Precision Shooting
If you are a target shooter, benchrest shooter, varmint hunter, rifle collector, gunsmith, firearms manufacturer, forensic scientist or even an everyday hunter you will find the Hawkeye borescope a valuable tool for leaning about the care, cleaning and quality of your rifle barrels. A high quality, well maintained rifle barrel leads to tighter groupings on the target. Inspect the lands and grooves in firearm barrels to find erosion, fouling and tool-marks that effect accuracy. Take a look at our Barrel Inspection Video for a first hand view. Following is what one shooting expert has to say.
Rick Jamison
When I started using the Hawkeye® Borescope, I was amazed at the clarity of the view with this relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use device. The Hawkeye gives you an up-close and magnified view inside a rifle barrel, so that you know precisely what is there, without guessing. Without a borescope you have no way to know what is going on inside your rifle's bore because you simply cannot see it. Holding a barrel up to the light and looking through it from one end is all but worthless, when it comes to judging its condition.
After looking through scores of barrels, I have gotten an education about all sorts of things and these are just some of them:
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The condition of a new barrel
What is the surface condition like? Have the reamer marks been lapped out? Are there major blemishes? Was the chamber throat cut concentric, indicating a straight barrel in this region, or is it longer on one side? How smooth are the chamber and throat? |
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Cleaning
Is the cleaner really working? How much more scrubbing is necessary, and where? Is my cleaning method damaging the bore? |
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Bore Wear
Exactly how worn and rough is my chamber throat? How far down the bore is heat cracking present? |
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Fouling
How fouled is the bore and where does fouling occur — in the bottom of the groove, on the leading edge of the land, on the top surface of the land — or where? |
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The condition of a used barrel
Are there nicks, corrosion, fouling, or excessive wear? |
The Hawkeye has given me a first-hand look and taught me things about a rifle that I never knew and I doubt many people know.
Barrels are not the end of the uses of a Hawkeye. I've used mine to examine the interior of loading dies, cartridge cases, and lug recesses. Places that you cannot normally look into are readily accessible with a Hawkeye. The fact is that my Hawkeye is so valuable to me that I wouldn't be without it. After being seriously involved in the shooting sports for a lifetime, I know that after a rifle there are two things I wouldn't be without — a chronograph and a borescope. If I were just starting out today, I would buy both before I purchased my second rifle.