Barrel… not lead, then what could it be?

Looks like chatter marks from the tooling when the rifling was cut.

Yep. Nasty.

Cool pics by the way

Tool marks from the rifling bit...that barrel is as clean as a barrel can get in one cleaning.

Ignacio49 said:

I then took pics for closer inspection and realized this was not lead in the lands. I believe it is abrasion. Appreciate your comments.

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Agreed, looks like tooling.
And really good pictures!

Looks like the barrel was cut out of meteorite.

That barrel doesn't surprise me. I worked on a friend's Hardballer and the inside of the gun looked as if it had absolutely nothing done in the way of hand fitting or polishing. Could say the same thing about all the internal parts as well.

I had the hardest time fitting the mainspring til I found that the notch in the frame which holds the mainspring tab in place wasn't cut properly, preventing the mainspring from staying in position when the grip safety and mainspring housing were reassembled. All in all a very poorly built gun.

Ignacio49 said:

Tool marks. They seem to have caused an uneven surface/height in the rifling lands. Could these cause any problems with accuracy? Other problems?

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I would throw that barrel in the garbage personally. But if it shoots okay... *shrugs*

I imagine lead pills would fill up those gouges almost instantly and be a giant nightmare to clean. But that's just speculation on my part. Maybe FMJ would be okay on some level... Does he shoot it?

Unfortunately, AMT is not known for quality.. Hence, why they are no longer.

How's the accuracy? My old Govt. model was a steaming pile, as far as dependability goes-you all know that by now certainly, but it's accuracy, when it worked, was pretty darn good.

Seems like a fairly new barrel. Shouldn’t that buff out after a few hundred rounds through?

Very cool pics by the way. Reminds me of James Bond 007.

"Traction grids for Mud and Snow"

RikSors said:

Shouldn’t that buff out after a few hundred rounds through?.

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no way

RikSors said:

Seems like a fairly new barrel. Shouldn’t that buff out after a few hundred rounds through?

Very cool pics by the way. Reminds me of James Bond 007.

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The only way to "buff" those out would be to make a smooth bore .46 caliber barrel out of it.

Really outstanding pictures. I had a very difficult time taking pictures inside a friends' 1911 barrel. The camera would focus on everything but the desired spot.

You know, your friend should just go out and shoot the thing. If it functions and groups well, that is all that matters. Given it is an AMT Hardball, those things were not target pistols, four to six inch groups at 25 yards are probably acceptable. What would be more important than target accuracy is, 1) does the gun go bang each trigger pull, and 2) is there a general relationship between point of aim and point of impact?

I would not attempt any more abrasives or anything to "smooth" that out. All attempts in that direction are going to enlarge the bore and make that barrel less accurate.

The barrel appears to have been drilled but not reamed or lapped, or reamed very haphazardly. That's the tops of the lands of course. After drilling then the broach (It looks like a broached bore to me perhaps), left the tops as they were.

The grooves are smooth as you would expect from a broach under those conditions. A two stage button would burnish the tops unless the bore started out too big, and that's possible too perhaps.

You could fit a match barrel, if the gun has personal value, or if the value is just an old gun like any other, and it's reliable, keep it as a bedside gun.

The careful fitting of 1911's built now was not common when AMT made those, my GS remarked on seeing a new Dan Wesson "They are making 1911's better than ever now". I believe all builders quality standards have risen since the 80's.

Any manufacturer that would select a process and tooling that would result in a garbage barrel like that deserves AMT's fate.

Its just not that hard to do things the right way. But some organizations will never learn.

Those lands should file nice, clean rifling grooves in your projectiles - there may be a yet unknown advantage to chatter like that - requires more thought.