To Hone or Not to Hone

[Mills]

I am restoring a DH 10 gauge which have badly pitted barrels. We had one of the leading gunsmiths look at them and his advice was they were fine to shoot as is and to not hone them. I plan on taking his advice, but I am curious what the group thinks about honing and the safety and performance issues, if there are any.

[Dean Romig]

The first thing you should do is to wrap a small bunch of Frontier pad around a brass bore brush affixed to a rod mounted in an electric drill. With an ample dousing of Hoppe's swabbed in the bore run the spinning Frontier pad up and down the bore about fifty passes adding more Hoppe's as needs be.

I think you will be amazed at the result. The bores will probably not be as pitted as you once thought.

Frontier pads will NOT remove metal.

[Mills]

Thanks Dean. I will try that. They currently look like a Dirt Dauber colony

[Holeshot]

I shoot two badly pitted barrels. They both shoot and pattern nice. They were really hard to clean, is my biggest complaint. I have since run a hone in the 12 guage barrels, and it has helped the cleaning alot.

[Mills]

Thanks David. I can see that cleaning would be an issue. I will probably just have a drill set up like Dean suggests

[Kensal Rise]

Mills:
A professional inspection is key to the decision to hone. What you think is badly pitted may not actually be. Nonetheless, a light honing will do little harm if the barrel walls are thick enough to take it. But the key to honing is to only take out as much metal as necessary to smooth things up a bit. Many "gunsmiths" simply use a fixed diameter reamer that takes out too much metal in many cases. The result is a smooth bore -- but one that has lost more metal than necessary. If you go the hone route, please check into this with your gunsmith. Or... simply choose someone like Del Grego and the job will get done right.

Best, Kensal

[Mills]

Thanks Kensal. All of these responses are helpful.

[Paul P.]

Mills, I used Deans cleaning process on both of my 10s. The result is amazing.
They almost look like new bores. Get yourself an old brass rod to use in the drill as they dont like to come apart after use at even low rpm,s caused by the drill.
I used a .45 cal brass brush with a small piece of frontier pad wrapped around it. Bore lube was Corrosion X.

[Mills]

Thanks Paul. Now I need to convince my wife that it is ok for me to shoot those old barrels

[Paul P.]

I'm shooting RST 1 1/8 oz. loads. They kick less than my 12 Vulcan.