Chiappa Rhino bore CLEANED...and it's pitted 

JUNE 15-2020 UPDATE: Chiappa sent back my Rhino 40DS Friday with a comment on the work order: "Firearm inspected by gunsmith No pitting in barrel Tested with American Eagle 158gr JSP" So today I took it to Jon, my local gunsmith and we bore-scoped it. Chiappa's gunsmith failed to note the obvious problem: the bore is severely rough! It has a very poor machined finish and THAT is what appears as pitting. My Gunsmith reports that sadly this is pretty typical of Chiappa products. They are known to have machined surfaces, especially barrel bores, of poor quality. For comparison sake, we bore-scoped my carry gun, a 25-year-old Colt M1991 Commander. The bore is stock. I have never done anything to it but clean it, and run a dental pick down the grooves to remove lead fouling after experimenting with Semi-wadcutters. In comparison to the Chiappa's bore, the Colt's bore looks match grade! Even with the few rough machining marks in the Colt's bore, it is way smoother than the BRAND NEW Chiappa bore. The M1991 was a cheap 1911model sold by Colt in the 1990s. It was a $450 gun when brand new. I had Jon install a custom bushing a couple years ago and after that I shot a 5-round group with four of the holes almost touching at 15 yards, off hand with handloads. Center to center group of four rounds were .875". The flier was the fifth round, opening the group to 2". These were 185gr Hornady JHP bullets pushed by 7grains of Unique, loaded into trimmed, un-crimped, previously fired Federal cases. The M1991 is no $1,800 1911 tack-driver, but an accurate carry gun. I wonder if the $930 Chiappa 40DS will ever be as good. Jon (my gunsmith) went on to say leaving the Chiappa's bore in this rough condition would cause inaccuracy when firing the pistol. The fired bullet will scrape through the rough bore surfaces, depositing uneven copper fouling as it travels down the barrel. We saw it already already had copper fouling from the testfiring mentioned by Chiappa. (Though Chiappa failed to include the target to prove grouping...unlike when Springfield replaced the barrel in the new Stainless 1911 that had rust in the bore.) Further more, Jon remarked, Copper fouling would NOT eventually fill in the bore scratches, making the bore "smooth". So now the solution is either "Fire Lapping" the bore with special abrasive bullets to actually bring the rough machined condition of the bore's surfaces to an acceptable level of finish. Or honing the barrel with a felt bore swab and abrasive powder used for such things. I vote for the method that requires noise and recoil. I will report results. I will not do any further business with Chiappa.

I put some patches inside the bore, soak the patches with Wilson Combat Ultimate Lube II cleaning liquid (gold orange yellow one) for 4-5 hours today, then used the nylon brush to give a couple twisted strokes, and ran dried patches, and that appear to work, and I will say 85% the damn copper foulings are gone, and the bore is kinda rough per people saying on Facebook, but I ran a little oil coating in the bore, so it’s now kinda shiny, but I think I will run another wet patch tomorrow and let it sit for 5-6 hours and see what it gives. And hope I will finally clear that out!

I would not recommend anyone buying one of these guns without checking the bore condition first. These guns are test-fired in Italy when new, then mine at least was not cleaned before it was shipped. My pistol was built in 2019. I purchased it in March of 2020, mail ordering it from Palmetto State Armory. That was a mistake. In the few months to a year it sat in their Shreveport, LA warehouse the residue from the testfiring and the humid LA air had ample time to corrode the barrel's bore to the state of being unusable. PSA refused to help me with my return, So I will not do business with PSA again. We will see if Chiappa stands behind their products. I hope so. Its really a unique and interesting gun. I hope to actually shoot it. I will post positive (or negative) results when I receive word from Chiappa. Stay tuned.

Ok total time, 15 hours of wilson combat bore cleaner soaking the barrel, the barrel is now 95% clean!

When I say I "cleaned the rust out"...I simply used a bronze bore brush to brush the rust (iron-oxide) off the barrel's bore surfaces. It took 200 strokes. It looks cleaner, but is not mirror polished like a clean, non-pitted, good condition bore looks. Because it is not mirror polished anymore. The rust had eaten into the surface too severely.

What kind of things do you use to clean it? I am a new gun owner