[Daekar]

My wife's grandfather gave me an old muzzleloader a few years ago. He hadn't shot it in years, and it appears that he didn't clean it after shooting it last, because the bore is quite badly pitted. I cleaned it up, polished the brass fittings, and cleaned the barrel with enough bore butter and BP solvents that it has not deteriorated any further while sitting in the safe. I have been trying to figure out how to get rid of the pitting without spending much money on it, just so I can take it to the range and hit paper plates at 50 yards with a patched lead ball. I was thinking though... could I fire a few balls or Minieballs through unpatched and use the lead fouling to actually smooth the barrel out? I know it's unorthodox, but when I say badly pitted, I mean that the cleaning jag with patch feels like it is running over motocross tracks built for small ants. Would this even work at all? Or would the lead balls simply have poorer accuracy without the patch? I understand leading in the context of modern smokeless arms, but not in this case.