out fast as the grit eats lead alloy very quickly and the whole affair nauseates me.

I've got 4 laps already made and I don't intend to use a coarse compound as all I want to do is remove the "tight" sensation by the front sight and even in my crown job (get rid of the burr edge I rolled inside the barrel).  Sounds like I'll simply get tired of it before I could hurt anything (going from your description it is a lot of work for very little removal of anything).

Thanks Jump,

Oldfeller

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I've got 4 laps already made and I don't intend to use a coarse compound as all I want to do is remove the "tight" sensation by the front sight and even inmy crown job (get rid of the burr edge I rolled inside the barrel). Sounds like I'll simply get tired of it before I could hurt anything (going from your description it is a lot of work for very little removal of anything).Thanks Jump,Oldfeller

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OF,

Better make about 15 more laps. When using JB....which i don't consider aggressive at all, you'll make about 5 passes and the lap gets 'easy'....in other words it's done. So, if the JB eats off .0001 or .0002 from the lap...it may have taken .00001 from the tight spot. You really need lots of patience, handfuls of laps, and plenty of elbow grease.

You know, I'd not worry about the throat and firelap that illegitimate with maybe 5 coarse, followed by 5 mediums and then 10 fines. Then, i'd run a tight patch down and see if the tight spots were there. If you shoot a Loverin bullet...running it out to find the new throat isn't much of a problem.

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HELP !!!!For those of you with lots of experience running lap slugs up and down a barrel, please share any gotcha's or nastypitfalls to hand lapping as I am planning to do my 1st hand lap job tonight on the tight spots on my Marlin 30-30 barrel.

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Kelly,

Sounds like you have a handle on what you need to do. 

But what I would do is try and clean up the tight spot first.  Then start your taper routine.  Warning:  Stop before you get to where you want to end up because you will have opened up the pores in the metal.  You will have to do the shoot clean, shoot clean routine to close them up and it will take about .0002 - .0005 of metal out with it depending on how abrasive you cut it.

Patience is your best friend.  If you get tired, stop and go do something else.  But trying to make a taper is hard enough if you can work from the breech end but if you have to work from the muzzle, how do you know what you get?  And how do you slug when you can't feel the taper.  Flush clean and then patch, then slug have a muzzle guide use it.   Remember, with micro groove you can't really tell if you have a tight spot or if there is a rough or narrow spot on one side of the lands.  It will catch and make you think it's tight when it's not.

But remember that you can still fire lap and not hit your throat.  You do it by dipping the tip of an undersize bore ride slug in fine compound.  Then feed it in slowly by hand so as not to hit the walls.  Seat the first drive band up to the lands.  When the round ignites inertia will pull the coumpound off the nose into the bore where it will load up starting with the front drive band.  Since you seat up to the lands, then nothing is present to lengthen or enlarge the throat area.  This is similar to doing 22 RFs.  But here to, stop before you think you are done.

Another way to do it and guarentee that you have nothing in the chamber or throat is to mark two distances on your cleaning rod with tape.  First one is your throat length and the second is 1" up.  Then you can patch in your coumpound on a lose, oily patch up to the throat mark.  Then remove that patch and patch with a tighter dry patch down to the second mark one inch up.  This pushes all the compound down into the area just ahead of the throat and a fired bullet will load up at that time after it is out of the throat.  You do the second patch so that the rest of the barrel is clean and no further loading up of the bullet occurs.  Otherwise you will cut a reverse tapper as the bullet continues to pick up more material.  Just more for thought. 

I prefer one of the methods to hand lapping.

 

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Reply to : OldfellerHELP !!!!For those of you with lots of experience running lap slugs up and down a barrel, please share any gotcha's or nastypitfalls to hand lapping as I am planning to do my 1st hand lap job tonight on the tight spots on my Marlin 30-30 barrel.Kelly,Sounds like you have a handle on what you need to do.But what I would do is try and clean up the tight spot first. Then start your taper routine. Warning:Stop before you get to where you want to end upbecause you will have opened up the pores in the metal. You will have to do the shoot clean, shoot clean routine to close them up and it will take about .0002 - .0005 of metal out with it depending on how abrasive you cut it.Patience is your

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Kelly,

I'm sure you know but in case others are thinking about this, don't try the last method unless you are sure the gun is empty.  I had a guy once try it with a round chambered and somehow it set the cartridge off.  Idiot.