Went to our local knife, Nazi memorabilia, beef jerky, and plastic gunshow yesterday. I looked at less than half a dozen guns I am interested in, and came away with a Mod '92 Winchester in 32-20 and several questions. Why do folks show guns with such dirty bores that it is impossible to tell much about bore condition even with a bore light? Wouldn't the gun be much more attractive to buyers if it looked like the prior owner had at least run an oily patch down the barrel after shooting it?
I shot cast bullets for years, but almost always with modern guns with nice bores. Except for some 22lr's I had very few guns with neglected bores.
I have started buying originals, mostly late '90's and early 20th century lever actions and single shots. I cannot afford rifles with pristine bores but I find a lot of well cared for guns, tight actions, no pits on metal or large damage to wood, but with dark, rough and sometimes pitted bores. Sellers often advertise these as shooters or refer to shootable bores. I have not had enough opportunity to shoot any of these seriously but I have a couple that seem to put 5 shots into 2-3 inches at 100 yards without much load development with tang sights, which is about as good as 72 year old eyes will let me shoot anything
I know that there are no hard and fast rules about rifle accuracy and that each gun is an individual, but how good does the bore have to be to shoot--arbitrary standard-- 5 shot groups off a good bench with iron sights consistently 3-4 inches at 100yds? What I would call steel target accuracy.