Restoration of a .22 Short Rifle Mk II... found in a creek

[Patrick Chadwick]

A wonderful piece of work, Louis!

A word of caution: any roughness in the bore will tend to strip off lead from the bullets.

May I therefore suggest that you follow the method I used for the "pickelgewehr" (see thread). Drive a lead slug (from a dismantled .22 round) through the bore, starting from the breech end. Measure the bore diameter (the smallest value you see when you rotate the slug in the jaws of a micrometer) and then turn up a brass slug to this diameter, less about 0.002"***, with a "driving band" in the middle that is about 0.010" larger in diameter and about 1/16" wide. Drive this through the well-oiled barrel, again from the breech end, using a yard length of brass rod as a driver that will not harm the bore. This drive out some hard rust from the grooves, saving save you hours of work with the bronze brush, and also produce a v. slight honing effect that will let the bullets slide through the bore without being ripped up.

*** It is vital that the slug cannot jam in the bore.