What barrel does Thomas Air use?
- Thread starter KodiakJac
- Start date
If I'm not mistaken, I believe he also polishes using carboniferous limestone soaked in Kentucky Bourbon.
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Kentucky Bourbon might be a possibility as there is no way he would waste any Tequila on barrel cleaning! Unless it was ingested by him!
Thx
Dan
Thx
Dan
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Should I be doing something else with my barrel? It's a Lothar Walther 711mm 1:30 polygonal.
Any tips would be appreciated.
Thanks!
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Jac, Many of the top shooters have spent many $1000s over the years on different rifle makes & models, changing to aftermarket wobbly chassis' & parts, commercial & custom rests, scopes, tri-pods, bi-pods, barrels, many trips to specialized tuners, customizing features, paint/anodize, $100s in piles of useless pellets, and many changes to try to "man-up" a BB gun to make it look like a war weapon. It's been often said afterwards, "I should have just bought a Thomas".
The precision air rifle is a very special 'system'; all parts need to be at the peak if you want to compete competitively. I'm assuming this is your goal because this is the Benchrest Forum. Adding an excellent barrel will not cure an inaccurate rifle, your current barrel may perfect but if it resides in an imperfect system you may never know.
Sorry about the hot-air but I'm old and running out of time to seek the golden egg of aftermarket parts. If you're old you understand; if young you will one day.
Loud Mouth Lou...
Zzzzzzzzzz
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@Loufish I set up and take note of your most excellent post and I thoroughly resemble your statements. I've owned and sold an embarrassing number of expensive $$$$ air rifles over the last several years always searching for better accuracy yet I was never satisfied and was always looking for more ... until I found Thomas Air rifles. They are the epitome of accuracy and none I have owned have matched Thomas' precision and doubt any ever will. Mike's design and quest for championship winning accuracy continue to push the envelope and be in a constant state of flux. Thanks for your post Lou and thank you Mike for what you do!
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As Franklink recommended, a good thing to try would be to smooth the bore a bit with J-B. Generally this process will extend cleaning intervals by knocking down some of the microscopic surface fretting left behind from dragging the rifling button through the bore. In other words you're removing the teeth that lead wants to abrade and stick to. I don't know how familiar you are with the process but there are a number of threads on the topic here on AGN, and in my profile there is a list of links which includes a barrel troubleshooting article that goes into some detail about it.
Beyond that, you would be looking at lapping using a cast lap and much coarser abrasive to remedy potential tight spots and/or develop a slight taper. My guess is that's more involved than you would want to go, however if you want to get a sense of whether it would be a good candidate, you can try pushing a couple of different pellets and feeling the resistance along the length of the barrel. For example a lot of the LW barrels have a tight spot near the breech.
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I'm with you. Can't even remember the stuff I bought when I was first starting out only to finally understand what Joe F basically told me everyday. Get the good stuff. Stop wasting your money, your gonna get it eventually.
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Along recent years whenever I bounce into Mike's few tips or advise I learned to re-read them many times or more like double that. Here and there he said things I needed to collect and store in memory, and when all on the pile start making sense 
I tried some minor fire lapping the FX liners for example and worked.... I may revisit that process with some more courage to see where is a limit
I tried some minor fire lapping the FX liners for example and worked.... I may revisit that process with some more courage to see where is a limit
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