I was cleaning out my barrel and noticed that a little spot was catching patch fibers. Took a closer look and it looks like it could be a crack! I've never heard of a barrel being flawed like this. It only has 100 rounds through it!
It was a serious pain to get a good pic, but here is the best I could do.
If it's not cracked you could burnish the barrel to clean it up...
Appears to be, and is directly over the lower lug which is the point of the crack. Likely an out of time situation where the lower lug is stopping before the radial lugs have released. 100 rounds? Return it to the maker.
It's a Rock Island.
It's located at about 7:30 looking at the barrel from the chamber end and it's at about the rear edge of the 2nd lug deep.
Don't shoot it and make a call Monday and return for needed repair.
Yeah, no way I'm shooing it. There's an email in their inbox.
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Are you contacting the RIA rep Ivan Walcott at Advanced Tactical? He is
famous for making these things right. Contact him directly.
Yeah, Ivan is who I emailed.
You might find a seam like this in a two-piece barrel, but two-piece barrels are usually easy to spot. There should be a seam on the outside of the barrel, just aft of the third locking lug (the chamber and throat portion of the barrel). If this "crack" is located somewhere else, then it probably is a cracked barrel.
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You might find a seam like this in a two-piece barrel, but two-piece
barrels are usually easy to spot...
Just to clarify for those who don't know and eliminate confusion, two piece barrels are sleeved at the chamber end. A tube within a tube. The seam does not go through to the inside of the barrel. You can see the seam where the end of the chamber sleeve butts up against the shoulder/step turned into the barrel tube just in front of the standing (bottom) lug and at the rear as a circumferential ring around the rear face of the chamber area. Not match grade, but more than serviceable if proper materials are used and it's properly silver soldered. They've been around much longer than most of us have been walking this earth and High Power barrels are also made that way.
I'm not promoting either one piece or two piece. Take your choice based on your wants, your needs and your wallet.
You did a good job getting that tiny bit in the pic. Just from the picture it looks like it could be a crack. Definitely agree with log man.
If you have a dental pick you could lightly run the tip across the area that looks to be cracked and see if it catches on it or jumps up some. Don't put any pressure on the Dental pick so you don't scratch the barrel. Also don't look in the barrel when you pull the pick over the crack. When you don't look it will make it much easier to tell if there is something there.
REMEMBER NO DOWNWARD PRESSURE...
Not only is it a crack, but a large chunk of metal is being pulled down and appears to be at a different angle relative to the surrounding bore - that is why it appears darker. This size and position of the dark area appears to match the front portion of the lower barrel lug.
It's not near the lug.
I don't have a pick handy, but the reason I found it was because I saw some fibers in the bore and after unsuccessfully trying to sweep them out with a jag and a patch, I looked closer and found the defect.
It may be where the rifling broach got caught or cocked during barrel manufacture. Either way, its a call for a factory fix.