Saturday, February 10, 2018

Borescoped the 1892 Winchester

Last night I ran my borescope through the barrel of my antique Winchester 1892 in .38-40. What I'd hoped were leading deposits are really pits from corrosion. <sigh>


Unfortunately, much of the bore looks like that. Despite this, it shoots well. But, those pits are going to collect a lot of fouling, which is why cleaning patches always come out with some black on them, even after I've soaked the bore in Kroil since I got it a few weeks ago.

So, it looks like this rifle will see primarily smokeless powder ammo. I'll try some black powder handloads but ensuring all the black powder fouling is gone is going to be a challenge.

I have some 180 grain .401" soft cast lead bullets on order from Desperado Cowboy Bullets. Their 200 grain .430" bullets work well over Unique in my .44-40 and I expect the smaller bullets to work well in .38 WCF over 8.6 to 9.0 grains.

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