OzFclass

Barry,
I have the Setford borescope, ok, no angled eye piece but it does the job for me which is checking a barrel after I've cleaned it. At less than half price of the Hawkeye, for what i use it for, it's good.
Geoff

Footsore wrote:Has anyone tried one of these? I have just ordered one on ebay and am hoping that it will be able to let me see how effective my barrel cleaning is. For $20 it is certainly worth a try.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/361145076297 ... 1497.l2649

Steve

I bought one similar a few months ago. It came with a 45 degree mirror. The issue with the focal point is that by the time you set the mirror at the focal distance it's so far away it only accounts for about 1/4 of the image. You can see with it though. Without the mirror I can't see much unless I turn off the LEDs and put a light source at the far end.

Thanks Tim. Hopefully it wont be a complete waste of $20 then.
Steve

Tim L wrote:

Footsore wrote:Has anyone tried one of these? I have just ordered one on ebay and am hoping that it will be able to let me see how effective my barrel cleaning is. For $20 it is certainly worth a try.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/361145076297 ... 1497.l2649

Steve

I bought one similar a few months ago. It came with a 45 degree mirror. The issue with the focal point is that by the time you set the mirror at the focal distance it's so far away it only accounts for about 1/4 of the image. You can see with it though. Without the mirror I can't see much unless I turn off the LEDs and put a light source at the far end.

The original Hawkeyes did not come with the right angle mirror, your view was straight ahead. You could still do a half reasonable job of bore inspecting by pushing a cotton bud ahead of end the endoscope. Give it a try. You get the same effect by pushing a cotton bud maybe 20mm down the muzzle and inspecting with a magnifying glass.

[quote="6.5x55ai]The original Hawkeyes did not come with the right angle mirror, your view was straight ahead. You could still do a half reasonable job of bore inspecting by pushing a cotton bud ahead of end the endoscope. Give it a try. You get the same effect by pushing a cotton bud maybe 20mm down the muzzle and inspecting with a magnifying glass.[/quote]
Nice tip, I'll give it a go. Thanks

Here is a few images captured from the $20 camera off Ebay.
It actually looks better on the laptop as it is a higher resolution. Holding the barrel towards natural light helps a lot.
This is a .308 barrel that was given to me because the owner thought it was shot out.





Here is a view of the crown. Could do with a bit of work but there is some good rifling not too far down the bore.

Are you able to make out carbon and firecracking in the throat Norm?

Brad Y wrote:Are you able to make out carbon and firecracking in the throat Norm?

Well not quite but I have only had 5 minutes to play with it.
I don't think it will compete with a $1000 bore scope but is still a handy bit of gear for the price.

I had a look through two barrels. The one shown above that I will put back into service as I can see no obvious problems with it other than a set back to change the thread pattern and new crown would be required.

The second barrel was a 35 year old Remington factory .30-06 barrel that never shot very well from new. Its done about 3000 rounds.
I was able to determine from the view that the chamber was cut off centre to the bore from the freebore being off centre. This is news to me and explains to me why it was never a very accurate barrel.

So from a value point of view, this has been $20 well spent.

Mine arrived yesterday and Norms review prompted me to see how mine works. Sorry can't post any pics yet because my PC that I am using for the camera is having restarting issues and I can't connect it to this pad.
Firstly in won't fit in a 223 barrel so I tried it in a chromoly 270 barrel that had been cleaned with boretec eliminator and stored with a light coating as it says you can do on the bottle. The image is quite good but a little dark. It was very easy to see some copper fouling on the lands. These initially showed as a dull coppery colour on patches. What really showed up well were patches of orange brown rust deposits in the grooves. Just small patches but very obvious.
I ran a patch soaked in Hoppes No 9 through and it came out with brown rust streaks and some blue copper residue. Gave the barrel a few more patches of Hoppes then about ten passes with a bronze brush then patched out with more Hoppes then a couple of clean patches. The barrel was now showing cleaning so I finished of with a few drops of Balistol on a patch.
With the barrel now showing clean on patches I had another look with the camera. The rust deposits were gone but the copper was still there now showing as bright shiny patches on the top of the lands. No carbon was obvious and the bronze brush never seemed to remove much of it.
I reckon this little borescope will be just what I was after to assist seeing how effective my cleaning is. Could be a bit brighter but I agree very good value for $20.
Steve.

One thing I would never do is leave Boretech Eliminator in the bore despite what is in the instructions. This stuff will not prevent rust.

It may have been the reason for the rust to appear in the barrel described in the above post.