Barrel fouling versus pitting

[J.B. Books]

Jack, I have been working/playing with a similiar project. A tired but solid NH 10ga. The barrels had light to moderate pitting from just ahead of the chambers to the start of the chokes. It shoots very well, nice tight patterns but not pretty to look down the bores. I have thought about having the barrels honed which would satisfy my desire for "pretty" but would also remove material and thus weaken the barrels to some extent. I also realize the gun will not produce much of a return on investment. I did a lot of searching on Google and found both good and so-so reviews of the Flex-Hone tool. I thought it was cheap enough and easy enough (ie. idiot proof) to try. Since my barrels are pitted I used the 180 grit brush and then burnished after with 000 steel wool spun by a drill. It did not produce a miracle nor was I expecting one. It did a tremendous job of "cleaning" up/out the bores and I would say that visually there has been a 33 to 50% improvement in how the bores look. The testimonials/reports I read about the Flex-Hone in our old forum, the Fox Collectors forum and Doublegun BBS noted almost no material was removed from a bore from their use, maybe 1/10000. That led me to believe I would not damage my barrels and worst case is would be no improvement. I tried it and glad I did as there has been a noticable improvement. Good luck.

http://www.brownells.com/userdocs/le...lex%20Hone.pdf

http://www.brushresearch.com/brush-types.php?c1=4

http://http://www.shootingtimes.com/gunsmithing/0406/