Shiny bore v dull bore

[Gaz]

Does the shininess of a rifle barrel make any difference to its accuracy?

I ask because my No.4, despite being as clean as I can get it with C2R (which cut through what was probably several decades of crud and exposed the actual bore steel) still looks pretty dull. Uniform, just not as shiny as, say, my TR.

[dromia]

Not in my experience, if I see a shiny bore then I wonder what is wrong with it.

I suspect that it is also a function of the metal used in the barrel.

Perhaps melesmeles could shed some light on this as he seem to be a far better metallurgist than he is a badger.

The vast majority of my rifles have dull barrels, even when cleaned, and shoot just fine. All of my rifles are second hand and mostly over 50 years old.

A shiny bore isn't a requisite for me to make a purchase, a clean bore is so that I can give it an inspection but after that most of guns I buy have dull bores and they shoot just fine everything else being equal.

If your rifle is giving you the accuracy you require then why worry about the shade of the bore, I've never heard bambi or an Xring say "that shot didn't count because it came from a dull bore".

[TattooedGun]

Logically I would deduce that consistency is the be all and end all to accuracy, as long as the state of the barrel does not change between one shot to the next, I would say it shouldn't affect it's accuracy.

Efficiency is a different matter.

A shiny barrel implies that it would be more highly polished, therefore there would be less drag on the projectile as it travels through the barrel, so the same powder load/primer/brass etc between the 2 barrels would see it go further, faster from the polished barrel.

As I say though, accuracy would probably be more effected by the consistency of the barrel...

[Steve E]

Your No4 has a Chrome Molly barrel and it will never show the shiny lustre of you stainless TR barrel.
If it was shiny it would be suspicious of over enthusiastic cleaning which may have polished the bore and quite probably degraded it.

[WelshShooter]

Eh, I don't think it should make any difference. So long as it's not pitted. My No4 has worn out rifling at the last inch of the barrel and I can get <2moa groups at 100m.

[Gaz]

Looks like a clean bore's still a clean bore whether it shines or not then, thanks all.

[FredB]

I once borrowed a "Hawkeye" bore scope, along with its owner / operator who would not let it out of his sight because of what it had cost him.
When you talk anout a shiny bore, you have to remember that you are looking at light reflected with a very small angle of incidence----it's a bit like looking at the road in the distance when you are driving, it looks smooth and shiny, but you know that it isn't really. Most shiny bores revealed tool chatter marks when looked at through the Hawkeye. Dull bores were very slightly frosted, as though they had once been coated with a very thin film of rust which had been cleaned out.
I have a German "Buechel Meister" schuetzen rifle which was the only flawless barrel that I own---smooth, shiny and no trace of tool marks anywhere. The most interesting barrel was that of my 44-40 Winchester '92: when I bought it, it had been found in an attic in South Kensington. There was a bullet stuck half way up the bore and half a case in the chamber. Having removed these and got it shooting again, I was aware that there was a ring of some sort where the stuck bullet had been. The Hawkeye bore scope revealed this to be a deep ring of pits. Either side of this ring, the bore was perfect and one of the best that the scope owner had ever seen.
Since I aquired it in the mid '80s, the rifle has had many thousands of rounds through it and it is very accurate for a lever gun. The pits were clean and did not show any sign of a build up of lead.
Bore scopes are addictive---but I still can't afford one!
Fred