Borescopes

[Iain]

I've long considered getting a borescope for my rifles so that I can check for damage and make sure I'm getting them really clean, but the price for a decent one has proved prohibitive.

The cheap, fleabay ones that hook-up to a smart phone are just total rubbish or too big for a .22, and I've definately discounted them, but there's a new one out that appears to be getting some good reviews.

It's the Endosnake Viper 3.9mm.

Does anyone here have any experience of one or know of anyone that has?

Iain

 

[RGBellCSI]

I bought the Endosnake Viper 3.9mm. It does not work with my Galaxy S9+. It displays a black image. It does work with my wife's S8 and with windows 10. The image quality isn't great. I have to put the LED's on max brightness to get a decent image, otherwise it is very grainy. Even at max brightness I expected higher quality video. I have contacted the manufacturer and they are sending a replacement camera. Unless they have had a firmware change, I don't expect it to work with my S9+. I have tried it with and without the OTG adapter that came with the phone. They ship slow boat from China so it takes several weeks to arrive. I am hoping that the new one works better.
I do think a borescope is worthwhile. After cleaning, I have still seen more junk in the barrel than I expected. I was surprised to see a lot of cotton fibers left from the patches used in cleaning. This was most pronounced in my AR near the gas port in the barrel, but was also present in all of my pistols. I have seen other junk left in the barrel that prompted my to go back a do additional cleaning. It is also useful when inspecting other gun parts, like the extractor and bolt face.

 

[Gamecock]

Best advise I ever heard on bore scopes is don't do it - you really don't want to know what's down there. Ignorance is bliss.

 

[Iain]

Time to resurrect a thread.

OK, so after following threads on another Forum (sorry), I found a few people talking about a new piece of kit on the market that seemed to be a half-way house between the expensive Lyman's, etc and the cheap & nasty Ebay rubbish.

Initial reports about image quality and customer service seemed to be good so I took the plunge and ordered one direct from source in China.

Ordered on 28th Sep and it landed on my doorstep in the UK yesterday (7th Oct) which is pretty damned good considering China was on a week's holiday to celebrate their National Day.

This is the Teslong Rifle borescope - 0.2" (5mm) camera head to fit smallbore rifles, 40" flexible cable which is plenty long enough to inspect even match rifles, suitable for use with Android phones and Windows/Mac computers, 45° mirror to see into the rifling rather than along it. Sounds too good to be true doesn't it?

It cost me £52 including charges but they are available for $49.99 in the States via Amazon.com. Good news for the UK market is that they will be available from Amazon.co.uk as from the middle of this month (according to their excellent customer service).

Anyway, after a couple of false starts (caused by my finger trouble, not the fault of the borescope) and a bit of trial & error with the focus, I got it fired up on my Android and WOW. The image quality is superb. Check this out but please bear in mind I'm still playing with the focus to get it just right for me;

First picture is pitting & corrosion in the barrel of my 15-22 just ahead of the leade into the rifling. Rifle has shot just under 1000 rounds in total.

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Picture two is the start of a carbon ring build-up after about 100 rounds of Mini-mag & some subsonic. I normally clean after every range trip but I held off knowing that this scope was on it's way and I wanted something to look at.

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After playing with the Android for a while, I plugged it into my old laptop running Windows XP. Pics are just the same but bigger.

I've a funny feeling that the Teslong scope is going to be very popular with smallbore shooters

iain

 

[Blackstuff]

Nice! Do you have any links?

 

[Iain]

Hi Blackstuff

Try this.

Rifle Bore Scope

Note that the latest ones come in a cardboard box and don't ship with a pouch. Apparently they had some early problems with people coiling the cable up too tight and this was causing failures so the Company did something about it.

I'm led to believe that the first people to get these scopes suggested a change to the design to alter the focal length so that it would better suit smallbore rifles and this was done in a very short timescale.

Their reaction time to problems is quite impressive.

Iain

 

[Gamecock]

amazon.com lists the teslong scope

 

[bamashooter]

Ordered a Teslong yesterday from Amazon. Did quite a bit of research on it. Heck of a deal at that price. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Blackstuff]

Will wait until the end of the month for it to get to Amazon.co.uk

 

[jaymoore]

Best advise I ever heard on bore scopes is don't do it - you really don't want to know what's down there. Ignorance is bliss.

I bought a Hawkeye scope about thirty years ago (dang, getting old!) and, yes, it can be quite disturbing. But, it has also helped with certain troublesome rifles, particularly a .25-06 which goes from a 1/2 MOA rifle to 1 1/2 MOA in about 20 rounds until the bore is scrubbed spotless. Given it's usage, frequent cleaning hasn't been a issue since, as the borescope will show the least bit of fouling.

In other cases, it's all to too easy to get dismayed when there isn't a problem. Some rifles will shoot even when the barrel looks like a sewer. Use the borescope to solve problems, NOT to "find" them!

 

[Gamecock]

Good post, jaymoore.

So the OP sees pitting & corrosion in the barrel. Okay, what now? Was it causing a problem? Has pitting & corrosion now become a problem, when it wasn't before? I.e., did the bore scope cause a problem?

 

[Racer X]

I am a commercial photographer specializing in, originally, high speed movie film (slow motion) and now digital high speed video motion capture.

When we made a jump from 500 pictures/frames a second to 1-3K a second, we started to see all sorts of motion, oscillations, warping, and some pretty cool stuff. The engineers and program managers were freaking out. I reminded them that the "items" were still passing qual and acceptance testing, doing their thing in the Sandbox, etc, so shut the heck up, and investigate internally.

The specs never changed, the performance never changed, you just UNDERSTOOD more. So with a borescope, for one thing, you can see if the carbon ring is gone after cleaning. It is simply a diagnostic tool. YOU decide what to do with the info, and if it is even relevant.

 

[bamashooter]

Kind of like a proctologist's scope. Insert, take a gander and don't be surprised if you see poop. Remove and march on.

 

[rockquarry]

I've used a Hawkeye bore scope for a long time. Granted they are expensive, but I'm pretty sure I would be disappointed with a lesser model after using a Hawkeye.

I find a borescope useful in dealing with centerfire rifles, where such things as throat erosion, copper fouling, and carbon fouling can be serious concerns. Troubleshooting these concerns can't be properly done without a decent borescope. Guessing doesn't work well.

As for a rimfire gun, I wouldn't buy a borescope unless your curiosity is overwhelming and you don't mind spending the money for one. Throat erosion may occur with a rimfire, but would probably take many, many cases of ammunition. Copper fouling is no concern at all. Carbon fouling is easily removed from a rimfire barrel. There is really no comparison between a rimfire barrel and one used to shoot a high intensity centerfire cartridge.

Apparently, there are some comparatively inexpensive borescopes available today. I'm not familiar with any of them, but some may be great scopes. I'd certainly check one out before I bought and not purchase on price alone. If you don't get a good, clear view of a bore, such an instrument is worthless and far from a bargain buy.

 

[jaymoore]

...
As for a rimfire gun, I wouldn't buy a borescope unless your curiosity is overwhelming and you don't mind spending the money for one. Throat erosion may occur with a rimfire, but would probably take many, many cases of ammunition. Copper fouling is no concern at all. Carbon fouling is easily removed from a rimfire barrel. There is really no comparison between a rimfire barrel and one used to shoot a high intensity centerfire cartridge....

One of the first things I learned from my smallbore shooting coach way back, is DON'T clean your .22 rifle (or handgun) barrel unless it is giving fits. The fouling takes a while to reach "steady state", so it often takes time for your zero or groups to stabilize. Changing ammo may be a good excuse. And, unlike centerfires, the bullet lube puts down a protective coating. A friend has a Ruger MkI recovered from a swamp which had corroded so badly overall that the trigger was gone as was part of the rear sight. The bore is perfect!

 

[bamashooter]

Teslong arrived yesterday. It'll be used primarily (hopefully) with my laptop. I want to set up my Android (Galaxy S7) for it too. The instructions call for installing the "Teslong Endoscope Camera" app. In Google Play there are several apps available. Three by Novotech which appears to be associated with Teslong:

Teslong HD Camera
Endoscope Camera
Endoscope HD Camera

No apps specifically named "Teslong Endoscope Camera".

Any preference?
I do have an app named Scopecam which I used before with another endoscope. My reason for asking is for compatibility, features, user-friendly.
Thanks

 

[Jessie]

Kind of like a proctologist's scope. Insert, take a gander and don't be surprised if you see poop. Remove and march on.

More like buttons are needed!

 

[bamashooter]

Used the scope today with the laptop. Pretty straight-forward. Images aren't bad but I'm sure I can squeeze a bit higher resolution out of it via a small tweak per the instruction. I like it; especially for the price.

First pic is copper particulate in the 15-22. Very consistent from one end to the other. That's probably about 200 rounds worth of CCI AR Tactical 22 Long Rifle Ammo. Perhaps 20 rounds or so of the CCI polymer and about 10 rounds of Aguila Super Colibri. Only the Tactical wore copper. Barrel is dirty. Not cleaned after the mentioned rounds.

The second pic is the barrel gas port of an 8.5" barrel (5.56). Probably around 200 rounds or so. Barrel is clean.

 

[Blackstuff]

I've just bought mine, they're on Amazon UK now for £49.99, free delivery