Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles JES Rebore Issues

I had a Nosler M48 Patriot/Liberty rebored from 308 win to 358 win, but it shoots horrible with flyers and completely unpredictable. When Jess sent the rifle back it had a little note saying it was test fired with Hornady ammo.

I recrowned the barrel. Didn’t help. Looking down the barrel from the muzzle, it looks like the edge of the rifling has a step in areas. It starts and stops. It also has chips along the edges of the rifling.

I tried to get pictures, but they aren’t the best. Feel like I took a good rifle and trashed it. I feel there is no way around having it rebarreled.

Did you give him a chance to make it right?

No, I guess my thinking is what can he do? He can't put material back. If I shipped it back, I would add to the losses. The rifling looks like crap.

Talk to JES.

Always go back to your smith with your concerns, and give them a chance to answer / and or make it right... JES should fix you up if it’s wrong.

There’s lots of info here on JES services along with results. They’ve been mostly good. It seems like it depends on what you start with as far as barrel and rifling yielding a perfect outcome on the rebore. I’d be unhappy too if wouldn’t shoot.

Yeah, talk with JES about it.

One other cause could also simply be the fact that a thinner wall barrel will suffer more from harmonics. I know that is the case with my T3x that I had JES make into a 338. How I support the fore end makes a big difference.

The rifling doesn’t look factory. It’s rough. I see the normal tool marks from it looks like drilling out the bore and some parallel marks following the rifling. Doesn’t bother me. Not expecting a perfect new barrel, but the rough edge on the lands in the rifling is what jumps out at me. I don’t know if it’s because of the stainless or a dull cutting tool, but the edge of the lands has chips/gouges and in some places it appears stepped, like it wasn’t cut all the way to the groove depth.

This is the 3 groove.

Are you using your borescope?

Seems odd. Flyers? Unpredictable? Could be bedding issues, optics, mounts, ammo, trigger control etc.

Rocket science here...

I just had a pre-64 .243 bored to .358 Win.

It fouled pretty bad, cleaned it and used DBC. Fouling has gotten less and less, getting easier to clean with every shoot and clean cycle.

Thru the Hawkeye, I can see where his rifling cutter chattered a bit in a few places, some tool marks from drilling.

But, very smooth pass thru with a tight patch, bore feels very uniform. I can see a few areas where voids in the metal showed up, which can’t be avoided.

But, with select loads it’s sub MOA. Shoots MOA with others, a few not as good. More good than bad.

Call him. I hear lots of good reports, first bad one yet. His price and turn around are great.

DF

I wonder if he's not taking his time and taking a deep cut with each pass. The cut rifling barrel makers all mention how little metal they take per pass down each groove. This would seem incompatible with fast turn around times.

No, I wish I had one. I’m looking down the barrel and all the “issues” are within a few inches of the muzzle. I did just place an order for a cheap borescope.

I’m not new to this. It’s this rifle. Not saying I’m not a bone head and something didn’t slip through, but before posting anything, I went through this rifle several times over several months. I would get aggravated and come back to it.

How long is the barrel? Could you chop off a couple inches and try that?

What did Jesse say about it?

This is why I went with him. The only complaining that I heard was sometimes with the way he stamps barrels.

I was happy with how he stamped my barrel. He just stamped a 5 over the 0 to make 358.

I’m pretty short at around 19” now.

I haven’t called him. I plan on doing it tomorrow. Just looking at it and thinking he’s a one man operation, I didn’t have any expectations.

Sorry to hear you're having some issues with your rifle.

Wish you the best.

Good luck.

It reminds me that there's nothing I could do with a 358 that I couldn't do with a 308, and there are a few things I could do better with the 308.