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What does "The bore is frosty" on an old rifle mean?
- Thread starter 2garfields
- Start date
dcmdon
NES Member
It means that there is some discoloration or "frosting" of the surface of the steel. Its not shiny, but has a mottled look.
Its not pitted. Its not rusty. Its frosted.
I'm not doing well explaining this. It describes a mild surface roughness.
Its not pitted. Its not rusty. Its frosted.
I'm not doing well explaining this. It describes a mild surface roughness.
No , you hit it right on the head.
dcmdon
NES Member
from a mil surp message board
Going back to the bore, if you're looking at used long arms at a store or show, insist on having the bore dry-patched - sometimes oil can hide a lot. Pitting comes in two types; the 'frosty' kind that consists of thousands of small pits, giving the bore a darker, less bright appearance. If the rifling is distinct, such barrels will usually shoot to mil-spec, and typically the pitting fills up with copper or lead. The other kind of pits are large, kind of like waterspots on a car. These typically will polish up pretty well, and the military manuals had an acceptance formula for such pitting. However, dark, pitted barrels are less than desirable. I call a mirror bore with good rifling 'good', and anything less than that 'poor'. I have a 1918 M1911 pistol with a dark, frosty bore that shoots fine. I only shot it on one occasion to verify function, then I cleaned it up and put it away. This is the picture when i got it, and it actually did clean up a little, but this is your basic frosted bore.
Going back to the bore, if you're looking at used long arms at a store or show, insist on having the bore dry-patched - sometimes oil can hide a lot. Pitting comes in two types; the 'frosty' kind that consists of thousands of small pits, giving the bore a darker, less bright appearance. If the rifling is distinct, such barrels will usually shoot to mil-spec, and typically the pitting fills up with copper or lead. The other kind of pits are large, kind of like waterspots on a car. These typically will polish up pretty well, and the military manuals had an acceptance formula for such pitting. However, dark, pitted barrels are less than desirable. I call a mirror bore with good rifling 'good', and anything less than that 'poor'. I have a 1918 M1911 pistol with a dark, frosty bore that shoots fine. I only shot it on one occasion to verify function, then I cleaned it up and put it away. This is the picture when i got it, and it actually did clean up a little, but this is your basic frosted bore.
It's not unusual for a frosty , crusty , worn bore to shoot "well".
Looking down a rifle barrel won't tell you much.
You really need to have a bore scope put down the tube.
I can show you several barrels that if you look down them with just your eye and a light you would say they are nice....put a scope down them ...yuk. although they actually shoot well.
Frosted is about normal for most surplus guns then it goes down hill from there.
Looking down a rifle barrel won't tell you much.
You really need to have a bore scope put down the tube.
I can show you several barrels that if you look down them with just your eye and a light you would say they are nice....put a scope down them ...yuk. although they actually shoot well.
Frosted is about normal for most surplus guns then it goes down hill from there.
dcmdon
NES Member
I'm getting a bit off topic, but even with new Savages, its not unusual for their barrels to show a fair amount of "button chatter" with an ugly inside. Then miraculously they shoot sub-moa.
CatSnoutSoup
NES Member
Oops, sorry, my bad! I thought you asked, "What is frosty and a bore?"
If the frost is consistent in the bareel its going to be even on its impact to the bullet. It might transfer drag, but shouldn't interfere with accuracy outside maybe a wee bit of a drop from extra drag.
