bore photos

[txbiker]

I am interested in getting good photos showing the bore condition. I have seen some photos that do this very well. Any tips will be appreciated.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[mr.e moose]

A good start is don't shove a bore light into the action and try to take a picture. The glare will wash out any detail. Take a piece of white paper and put that into the action and reflect light off of that up the barrel. Auto focus also contributes to problems.

[txbiker]

I know from experience the bore light does not work so I'll try the white paper trick and hope it works. At least with digital you know immediately if you have a good shot or not.

[browningautorifle]

Like he said, let the auto focus work. That's the normal mistake...

[muffett.2008]

The trick is to focus on something past the bore.
If you try to focus on the lands, all you get is a couple of inches of barrel.
I always place the barrel so there is a distant object behind it, i.e. a tree branch, focus through the barrel on the branch and the rifleing will be clear.
Or you could just resort to this.Attachment 68868Attachment 68869

[Son]

Have to agree with Muffet here... I have found positioning the bore so you can see blue sky out the other end usually works. I have put the camera as far as a foot behind the barrel and make sure it is focused on the sky. Naturally a decent camera in a tripod help too.

Attachment 68935

[browningautorifle]

I just use a small digital...and let it auto focus. Not an expensive single reflex, I don't use that any more.

[Highpwr]

I am interested in getting good photos showing the bore condition. I have seen some photos that do this very well. Any tips will be appreciated.

Viewing a bore from outside of the barrel can be very misleading. What looks like a squeaky clean bore while looking down the length of the barrel can hide a lot of different conditions. A good borescope that can give you a view of the bore perpendicular to it's length can be a real eye opener. My solution for getting good pictures was finding a good used CCTV camera on ebay for cheap, and connecting it to my notebook computer with a USB video adapter which was very inexpensive as well. I had to make my own adapters for coupling the camera to the borescope, but it isn't rocket surgery.

I just used a plain 1/4" nut from the hardware store for testing purposes. The USB video adapter allows me to record video as well. The real expense is the borescope, but if you do a fair amount of working with firearms you will find it is a worthwhile investment. IMHO.

The real benefit of all of this is that you can capture all of your images as high resolution j-peg images and store them / email them from your computer easily.

Attachment 69098Attachment 69099