So I bought a Taipan Long in .22
It shot pretty damn well honestly, but seemed to be somewhat finicky with a flier pretty regularly. And being overly critical, I thought it could do better. As I like to do with any new gun I pulled the barrel to give her a good look over and push a pellet through to feel it out. The last couple CZ barrels I've dealt with had really tight chokes, but were otherwise very nice. That's exactly what I felt with this one, except I noticed the pellet didn't slip right out of the muzzle. More like it hung up and then "popped" out. I've seen this before in barrels that I cut a crown on myself, and the bit didn't cut just right and left a smeared cut/burr.
In my prior experiences with hacking around with different barrels, I knew this was a red flag.
So I turned a pilot to indicate the bore and get the barrel running true in the lathe. I faced off around .100" from the muzzle, and cut a new crown and gave it a quick deburr with some 600 grit lapping compound on a big Qtip.
Then I flipped the barrel around, and added a slightly shallower radius to the leade/breech/entry/whatever, just to ease loading.
Turned out okay I guess considering the equipment:
Crown:
Leade/Inlet/Entrada:
And here's why this thread is mostly useless.......I didn't take any pics of the barrel or groups beforehand. Facepalm.
BUT!
I did take a pic of a pushed pellet before and after the hackjob. So there's that.
Left is before, right is after.
And here's the result in the groups. Barrel was dirty/seasoned and just had the chips blasted out with air and a cotton swab fired through with shop air. Rested the forearm on a cooler, sitting on my butt at 25 yards. 5 shot group:
With a good solid rest, and a cleaned barrel, I think we might have something here!
Sitting on the couch bored, thought I'd post this rambling in case you were bored too.
It shot pretty damn well honestly, but seemed to be somewhat finicky with a flier pretty regularly. And being overly critical, I thought it could do better. As I like to do with any new gun I pulled the barrel to give her a good look over and push a pellet through to feel it out. The last couple CZ barrels I've dealt with had really tight chokes, but were otherwise very nice. That's exactly what I felt with this one, except I noticed the pellet didn't slip right out of the muzzle. More like it hung up and then "popped" out. I've seen this before in barrels that I cut a crown on myself, and the bit didn't cut just right and left a smeared cut/burr.
In my prior experiences with hacking around with different barrels, I knew this was a red flag.
So I turned a pilot to indicate the bore and get the barrel running true in the lathe. I faced off around .100" from the muzzle, and cut a new crown and gave it a quick deburr with some 600 grit lapping compound on a big Qtip.
Then I flipped the barrel around, and added a slightly shallower radius to the leade/breech/entry/whatever, just to ease loading.
Turned out okay I guess considering the equipment:
Crown:
Leade/Inlet/Entrada:
And here's why this thread is mostly useless.......I didn't take any pics of the barrel or groups beforehand. Facepalm.
BUT!
I did take a pic of a pushed pellet before and after the hackjob. So there's that.
Left is before, right is after.
And here's the result in the groups. Barrel was dirty/seasoned and just had the chips blasted out with air and a cotton swab fired through with shop air. Rested the forearm on a cooler, sitting on my butt at 25 yards. 5 shot group:
With a good solid rest, and a cleaned barrel, I think we might have something here!
Sitting on the couch bored, thought I'd post this rambling in case you were bored too.
and I'm sure the groups tightened up!
