Pipe mud or gouged Briar?

[Whisky]

This is in the bottom of a recent Linkman’s/Dr. Grabow purchase. Best I can tell it’s from sometime in the 30’s. Overall the pipe is is decent shape and I feel I got it for a good price. The bottom of the bowl has an irregularity though. I can’t tell if the draft hole was drilled high and then the bottom was filled with some sort of filler or if the bottom has been gouged with some over zealous cleaning. Either way I’m going to try and smooth it out then fill with pipe mud to the draft hole.
Sorry for the bad pictures. Getting light to the bottom of a pipe bowl is not easy.

 

[JCinPA]

I'm hooked on these. If you can take a few shots during cleanup, would love to see the transition!

 

[gewoon ik]

my pipes are black in the inside.

It is possible that somebody in the past reamed to deep and repaired it. Or damaged the factoryrepair.

 

[Mike H]

I’ve had great luck using the Miracle Mud sold by Aristocob. But if you smoke cigars you can make your own.

 

[Whisky]

I tried to gently pry it out and nothing moved or flaked off so for right now I’m going with it’s gouged briar.

 

[Ponycarman]

Doesn't look too bad to me. Maybe a little gouged but not terribly from the looks of it in the pics.

 

[luvmysuper]

That's a catching woodgrain pattern!

 

[Multum in parvo]

If this a serious drilling fault then I have a couple of missdrilled ones
A quick look with a torch showed signs of a through in my Ropp, a Peterson, BBB and Savinelli.

 

[Kentos]

Might be the perspective but I have never seen a flat bottom chamber bit. All have at least a little radius that leaves a rounded bottom. Might be cake if it is indeed flat.

 

[AimlessWanderer]

I might be seeing it all wrong - but if I had to guess, I'd say the hole wasn't drilled deep enough i.e. not drilled right through to the centre of the chamber, leaving a step in the curvature of the bowl bottom. Then someone whittled that step out later with hand tools down the chamber, which is why it doesn't look fully inline with the draught hole. I have seen such a step on pipes before. It doesn't look like anything that would be detrimental to the smoke though.

 

[KellyG]

A second for the Aristocob mud. It’s worked well for me.

 

[Whisky]

After breaking out a loupe I think what happened was the pipe was drilled too low creating a trough in the bottom of the bowl. I think someone at sometime tried real hard with a reamer to take the floor of the bowl down lower so the drilling would be right at the transition of the floor to wall. They failed. I’m going to smooth it out with a radiused dowl and some sand paper and call it good. This pipe is also going to need the screw in stinger/tenon heated and clocked a little bit to get it aligned right. For now it’s going on the back burner until I can get a few more ahead of it done.