Weird Scratches In New Barrel

[Harpoon1]

Jasper,

I'm not reading anyone here advising that the OP shoot that barrel until it comes good. We just want him to shoot and see how it goes. I will add that in my experience bad barrels don't come good, they just get worse.

As for Tikka putting out sub-standard barrels, I have never known them to. Which probably explains why they get the benefit of the doubt relative to BCA. If the precision guarantee Tikka advertises is met then you cannot expect it to shoot better. You can hope but you cannot expect. You certainly have no legal or even moral redress returning a barrel that meets specs to a company for no other reason than you don't like the machine marks. They might even tell you it is a proprietary process that enhances accuracy, and maybe it is.

My point is it is no use wondering if the barrel would have shot better if those marks were not there. How about the OP shoots the barrel and then we can take it from there. Anything less than that is just arguing about cosmetics.

This is my OP.

“ No one around here has a clue what caused them. Brand new Tikka from the factory, never been shot other than test firing at the factory. I pushed a few patches through there with Kroil first, then a couple of dry patches, just like I have a 100 times before, and was rewarded with this! Then used a little JB Bore Paste for 20-30 strokes to try and clean it up some, nothing. The scratches run the entire length of the barrel. Going to shoot it tomorrow for the first time. We’ll see if it has any effect on accuracy.

Any ideas what could have caused these scratches?”

Where did I say that I wasn’t going to “shoot it first, and see how it goes”?