Fire lapping for accuracy

[500 Stroker]

I have a new model 11 in 6.5 Creedmoor
Does anyone have any experience with fire lapping?
I have heard that it can improve accuracy if done correctly.
Anyone have a supplier for Creedmoor lapping components or preloaded lapping ammo.

[Westcliffe01]

I believe this page has what you are after. http://www.davidtubb.com/final-finish-tms I don't know if he invented the process but he seems to have commercialized it.

You would just need to buy a suitable 6.5mm bullet based package and load it into some of your brass. Some people say the coarsest grits are not needed, and instead of getting a "final Finish kit" they get a TMS (throat maintenance system) kit instead. Supposedly the TMS kit has enough components to lap 2 barrels and skips the most aggressive abrasive.

I have not done it, but it does of course produce some wear in the throat, but for those of us shooting high BC bullets a slightly longer throat may not be such a problem. Where this can be a problem is when one has a rifle that you wish to shoot a wide range of bullets out of including shorter ones. In that case the throat wear might negatively affect the light bullets.

[JCalhoun]

I'll say try shooting the rifle first. It may surprise you.

[82boy]

Fire lapping = premature throat erosion. Its is a good way to junk a barrel.

[jonbearman]

I did it with tubbs kit and shot half the bullets in a .308 30 inch barrel on the pta action that just wouldnt shoot to well.After the process,I cleaned the gun as per instructions from David.Then I shot some of the best ammo that showed some promise and it grouped way better like in the 3's compared to an inch.I scoped it and it was way smoother and didnt notice any new thraot erosion.

[tammons]

On a lapped barrel I would pass and keep looking for a better load.

Non lapped barrel that is not shooting well, I would use it as a last resort.

I used a tubbs kit on four rifles. Had a 2 223s that were iffy. One it made no difference, the other a very slight difference.
The third rifle was a 6.8 SPC mini and made no difference, but that was a mini 14. 4th rifle was a AR15 6.8 spc that I was running extremely hot loads through and wanted to loosen up the barrel. That one it improved accuracy a bit.

[mudpig]

I've fire lapped a couple of barrels now and about to do my third one. It smooths out rough barrels and cuts down on the copper fouling drastically. I've found that good smooth barrels don't need the rougher compounds and I only use the finer grits on those. I have had a real rough one that fouled terribly and I used the courser grits on that one. All barrels shot better and stayed clean longer after treating. David Tubb and Zediker swear by the process. I don't think these guys would steer you wrong. The lapping can push the lands forward, but not very much as Zediker explains in his book. If you can deal with the little extra length....it is well worth it!!

[Brent]

Why not try seasoning the barrel first by doing the Lilja style break in? CLEAN, the shoot 1x, clean throughly, repeat for 10 rounds. Do a couple of 3x shot groups, clean each time, done. Shoot it. When I say clean I mean CLEAN, remove all carbon, then copper, period. This process is used to knock down the sharp edges of non handlapped barrels. Factory barrels have a lot of tooling material etc. I have done this on my last 2 savages and 1 is just finishing up, shooting 1moa right now on the 10, 11, 12th rounds for a 3rd group with factory 130's. My other rifle is shooting .25MOA with Berger 140's.

Anyway, this process is a huge pain but it seems to work for many folks who do LR shooting over stock to full custom Gunwerks rifles.

[GaryB]

From all I read and see on this site, Savage rifles have a very good reputation for excellent accuracy right out of the box.
If it were mine and new, I would just take it out and shoot it to see how it performs and go from there.

Can't see running sandpaper down the bore of a new rifle.

Gary

[stangfish]

There is a lot more things I would try to improve accuracy before I tried this. In aggregate; Bedding, Trigger, Good Secure Mounts, Scope, Trigger Time, Load, Quality Shooting Rest/Bipod pkg.

[stomp442]

I used the tubb system on a custom 10/22 build and it was a night and day improvement. Im a believer in the system.

[Westcliffe01]

There have been more than a few reports of terrible barrel quality on model 11 or 111 6.5mm barrels of late.

One thing that the OP does need to bear in mind and that is firelapping will 100% void the Savage warranty, just like any other OE. It sounds though that Savage does not commit to a particular finish in their barrels and if the gun shoots better than 1.5MOA it is entirely possible that they will refuse to do any work to it, regardless of how badly the barrel fouls. This is pretty much the same reaction I got from TC on my icon which has the same kind of chatter marks in the bore.

Here are a few images for reference




This one is a Marlin


I don't think firelapping is going to fix any of those kinds of candidates. Frankly the manufacturers should be sued for shipping crap like that.

[pisgah]

Fire lapping = premature throat erosion. Its is a good way to junk a barrel.

Amen on this. Firelapping can help with some severe barrel problems like rough rifling or a bore restriction, but with an already-accurate barrel I think you're as likely to do harm as good.

[Brent]

Oh wow that is bad. Those machine marks on top of the groves is not good, down in the valley is not a big deal. My 6.5-284, 204, and 260 are smooth on top for the most part. There was initial copper fouling of course but now they look good.

It could be that once the lands are seasoned in a barrel like that wants to be shot with copper fouling. The copper fills in the groves and smooths out. Just clean the carbon out every 20-30 shots and leave the copper in. There is a video with an instructor who shot 8000 rounds with out taking out the copper. Removed it, it took another 45 or so rounds to get his accuracy back. Shot it for 13000 rounds and retired the barrel.

[500 Stroker]

You are correct. I checked with Savage and it will void the warranty.
I will forget the fire lapping and just run it thru a good breakin and hope for the best.
Pic's were great info.
Thanks to all that replied.

[Txhillbilly]

Fire lapping = premature throat erosion. Its is a good way to junk a barrel.

Everyone has their own opinion on the issue.
I'm a believer in the Tubb's Final Finish system. I had Savage build me a 110 FLP 25/06 a couple years ago with some leftover heavy barrels they still had.
The bore finish of this rifle was terrible,and looked like a washboard. It would only shoot 100 gr bullets,anything else looked like a shotgun pattern. I tried a lot of different things out on this barrel. I hand lapped the barrel twice,and it did improve a little,but was a copper fouling nightmare.
I called and talked to the people at Tubb's,and ordered a complete set of .257 Final Finish bullets. I followed all of their instructions,and it was a very time consuming affair.
The end results were a rifle that shot very accurate,would shoot various bullet weights,and is easy to clean the bore.

I didn't erode the throat of my barrel out,and it made a fantastic barrel out of a junk factory barrel.

[pisgah]

I didn't erode the throat of my barrel out,and it made a fantastic barrel out of a junk factory barrel.

And that's a perfect example of when firelapping may make sense -- nothing to lose. I'll still say that doing it on a barrel without a serious problem is as likely to degrade accuracy as impove it.

[82boy]

I didn't erode the throat of my barrel out,.

My question to this is; how do you know that you didn't? Did you measure it before and after? Just because the barrel shoots good now doesn't mean that the throat isn't gone, you may find that it will give up accuracy much faster than you anticipated.

[500 Stroker]

Well the jury is in. I did not fire lap the barrel but I did break in the barrel per the procedure posted on the Savage website. You need a lot of time and a ton of cleaning supplies.
First time at the 100 yard range I shoot 3 three shoot groups ,before it started raining, resulting in the last two being sub MOA.
I think with time the groups will get smaller but I am more interested at what will happen at 300 to 500 yards.
So far it is about what I expected with a stock gun using out of the box ammo.
I don't know if the gun is worth the money. Yet

[500 Stroker]

Well I finally got the gun broke in per the procedure in the Savage owners manual.
No need to fire lap it shot real well for the first time out using out of the box Hornaday 140gr A-MAX ammo.
Model 11 LRH chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor



Not bad for an old Hillybilly that cant see worth a dam.

[RP12]

Fire lapping = premature throat erosion. Its is a good way to junk a barrel.

+1.

[wbm]

Have fire lapped in the past and if you follow the directions you are not going to junk a barrel. However, I never had an accuracy improvement that was any better than after a barrel was just fired 200 rounds. Cleaning was certainly better though. I don't fire lap now because I don't see the need but I do them for friends if they really want it done. If you do it correctly be prepared to spend the better part of a shooting day doing it!

[jonbearman]

The chatter in the pics,is it interuption of the button being pulled through or drilling marks.I know brux laps 2 or 3 times to smooth it out before final inspection and cleaning.

[82boy]

The chatter in the pics,is it interuption of the button being pulled through or drilling marks.I know brux laps 2 or 3 times to smooth it out before final inspection and cleaning.

Brux barrels are not button rifled, but cut rifled. I was told that they use two lapping time, one after drilling , and the other after cutting the rifling.

[Wildboarem]

I used the final finish system on my .300 wby. She was a dirty pig. I could run a 100 patches through it and still come out dirty. Accuracy was not that great either. Custom factory ammo shot 1.5 moa. For a hunting gun some say that is good enough. Had nothing to loose, so I ran the coursest to the finest. Fouling is "normal" now and I have several loads shooting under 3/4 moa. In fact it shot an -8" group at 1150 yds. In a factory wby I wasn't worried about throat setback, which is different than erosion, sorry 82boy. I also used it in an oly ar heavy barrel, same results. In the right situation I wouldn't hesitate to use it again, but not on my CBI or Rock Creek tubes.