Ok ive tried to look into firelapping and from what i can tell people who are not gunsmiths but closely follow instructions and do not expect miricles are happy with any of the 3 major lapping kits, neco's marshals and tubbs. every gunsmith ive talked to can say nothing but horible things about it. major barrel manufacturers say it works fine but not on there barrels(understandable aftermarket barrels are lapped twice and are finished with an expensive reamer by an expensive smith) all i can get from a smith is "if you look at a fire lapped barrel through a bore scope you can see all these horble thing" WHO CARES i dont care if the barrel has rust pits that look like pot holes any more. i dont care if its bent in a u and i have to shoot animals behind me. as long as it hits what im aiming at the first time every time for a long time and is easier to clean!

What id like is some first hand info from people that have done it and shot at least 1000 rounds both before and after through the same gun that they lapped.

my questions to these folks would be
1. does the firearm shoot noticably better or worse
2. does the firearm clean noticably better or worse
3. how many rounds will it take to wear out the barrell if i lapp it
4. how many rounds will it take to wear out the barrel if i dont

any help here would be great

also ive heard bad and good things about lapping with jacketed and lead both some clarification would be handy

Why would a gunsmith not like a successful home firelapping job? Same reason the factories would rather you didn't handload ammunition. Because you're taking business away from him. Correctly lapping a barrel makes it smoother, not pitted. I don't know where anyone got that from.

I've never kept all that detailed of records, certainly not of 1,000 rounds of accuracy targets before and after. In fact I've never waited nearly that long to lap guns that needed it!

What are you going to shoot, jacketed or cast? What type of gun?

If the gun is for cast bullets, you aren't going to see it worn out in your lifetime if you take care of it, lapping or not. Lapping will make it easier to clean, and often fixes accuracy issues. I've never seen one get worse.

If it's for jacketed bullets, wear is primarily a function of how hot you get the barrel and how fast you shoot it. A few lapping round isn't going to change that.

As far as using jacketed or lead bullets, consider that nobody laps barrels by hand with anything but lead. That ought ought to tell you something.

Get Marshall or Veral Smith's book.

I don't meet the 1,000 rd minimum,but with considerable shooting,my 1892 Krag got minute and a half accuracy,with a tight spot in the barrel,and required 30 plus patches to clean.
After firelapping with Marshall's kit,it still gets the samee accuracy,but the high spot is removed,and cleaning requires only 15 patches.
Frank

First like MikeG I never waited that long to lap a barrel if it needed it, In my shop all barrels are hand lapped which in most cases takes about an hour including making the laps. I have fire lapped factory barrels for customers in the past when requested, I saw no difference in accuracy from before or after fire lapping or for that matter hand lapping, if the barrel shot like crap before it did after wards. But it did help with fouling problems. As far as how many rounds until the barrel is shot out would depend on the caliber, loading and length of shooting sessions and a few other things. I believe the throat would be affected more then any other part of the barrel with fire lapping.
Is it worth doing, it is if the barrel is fouling badly and you don't want to hand lapp the barrel, which you can do yourself by the way. We use the neco kit.

Lapping...whether using a Neco kit, lead lap, tight patch or just firing bullet does have an effect on the barrel. To what degree accuracy or cleaning is affected depends on a lot of factors and no general statement of "what's better" means more than doodly squat if the lapping isn't done is some kind of reasonable manor.

John Barsness did a very good test published in "Rifle" magazine #198, Nov 2001, that came closer to being a "scientifically significant" approach to the subject I have ever read and matches some of my experience on the subject. Most of the forum posts I've read since then come closer "very late in the evening whisky talk around the campfire"...basically only conjecture for or against without a thorough test of the subjec matter. If you're really interested in doing it right with the possiblility of success, read his article...at least he came up with some meaningfull measurements.

If you buy a custom barrel from a named source the barrels are...for the most part...already hand lapped which should give you some idea that lapping is successful...which doesn't necessarily transfer to "firelapping" a milsurp barrel or a rough factory barrel.

I always fired 50 rounds (arbitratry number only, take your pick more or less) through a new factory barrel to "iron out" the machining roughness, to see just how much cleaning it took to get the barrel squeaky clean and to check for accuracy...then I slugged the bore to find any high spots.

After reading the entrails of a dead squirrel shot by the rifle, and consulting owl pellets and batschat, I then would devine whether I needed to "brush lap", "lead lap" or just go shooting. :D

My usually prefered method was just to go shooting...I figured the bullets would lap the barrel quite happily and why wear out the barrel with a cleaning rod which is just what you are doing by using ANY kind of lapping process...which is nothing more than a fast wear process when you get right down to thinking about it.

'Njoy

I have fire-lapped barrels and I have just shot other barrels to gain the same effect.

With handguns and their short barrels, fire-lapping of the throat and bore most probably impart the most significant results for accuracy.

In long guns, lapping of new barrels will remove the milling defects more quickly than merely lots of shooting. The costs of firing full power cartridges vs. the costs of a few lapping rounds to achieve the same result would suggest using the lapping method. This is not to say accuracy will dramatically improve. Some really rough bores may show better results, but as previously stated, an accurate barrel is going to be an accurate barrel, whether lapped or not.

The major benefit of lapping is to hone the bore faster than normal shooting and results in faster fouling cleanup. This is a real noticeable gain. The bores I have lapped always have quicker cleanup than bores left unlapped. The removal of all the little imperfections means less places for fouling to hide.

A good gunsmith friend told me I was advancing the "worn out" phase of any barrel by lapping to the tune of 100 to 150 normal firings. This may be a factor in ultra velocity firearms, but for the types I shoot and reload for, is inconsequential.

Both of the handguns I've done, a Ruger 44 mag Super Redhawk and a ruger 45 Colt single action showed an increase in accuracy. You might check out some of the Tech Articles on the Beartooth bullet side for some more info.

I probably meet the 1,000 round before and after criteria on one rifle. Barely 1,000 rounds before firelapping and 2,000-3,000 rounds after.
This rifle is a Marlin .44 magnum. I used the Tubb kit on it. Accuracy was somewhat improved and fouling was greatly reduced. It still shoots as well as it ever did.

A Marlin 32-20 and 30-30 I firelapped with Marshalls kit. The results were as above.

I will add to the above post that I sure wouldn't firelap a barrel unless I really thought it needed it. The Marlins I did had rough bores and constrictions.

The other recent rifle I have purchased is a Ruger and the bore feels smooth as silk, I would not think of firelapping it unless accuracy falls off and then I might consider the Tubb "throat maintenance" kit.

ive a marlin 444ss which takes me longer than id like to clean although tight spots dont seem to be to much of an issue when i slugged it it was just a hair tighter under the rear sight and maybe at the dovetail for the forearm mount but i mean a small hair. the throught is very rough i can see that with the naked eye and it takes me about 15 minutes to get it clean used to take 30-45 with hopes cleaners but i use the shooters choice stuff now so its easier. the rifling also shows significant tool marks. on average i shoot 20-50 rounds per session at the range and at the moment im using 300 grain hornady xtp's over max load of h-322 the bore sluged from .4305 down to .430 at the tight spot my mikes only good to half thou so it might be closer

i was hoping to switch to lead bullets after the last of my xtp's are gone but not till i get the fouling thing cleared up i was hoping i could just shoot the problem out of it with the copper jacketed bullets but 250+ so far and no noticable improvement

You might get Marshall's technical manual on firelapping. It's a very good read for anyone interested in shooting lead. I'm going to start doing that with both my 308 and 8mm this spring. The Tech manual was a real help in getting set up right. You can get it over on the Beartooth bullet side of the forum.

OK, fire lapping a barrel seems scary to me. A guy that's owned at least 75 rifles and another 25 handguns, minimum, over the last 40 years.

For new rifles, I always clean them thouroughly with Remington's abraisive cleanerthe first few shooting sessions, and they seeem to get smooth pretty quick, Same for handgun tubes.

Am I living in a false paradise?

I have to say, that while some have had great results with the Beartooth firelapping technique, I haven't.

I lapped the barrel in my Blackhawk 45 Colt; it did reduce the lead fouling, but also rounded off the sharp edge of the first 1/4" of the rifling, so that a recovered bullet would show the bullet "spun" or "slipped" in the rifling at first. Accuracy was not improved or hurt either way. Lots of rounds through this gun before and after.

The second gun I lapped was a 30-06 I built using a marlin take-off barrel with the micro groove rifling. The rifle was accurate, but it fouled copper a lot, and I could see the rifling was pretty rough. I firelapped it using the Beartooth supplies, down to the point where about half of the rough machining marks were gone at the muzzle. Accuracy is still the same, but now the barrel fouls copper VERY heavily (just one shot completely coats the bore with copper) and velocity is down about 300 fps! Examination of the bore shows the rifling in the throat is worn down to less than half it's original thickness, while the bore is still rough out at the muzzle. Slugging the bore shows the bore is not oversize now, so I'm not sure exactly what's going on. I evidently went too far with the lapping bullets (about 25 of them through the bore) and I'll be replacing the barrel on this one.

Both my lapping attempts were made using the Beartooth supplies, including the tech manual, and ALL the instructions and tips in the manual were followed to the letter.

On the other hand, I have had very good luck with the Tubb bore polishing bullets. These aren't really firelapping, because it's more of a polish and probably won't remove bore constrictions. They do smooth up the bore a lot and cut down on copper fouling for high velocity rifles. Friends and I have all seen increased accuracy and very minimal fouling after using this kit.

I don't think that you used too many bullets on the rifle barrel. I usually do 20, to start.

Guessing it wasn't a very good barrel to begin with. Did you do the polishing of the bore with lapping compound on a patch wrapped around a brush? That's an important step. If you got all the copper out and then did a few of the Tubb polishing bullets, that would be an interesting experiment.

Regarding the revolver throats - I have a few that look like that, including the most accurate one I own. If your bullets are large enough and not too hard, it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

This firelapping thing is like talking about religion. Lot's of different points of view both from the consumer's point of view and from those trying to sell you on their version of firelapping. Soooo... let me give you a "witness".

All my experience is with the Marshall Stanton version of firelapping. I have used the old Veral Smith lapping compound and the newer Beartooth firelapping compound. The latest Beartooth compound cuts faster. I have firelapped a lot of rifles and revolvers. Wrote a tech note article on how to firelapp a stainless Ruger revolver in 36 rounds instead of the 200 formerly recommended. You can read that and decide if it makes sense to you. Also, with rifles, I clean the barrel of lead buildup every round. That way the most rounds I will use for an initial firelapp is 10. Other than that I am with the rest of the program.

I had a Win model 70 in 30-06 that was a good 1.5 moa gun. I firelapped it and it became a .5 (correct, thats one half) moa gun. 3/4" groups off a bench at 200 yards were common on a still day with practice. A friend of mine had an identical rifle and we turned it from a 2 moa gun to a 1 moa gun. No other differences. My rifle groups were shot with my reloads with 150gr Rem bullets.

I have done very little of the before and after experimenting as new guns have been automatically firelapped. That said, my little 4" GP-100 has given me 10" groups (the best I can hold with iron sights) at 200 yards (185 gr BTB). I also had the cylinder throats opened up to .359. This allows the lapping bullet to do more cutting on the barrel than on the throats. If you fire 100 lapping rounds in a gun with small for caliber throats, most of the lapping action will be on the throats and not the barrel. This is key! Both my 44 mag Redhawks will give me 8" groups at 200 yards (the best I can hold with the 5 1/2" bbl). Best groups of all with BTB 355gr bullet. My Marlin 444 Outfitter is a 1 moa gun with nothing but a scout scope and firelapping. That's 1 moa out to 200 yards (330gr LFN BTB). My 6" K frame 22 revolver shoots under 4" at 100 yards with cheap ammo and shoots much cleaner after firelapping. The list goes on.

With the exception of 22lr revolvers I have not seen much difference in cleaning.

At least for me the key is.... For a little time and a few bucks, I will either make significant improvements in accuracy or at least loose nothing. It's not magic and it's not hard to really goof it up. But, if you are careful, you just might reap a great reward for a small investment. Works for me. Don't know if it will for you.

Oh wait... couple of other things. Long ago I quit looking at tool marks in rifle barrels. Maybe I don't get it but... I lapp 10 rounds (as slow as I can run them down the barrel without sticking in the barrel). I use a bronse brush and lots & lots of Breakfree to wash out any lead sticking to the barrel. Yeah it's messy but boy can you cut some steel in very few rounds. That's a big deal because lead tends to form on the "high points" of the barrel and these are the points you most badly need to cut down. If you are just lapping the previous rounds lead coating, you're in for a long night of cutting parts of the barrel you don't want to cut. Make sense? Do 10 rounds this way and move on to break in. If you are not thrilled with the results, re lapp 5 more rounds and break in again. In practice, I do not ever lapp over 15 rounds anymore. I do not look at the tool marks. Don't much care how much copper is left in the barrel (for jackted bullets) after a shoot. If the gun is spitting out teeny tiny groups all the time, you might not care either.

For revolvers I use the bronse brush and lots of breakfree after every cylinder full (usually 6 rounds) of lapping loads to pull all the lead off the inside of the barrel. Same concept as above for rifles. Very messy but sure does some serious lapping. :D

Hope this helps.

Highwayman: Go to www.frfrogspad.com to get info on lapping, firelapping (I think), cleaning, polishing, etc. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to Misc Q & A on the left side and just across from that under Homemade Cleaners and Lubricants there is more. You'll probably find more info there than you'll ever care to know. Its a good resource site. Even gets into electrolysis cleaning of lead and copper. Pretty interesting stuff. There is a "click here" place in the electrolysis description where you can download info that shows you how to make your own electrolysis set up. Looks pretty simple. You should be able to find some background info on that site. Good luck.

I don't think that you used too many bullets on the rifle barrel. I usually do 20, to start.

Guessing it wasn't a very good barrel to begin with. Did you do the polishing of the bore with lapping compound on a patch wrapped around a brush? That's an important step. If you got all the copper out and then did a few of the Tubb polishing bullets, that would be an interesting experiment.

Regarding the revolver throats - I have a few that look like that, including the most accurate one I own. If your bullets are large enough and not too hard, it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

Good to know that I didn't use too many bullets; I'm still scratching my head wondering what went wrong.

You're right, being a rough micro-groove barrel, it wasn't a very good one to begin with (I've seen some marlin barrels that were pretty smooth, this wasn't one of them.) I did do the polishing of the bore with lapping compound on a patch as described in the tech manual. I've followed that with the same technique, but using Flitz instead of lapping compound, still didn't help. In my latest attempt to get this shooting again, I even loaded 5 lapping bullets with Flitz and fired them down the bore. By this time of course the bore is pretty well polished, but still fouls like crazy. I thought about running some Tubb's bullets down the bore, but have decided I don't want to waste the $30 on this barrel just to experiment.

The gun was very accurate before lapping; it regularly shot sub 1 moa with 165gr SP bullets. This is a 19" barrel on a scout rifle setup BTW. Velocity with my 165gr hunting load before lapping was 2,740 fps. After lapping, velocity with the same load is down to just barely 2,400 fps. Fouling is extreme, as stated before.

Any other suggestions would be welcome on what went wrong or how it can be fixed. I'm planning to re-barrel the gun at this point, so I'm willing to experiment a little first.

BTW, the lapping loads were as slow as they could be; I stuck several bullets at first while figuring out the right charge. I ended up with a 22 Short case full of Bullseye was just about right.

Well..... huh. Don't know what to tell you. A look inside with a borescope might be interesting.

Many years ago, when I first got into competitive Benchrest shooting, I didnt have the money to buy a new match barrel. One of the competitors had a used barrel that he said would not hold better than .500 groups at 100 yards (which is not competitive performance for a benchrest barrel). To get me "started" in the game, he said he would sell me the barrel on the cheap! I was heavily into varmint hunting at the time, and decided to use that barrel in competion for my first year...save my money, and purchase a new barrel for my second year, and then relegate the used barrel to varmint hunting. One of the "old timers" (and one heck of a benchrest gunsmith) at the club I belonged to had a bore scope. He was adamant that I let him take a look at my newly purchased used barrel, but, it had to be done in "private"!!!! I really didnt know what he was up to, or what he meant, but I thought... what the heck! I met him at his shop one day and he had a look...."just as I suspected !!!", he said. He drew me over for a peep at the bore....Being a newbie to all this, I asked him to explain to me what I was seeing. He did........the bore of that barrel looked like it was "painted' with jacket fouling!!! After the old timer explained the whys and wherefores of all this to me...he gave me a process to follow to remove the jacket fouling from the bore. After spending most of the winter soaking the barrel and scrubing it out, I brought it back to him in the spring. He put the bore scope to the bore and we had another look see.........It was like new!!!! He mounted that barrel on my action...I fire fromed some cases, and proceeded to work up a load per his instructions. He met me at the range twice per week, and I following his lead..... that barrel shot like nobody's business!!! (Like most competitors in any other sport, Benchrest shooters are secretive about what they do to obtain accuracy.....The old timer told me "never a word about this to anybody"!) My first match with that barrel netted me a grand aggregate for 100, 200, and 300 yards of .3332...I won the match to many's surprise!!!!! The fella who sold me that barrel was the first to congratulate me, then immediately asked me if I wanted to sell the barrel back to him!!!! He pestered me for years thereafter to sell him that barrel!!!! LOL!!!! The only thing wrong with that barrel was the fouling that the previous owner had allowed to accumilate!!! The point I am trying to make here is, that fouling will guarantee poor accuracy, and the only way to insure that a bore is clean is by using the proper method of determining its condition, and cleaning the barrel accordingly. If I "think" its clean....its probably not! I want to "know" its clean!!! Old habits die hard! In Benchrest competition we clean our barrels after every target....normally no more than 10 rounds...sighters, and the target group included. I still do that to this day! My cleaning kit goes to the range with me, and whether I am shooting rifles or pistols, I clean my bores after every magazine or cylinder full of ammo....especially when working up loads! My shooting endeavors now revolve around hunting, and it stands to reason that I want the first shots out of my weapon to shoot to point of aim, and group, from a clean, cold barrel. This emulates the conditions of use that the weapon will be subject to, and makes sense from a practical perspective. As far as firelapping is concerned, and according to Marshalls Tech Guide, a clean bore is essential. I will be firelapping a 444 Marlin XLR in the near future. This is a new gun, but, every day I go down and scrub and resoak the barrel to insure that when the firelapping process takes place, that the barrel is spotless. Just my opinion here, but, I think that any gun that has been shot for "years" would require "more" than "thorough" cleaning to insure firelapping success.