Poor man's bore gauge?
 

Is there any such thing? I would like to determine the actual choke in a couple of my guns but I really don't want to invest a bunch in a bore gauge; just don't think I'd have that much use for it after the initial use. Most of the inexpensive inside calipers I've seen probably don't go deep enough, and most aren't accurate enough either. Any suggestions? Thanks...

Gary Bulley only charges $140 for a dial type bore gauge - a little more for a digital and he is a nice guy to deal with

https://www.theunloader.com/

if I charged $5 for every bore I measure for someone else - both of my digital ones would have paid for themselves

if you really have no further use for it - i'd bet someone here would buy it for a few dollars off

An inside caliper can measure the inside of a bore can work to measure constriction. I have seen them with spring loaded legs that are maybe 4-5" long. You can use them for choke and also chamber length gauging.

That would likely be your best option at an "economy way" and still use accurate equipment.

Like these...

Attachment 86569

Attachment 86570

Brian, my only problem with those is that unless you want to pay a pretty good chunk the ones I've looked at say accuracy is around +/- .01. I didn't think that was good enough. Maybe I just wasn't looking at high enough quality ones?

I frankly don't know anyone who gives a sh!t about the bore diameter of any gun they own, so that sort of payback is out of the question :). That said, assuming I decided to pop for one of these, what's a good length to get? And is it worth it to pay the extra $35 for digital?

its always the chokes they want to know about.

length wise - i like 18" a little room to spare if I want to completely measure a 32" set of barrels.

I like using the digital- but the draw back is - always remember to have a spare battery around. but I also have a dial bore gauge, and it works absolutely fine -

so the answer to that is - personal choice - no practical advantage

So excuse me for bein' dumb, but...you can measure the choke constriction with this as well, right?

Well I want to know bore diameter, first you can't know the choke without knowing the bore diameter, second it can give away barrel work such as back boring or excessive bore clean up.

yes. insert it from front of the bore and as you slowly draw it out, the gauge's reading will drop - so, the points of constriction is the difference between the inside bore diameter and the reading at the muzzle. you can tell the length of the choke by when the numbers begin to drop.


to use the gauge - you use a ring that comes with it to zero it - the inside of the ring is .700 for the 16 to 10 size. so when you drop the gauge in a 12 ga for example and it reads .029 that means the bore is .729. if it reads -006 at the muzzle - the choke is .035

simple once you have done it a couple times

Phil, if you’re only interested in one-time use to measure the bores and chokes of your guns, I’ll loan you mine.

I have two but they will not measure 10 ga. Or .410.

If you want to borrow mine just shoot me a PM.

Dean





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