Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Winchester Collectors M69 Bore relining

I have my inherited Winchester M69 22 rimfire rifle that belonged to my grandpa and then my dad and now me. It's really a cool little rifle that I'd like to get shooting. All looks good to me but upon cleaning the bore and inspecting it, I found that it only has remnants of rifling left in it. It appears that the stock has been refinished since it is absolutely pristine condition. I wish I knew if my Dad refinished it or not, but I'm pretty sure someone did. I haven't shot it yet, but based on the condition of the bore, I don't have much hope for it. So...I got to wondering about relining the barrel. I don't think this should be a big deal since its collector value is low with the refinished stock. Does anyone know a smith that might do the relining for me? Any other words of advice?

You sound like a pretty knowledgeable man, and I mean no disrespect whatsoever, but make damn sure the bore isn't heavily leaded. I got in a Marlin 20A last year for re lining, you could barely see the lands but inspecting the muzzle area with a magnifier, something just didn't look right, so I went after it with a tornado brush and Liquid Wrench....sure as hell after about 20 strokes, flakes of lead started coming out. We surmised that someone had used boxes maybe of birdshot .22s. It will never be accurate of course, the bore was rough underneath, but it shot good enough to plink cans with, which is all the owner cared about.

Thanks for the advice, Flintlocke. That's a good thought. I will double check the bore just to make sure you're not correct. I did run several patches through it and they came out clean, no smudges or anything. I felt a spot about 1/2 way down the bore where the patch "loosened" up a bit, i.e. didn't give the same resistance as it did along other portions of the bore, so that is really why I tried to do a visual inspection of the bore. I couldn't really see well enough to determine why there was that loose spot, but in the process saw that the rifling seemed to be almost gone. I'll do a double check on it, though.