Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Thinking about a borescope

Well, you all talked me into this. The borescope arrived today.


For the most part, my barrels look good, but this 7mm mag might have a few issues.Throat looks like it has a groove eroded away in it.





Barrel



My 6.8 SPC has a few of these black holes, or voids, but I don't think it is something to worry about.

What are the advantages/disadvantages of the rigid probe vs the flexible probe (Teslong)

None that I see, they both work well. I have a flexible Teslong, not a Hawkeye, but for my purpose it works very well at a good price point. It has saved me from buying some problem child's. IE alligator skin in the leade. Also tells me if I cleaned the bore. It will NOT tell you if a rifle is accurate, but might show why it is not.

Don’t care to further complicate my life, ignorance is bliss.

To stave off the inevitable mischievous quips I'll state up front that I have no personal experience with this but common sense would dictate avoiding the rigid probe if body cavity exploration is on the agenda.


Back to the subject at hand. The flexible one is very long and I found it a bit cumbersome at times, plus it can be damaged by folding too much. The 26" rigid one is still long enough to reach well up into a barrel from the action. In fact I was able to get within just a few inches of the muzzle of my 29" long M96 Swede, then you just come in from the muzzle to look at the last part. I don't have any problem going all the way through 24" barreled rifles.

One advantage to the flexible one I can think of is being able to insert it in closed end actions like a pump or semi-auto, you could slide it into the breech where the rigid one wouldn't go but again, you can use the rigid one from the muzzle in those instances.

Optically there is no difference so it really comes down to personal preference.

The rigid probe is a little easier to manipulate in the bore to see exactly where you want to.

I've had the Teslong NTG100 flexible for a year now and am very impressed with images and it is easy to use. On top of that it is less than 50 bucks.

Yes. That is the main reason I have never bought one. I think it would bug me out........and keep my gunsmith in business.

I have a Teslong on the way, I went with the rigid over the flex just because I thought it would be easier to use

Have the Teslong and really use it for cleaning my barrels. With the magnification it takes a little bit of use to understand what you are seeing.

Just acquired the Teslong with the rigid tube and digital display. Taking pictures is a bit tricky, but the image quality is good when the mirror tip is positioned for sharp focus. My warranty replacement .460 S&W carbine barrel looks just like Jim in Idaho's Ruger SP101 revolver barrel. Corduroy-like tool marks in the grooves at right angle to the bore axis. Perhaps worse than the one the manufacturer replaced. I wonder how old Jim's SP101 was....sure doesn't look like a hammer forged barrel.

Anyone know how this happens? Some things I thought of include oversize reaming, undersize/worn carbide rifling button, drilled but not reamed before rifling.

I asked that question on the gunsmithing forum and got some good replies.

"How come" question

I bought a Teslong this past weekend to replace my b-day gift the wife had to return. So far I really like it, and I thought my 300 WM would look a lot worst than it did. Darn thing looks new and I have shot it a lot. Now my dad's old Rem 742 .243, well it still shoots, but it has some rough pitting in it. This morning I looked at my Ruger American Rifle in .270, and the barrel of it looks just like the pictures of Jim's SP101. I think the rifle at this point the rifle is 7 years old, but it's pretty darn accurate. I told my son what it looks like and he said, it's accurate so he's keeping it as is. I can't say I'll buy another one though. Since I got the Teslong 2 days ago, I've re-cleaned 4 of my rifles already. Lol!

Found another good use for the Teslong since basically it's just an inspection camera for any kind of tight place. And no, this isn't about hairy body parts or DIY colonoscopies.

Bought a new2me Remington 788 and was cleaning it thoroughly yesterday and this morning. Barrel code indicates Sept. 1967 DOM. Anyway, took the bolt apart and it looked like I was the first person to do so in 53 years, Whatever preservative oil or grease Remington had put on the spring was just a sticky mess. Got that cleaned up and ran some solvent patches inside the bolt body to clean that and then thought what the heck and checked the inside with the Teslong without the mirror so it looked straight ahead.

Looking down into the firing pin hole showed some kind brownish film coating it - light rust maybe? - that a cleaning patch wouldn't get to but I managed to get in there with a couple of pipe cleaners twisted together and soaked in solvent. Scrubbed that a bit and rechecked and it's all gone. Without the Teslong I never would have seen that and it would have built up even more and gone unnoticed for however long I'm going to own this.


Almost forgot, I had cleaned the barrel good with Montana bore cleaner but then when I checked inside there were still some patches of metal fouling. Ran a tight patch with JB paste back and forth several times and another look inside showed bare metal from breech to muzzle, plus a pretty good looking bore finish overall.

This or some other borescope is a really useful tool and for the price I'd recommend one to anybody who's even half a loony.

When you get one, just realize that things on the screen look worse than they are! The first time I used my Teslong, it scared me to death, but then I realized everything was magnified, so every fault looked huge!