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Peter Bjerregaard

Blued barrels and a little story.

Blued barrels are nice, classic, and good looking.

I bought a used target rifle redone by a gunsmith. Nice k98 action, barrel docked and fluted. Action bedded. And rather cheap.

Couldn't really get the barrel clean. Looked like this



Talked to Nathan and with his good advice I got it to look like this



What the...

And finally clean



Must have lived a sad life without love and caring. Probably been a shared club rifle stored with light oils only at the club in a moist gun locker.

Now you would think I returned it with no problems, right? The "problem" is, it shoots like this (with my limited talent) prone from a bipod and rear bag. Norma factory ammunition.



Most groups between .7 and .9 MOA with Norma 9 gram target rounds, 800 m/s. Some reloaded SST's have done a little better, but I couldn't find a picture to post.


Good enough for the smith. And maybe good enough for a cheap rifle with factory rounds. I don't know. Still, Nathan has concerns accuracy will wane, and maybe quite suddenly, when pitting gets further eroded with use. Solution? A new barrel. Not chrome molly this time.

And the bedding?



Maybe a bedding kit as well....

Sometimes you get what you pay for. And you pay for lack of knowledge and/or failure to use your eyes.
I have learned a lot from Nathan and his books and I'm trying to get around the mindset that you buy an action - the rest is consumables.
Oh, come to think of it, I would have been happy with the rifle if I didn't know as much as I do. Ignorance has it's uses.