Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Any opinions on Tubbs Final Finish fire lapping bullets for use on a factory tube?

Is this a gimmick?

Will this wear you bore and throat out prematurely?

I used it once on a barrel as a last resort. The factory barrel didn't shoot worth a darn and fouled like crazy. After a couple hundred rounds I still couldn't get it to settle in so I tried the Final Finish.

It definitely helped the smoothness of the bore, and fouling did get a bit better. The rifle shot marginally better, but still not up to my expectations, so I had it rebarrelled with a good pipe.

If you want to give a barrel one last chance before you yank it, it is probably a pretty good system, but I would not try it on a barrel that shows some promise. I most definitely would not shoot those things down one of my custom pipes.

I have an 03A1 Springfield NM on which the bore is pretty dark, and which has some sort of a piece of metal imbedded in one of the grooves. It seemed to shoot OK, but that piece of metal kept me awake nights. I tried using a Foul Out to see if it was a piece of brass or bullet jacket. Didn't touch it. Last weekend I ran 50 of the "Final Finish" bullets through it. I put the last 5 with the finest abrasive on paper at 65 yards. Four of them were touching, and the fifth opened the group to 1". The bore is still dark, and the evil piece of metal is still there, but I guess I will sleep a little better now.

I used the product on a Winchester Model 70 in .338. Groups shrank from 1.5 inches to .5. It worked for me. Cleaning the bore in between the five round groups will take some time at the range but it's worth the effort.

I have used the Wheeler stuff, with sucess on bad bores. As was stated, not on a good tube! My first sucess was on an old mil-surp Mauser of the 8mm variety. None of the stuff I clean with would touch whatever was in the bore.... 20 shots later, nice "looking" bore, reasonable groups.
Now I want to take the rifle & make a .376 Steyr, so the barrel is done anyway <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />. If there is a question of the bore on a rifle, have it slugged. Tells alot about what will & will not work. If you get to be a "serious" rifle loony, crank, whatever, you will find a sale & buy a set of slugs. It is amazing just how bad a person can overthink some of the results.... Kind of like your first chrony... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Pat

I've used Final Finish twice...once on a factory 375 H&H and once on a custom tube (at the suggestion of the maker) and both turned out well,

The 375 H&H was a Win Model 70 that copper plated so badly it affected pressure....used Final Finish as directed and the results were more than satisfactory. The throat did move forward a little but not enough to cause concern but the big thing was that the barrel would now go 30+ shots before you could see even a hint of accuracy falling off. You could never shoot enough shots before the lapping to get an idea of grouping ability but afterwards the rifle would consistently put 5 shots into 1 1/2" (also rebedded the stock and did a trigger job) and the fellow who owned it was very happy. It was also very, very quick and easy to clean.

I used Midway's Wheeler compounds, imbedding it in my own bullets. The barrels were early Ruger barrels, the ones that were outsourced. They were rough.
All the barrels became much easier to clean, accuracy wasn't affected. The throats eroded only slightly.
I had a problem which proved to be a tough one to solve. I was using low velocity loads from Speer or Lyman manuals.
The powder in one of the 30-06 rounds didn't ignite, and I had an abrasive bullet stuck in the lands. No cleaning rod could remove it, it had to have its core drilled out to remove the jacket. The job was done, and the barrel wasn't damaged.
I'd still use the abrasive compounds, but I'll use them on a tight patch and use a cleaning rod instead of a powder charge to push them through the bore.

Fire lapping is a last resort for a bad barrel.

I had a model 70 in .300 Win that I fire lapped. Groups went from 6" to 2 1/2," and the fire lapped barrel only required two days to clean instead of a week.

I also fire lapped a JC Higgins Model 50 that had some pitting. If anything it made accuracy worse on the JC Higgins.