I have a bore light, but I'm not confident I can really examine the bore of a rifle with it carefully.

Has anyone had and experience with some of the endoscopes that attach to smartphones to examine the bores of rifles?

I'm curious if it really gives a good view and if one of them works well.

What caliber rifle?
Granted .308 is my largest caliber rifle but the head of mine certainly will not fit down the barrel very far from the breach end and certainly won’t fit in the muzzle end.

Didn't have a particular one in mind, though probably .308win, 5.56 and 7.62x39.

So, the camera head is really not small enough to go very far down the barrel then. I thought it looked smaller than the bore light I use, but perhaps not.

May vary by brand.
Mine is a Goodan brand and the calipers read .375” on the outside of the camera head. Mine has a pretty good set of LEDs around the camera lens which may make it larger than others.
This is the only one I have any experience with.
Amazon lists the camera as an 8mm which would be .315” but that likely does not include the LED housing around the camera.

In a quick Amazon search the smallest I could find is .216”
Wireless Endoscope KZYEE Semi-rigid WiFi Borescope Inspection Camera 2.0 Megapixels 0.216inch Diameter HD Snake Camera for Android/IOS Smartphone/ iPhone/Samsung Tablet Devices-5M Length https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079..._api_i_jFL4Ab2G4ZXFH

I have an analog (look into a lens) bore scope.


My 3 gun rifle barrel looks like a dry lake bed.

Still shoots fine but man that thing looks like effin' toast.

I have a replacement in the safe but I plan to shoot it until accuracy falls apart.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

In a quick Amazon search the smallest I could find is .216”
Wireless Endoscope KZYEE Semi-rigid WiFi Borescope Inspection Camera 2.0 Megapixels 0.216inch Diameter HD Snake Camera for Android/IOS Smartphone/ iPhone/Samsung Tablet Devices-5M Length https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079..._api_i_jFL4Ab2G4ZXFH

I read through the last page of the reviews and gun person gave it a negative review. The object needs to be about 3cm to 10cm from the camera to be in focus.

Tony.

It's my understanding that the throat area of many barrels start looking like dog doo after a fairly limited number of rounds. Think alligator skin or dried mud around a lake bed. However, many rifles still shoot pretty well with such yucky looking throats.

I've been told that when accuracy really goes south, it appears that chunks of the alligator skin are gone.

IMO the bullet tells us when a barrel is toast -- noticeable deterioration in accuracy and reduction in muzzle velocity. As a result, I don't find a burning need to own a bore scope.

I'm toying with the idea of getting one also. There was a thread on digital scopes a couple months back:

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...0601935/m/4110045734

I’d rather not know that much about how bad my rifle bore looks.

I bought a cheap one off of amazon last year,
I have used it on some old rifle, (muskets, flints, etc, as well as some trap doors
it works as advertised, I can see well and zoom a bit,

It is supposedly small enough to run down a 22 barrel, but honestly have not tried, yet

Picked up a used one for $15. Takes decent pics. This one is 8mm in diameter so it will not work on a 22lr.

The tip has lights also. Lets me peer into walls, intake ports (with the injector removed), combustion chambers, etc...

Amazon endoscopes are an inexpensive and very useful tool. For less than $20 you can get 80% of the usefulness of a real borescope.

That being said for about $250 or so I bought a Lyman Borescope and it's now the tool I use. I bought a couple endoscopes and even gifted them to friends because the did a lot for not much money. But a real 90deg borescope is a whole nuther league ! The cheap bore scopes are useful but seeing directly onto a bore is just another thing. Every shooter should spend the $15-20 for a cheap endoscope to get an idea of how they are cleaning etc. If you want to document how serious you are spend the extra for a lyman bore scope. It will give you so much more accurate direct info that its well worth the extra couple hundred dollars. I've also used a $1500+ Hawkeye borescope and the $250 lyman compares very favorably to it. In any case actually seeing inside a bore and seeing how your cleaning methods actually are working is invaluable. The cost of a decent borescope will be more than replaced by not over cleaning a good barrel etc.......