Originally Posted by
Agent Ronin
Actually my M1917 rifle looked worse than your rifle.
It took 5 range trips, about 30 rounds each trip to "shoot" the crap out. After extensive cleaning and copper solvent the darned thing looks new. It went from a 8MOA rifle to a 2MOA rifle. Probably can break 1MOA now with match loads...
Seriously, alot of these old rifles have so much copper/lead fowling that has fossilized on the bore they look horrible. As i said above, cleaning it really well then shooting it seems to work loose the old fowling. Its certainly not going to wear the barrel out faster than lapping it :)