How Much Pitting in Smoothbore?

[oscarlovel]

Bought my first smoothbore, a Potsdam. Bore has pitting, deep enough that I can feel it with the fingertip of my little finger. My first question on this are how much pitting is acceptable in an original bore? Does it pose any safety threat? The previous owner shot a pretty good looking target at 25 yds from the bench. This is my first original. I have always bought reproductions in the past. Should I just go ahead and get Hoyt or Whitacre to reline the barrel? Can anyone reline it back to the original .72 caliber? Help!

[R. McAuley 3014V]

It is largely the location of the pitting that determines the severity or whether its time to reline a barrel. if it was a rifled bore, as opposed to a smooth-bore, the pitting might cause leading in the barrel and a drop in accuracy because of it. But as a smooth-bore, as long as the pitting is not such as to weaken the walls of the bore, as John Holland has often suggested, relining a barrel is simply a restoration. So long as you can keep it clean and the roughness of the breech area doesn't cause the cleaning patches to hang up, the bore may be fine. You might find someone with an optical inspection scope and check out the rest of the bore, not just what you can see or feel from the muzzle, and evaluate it for yourself. Even relining the bore won't make it safe it if it has any metallurgical flaws, but at least the liner would be much higher quality steel than the quality of the original iron used to make the barrel. But I think you already know the answer as to whether relining the barrel makes sense. Both Hoyt and Whitacre can reline the barrel to the original specs.

[Rich Foster]

Relining a Potsdam barrel to .72 cal is not recommended because the barrel thickness is not thick enough to ream out and a liner installed safely. Most Potsdam are relined to .69 and it is SAC approved although it is not the original caliber because of barrel thickness which consides with safety of firing the relined barrel. The slicker the bore the less fouling build up. You would just have to shoot it to see if fouling build is tolerable for it to keep a tight group for atleast 6 shots. Rich