I have had two guns with serious looking pitting. After a few years of use and scrubbing, they are not pitted any more. Don't ask how this happened.

Yes, and it's driving me nuts! I'm hearing "shoot it, just keep it at 7/8, and slower than 1200fps", and then I hear "Don't risk life and limb".

I want to shoot the gun, a lot. It is my gun, and the only double right now that's mine. I could shoot my wife's Sterly, or my son's Stevens. Don't want to; they're not mine. There's no budget to buy a different one of my choosing in the foreseeable future, so I'm hoping to find some confidence in what I have so I can enjoy it. It will always get really light loads like RST's Falcon Lite's or similar.

That's all I care about; safe shootability. I shot it once, and it hit what I aimed at.

I'm fine as well with not back boring. It wouldn't cost me anything to have it done, but if I don't need to then I wouldn't want to. It would be nice however to lengthen the chambers to 2 3/4. I can easily buy Winchester WinLite shells right down the street, and they are a very mellow load.

if there is any operation where wall thickness is most affected- this is it

The worst two are:

4" from from breech, 12 o'clock, right barrel.
2" from muzzle, 10 o'clock, left barrel.

The right barrel is the worse of the two overall, and both are littered with small ones along the entire length. I'm guessing corrosive ammo, and years of sitting uncleaned.

Nevermind that idea then. I'll order short shells online. Thanks.

Time to strike, polish, and blacken. Will leave the rest well enough alone.

as far as ammo goes--
black powder gets a bad rap for pitting- but IMHO - the corrosive primers used in the early days ( up to around WWII in some ammo) is the primary culprit

Can you share your process and materials you like to use for scrubbing? General cleaning by another name, or do you have a method you like for going after the bores a little harder? Thank you.

Wrap some Frontier Pad around a copper or brass bore brush attached to a cleaning rod clamped into the chuck of an electric drill that has reverse. Squirt or spray a solvent into the bore and go to town with the drill running it all the way in and out for thirty or forty passes in both forward and reverse. Then run a clean swab through the bore and see how it looks.






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Thanks. I did get it a little cleaner with a similar process, but with strips of green Scotchbrite pads. I've ordered a Frontier pad, but haven't gotten it yet.