Borescope

A while ago I purchased a Winchester 70 “Westerner” in .264 Win Mag made in 1962. Looking down the bore the rifling looked perfect, and the original owner claimed it had only a couple of boxes of cartridges fired through it. All of which was reflected in the price.

Larry Willis at Innovative Technologies recently developed an electronic bore scope. It uses a 40-inch-long fiber optic cable, at the end of which is a tiny white light, and a “Wide View Light Reflector” showing a 360-degree view. The cable carries the image to a hand-held unit with a screen for viewing. The instructions say it works best with bores in the .20 to .30 caliber range.

It operates on four AA batteries housed in the hand-held unit. Buttons on the unit adjust the sensitivity of the reflector and the brightness of the light. There’s an on-off button, and another to flip the image on the screen. Current price is $298.95 including a hardcase.

The Innovative Technologies bore scope unit (above) comes with
a 40-inch fiber optics cable, displayed on a screen of a handheld
unit. In this close up (below) the screen shows the bore of Dave’s
Winchester .264 Mag Westerner.

Willis is developing a second reflector, which will give a 90-degree view of the bore. It will be available as an additional option, priced at about $40.

My Ruger Hawkeye .223 had about 80 rounds fired since its last cleaning. The bore scope showed the expected powder fouling, plus a few small patches of copper fouling.

And my .264? It was perfect, no throat wear at all, the leade crisp and sharp. Maybe I didn’t pay too much after all! A very useful borescope, and at the price it is an excellent value.
By Dave Anderson

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