Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Muzzleloaders => Topic started by: Eric Krewson on January 03, 2023, 08:08:45 pm
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I have a re-bore that came out badly, I had a nice Rice .50 barrel and wanted to turn it into a .54 so I sent it to "the" guy, it was flawed when it came back. The bore was so tight I had to buy a .526 mold so I could start a ball with a patch thick enough so it wouldn't tear. Because the gun isn't a great shooter, I decided to open the bore so I could thumb start a .530 ball.
I bought a Joe Woods coning tool for a .54, today I decided to put it to use.
The first step is to disassemble the gun and un-breach the barrel, having the right tools helps.
(https://i.imgur.com/i8oYNup.jpg)
I studied the instructions carefully, once I started there was no turning back.
(https://i.imgur.com/7aKdkn4.jpg)
The kit comes with a template to cut the various grits of wet or dry sand paper to hone the barrel, the sandpaper wears out quickly so I needed a lot of precut pieces backed with double sided carpet tape.
(https://i.imgur.com/FOCdjsx.jpg)
It took a few tries to correctly orientate the sandpaper on the tool. I used a large tap wrench to hold the tool.
(https://i.imgur.com/Jj3KemD.jpg)
And off we go; I rotated the tool clockwise and the barrel an equal number of times counter clockwise.
(https://i.imgur.com/YOl91LO.jpg)
I will use 220 grit paper until the ball with a dry patch will thumb start halfway into the barrel. Here I am checking my progress.
(https://i.imgur.com/LQifONX.jpg)
This is a labor intensive job, my old arthritic hands said to stop after an hour or so, more to follow.
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Like I said; the process is labor intensive, I am in my second hour, my 3M sandpaper had to be changed out often.
(https://i.imgur.com/xr0a71B.jpg)
Done, most of the lands at the bore have been sanded away.
(https://i.imgur.com/Og7xSdA.jpg)
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I have always been leery of coning a barrel because I can easily imagine myself applying uneven pressure and ending up with gun with a bad crown.
Let us know how it turns out!
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The instructions specify that the barrel has to be held in the hands with opposing rotation and not in a vice to prevent an off-center cone. I didn't hardly put any pressure on the cutter, it feeds itself down the bore as it cuts with the 220-grit paper, the 400-grit sits in one place because it doesn't cut, only polishes.
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Rifle testing today, I had coned the barrel with a Joe Woods coning tool in .54.
(https://i.imgur.com/RUuScpK.jpg)
I could thumb start a .530 ball and a .018 all the way in easily, before coning I had to pound in a .526 ball with an .018 patch. With the cone I could seat the ball with minimum effort, I believe I could have gone to a .535 ball if I wanted to
I started shooting and wasn't doing too well, I was chasing balls with what turned out to be a fairly loose back sight. Somehow, I had bent the front sight, I straightened it several times before I was satisfied with it. I was hitting left and low at 50 yards and had already drifted my rear sight as far as I was comfortable with so I gave the front sight a slight tap.
I was shooting 80 gr of 2F and shooting low with about a 3" group at 50 yards, I had trouble seeing my front sight.
I decided to bump my load up to 85 gr, BINGO!
I had a shiny front sight for the high shot, the sun came out couldn't tell exactly where the blade was, I had a spray can of sight black so I sprayed the sight and took two more shots, I think I can live with the results.
(https://i.imgur.com/JKpDLB4.jpg)
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Because the first barrel came out so well, I started coning barrel #2 yesterday. This one is a GM drop-in for a TC Hawkin, it is made out of much harder steel (1137) than the Rice barrel that I coned the first time. I have an hour into the project so far and can tell this coning job will take much longer than the first.
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Done; this barrel was very rough inside so I gave it 50 strokes with a square pad of red scotch bright to hopefully polish up the burrs.
(https://i.imgur.com/zj0gdwu.jpg)
I have the lands looking like a mirror after the scrub, the grooves are still a little rough but much better than they were. I expect this barrel to be much slicker to load now.
A Teslong bore scope will drive you nuts with its clarity as shown in the picture.
(https://i.imgur.com/lquWW3H.jpg)
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If any of you have a barrel that is very hard to load after a shot to two a scotch bright pad scrub should fix the problem, it won't hurt the barrel.
Here is a how to; I did use a much smaller square than Mike did in the video, a larger one wouldn't start in my tight bore barrel, I used a .50 jag in my .54. For scrubbing other barrels, I have found that a jag one size smaller than your barrel bore size will work, I use a .45 jag in a .50 for a scrub.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZyRD-iutus
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Thanks Eric for sharing this. I have a 50cal. that needs this. I'll check out the place you got yours from. Will try to find one in Canada first.
Leroy
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I anticipate that loading this barrel will be considerably smoother now.
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tiny fishing (https://tinyfishing.co)
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As footnote; I decided to cone the two barrels a little deeper to put the ball at patch cutting depth, this was a mistake. I should have stuck to the directions that came with the tool which tell the user to stop coning when the ball is half way into the muzzle with a dry patch. Going deeper made my groups open up from 1" to almost 3" at 50 yards and required a long ball starter to get past the cone.
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If you cut a little off the barrel will that tighten the group back up? Or do you have room with the site up front getting too close to the end?
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I would have to cut 1/2" off the barrel, possibly an inch. On my Haines rifle this would amount to a lot of work, shortening the forearm, moving the nose cap and the ramrod pipes back. As builder I could do this work but don't know if I want to, I could make the fix look like nothing had ever been done, fixing boo-boos is part of gun building, I made a lot early on so I have plenty of experience.
I over-crowned a GM barrel on a TC Hawken as well; this would be an easy fix to correct. In this case the barrel has never been a good shooter so I might not go to the trouble to cut the barrel off.
I have cut off a barrel before; I used a hack saw and a machinist's square and a variety of files, I made a special rig to re-crown the barrel that worked particularly well.
My crown cutting tool;
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I know two guys that lost accuracy with coning their barrels. Though he won't admit it, I am dang sure the one chucked the coning tool up in a drill and didnt counter-rotate the barrel as he worked it according to instructions.
Glad this turned out well for you.
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Is it better to rebarrel it then?
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I may trash it; it is a Bobby Hoyt re-bore from .50 to.54 that he did poorly with several loose spots. I just bought a 38".50 Rice barrel for a Haines rifle. I had some major sticker shock when I looked up what parts cost now; $52 just for a butt plate, they cost about $20 when I bought the parts for the Haines rifle with questionable barrel. I may strip the stock of parts from my current Haines rifle and make a restock with a cherry stock blank I have. I never used the blank because of the big knot; I found out yesterday that my Haines pattern completely misses the knot.
(https://i.imgur.com/oAiXiL2.jpg)
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Well, I will certainly be following along. You say you may trash it, you mean just the barrel right?
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Just the barrel and stock if I do. The lock and all of the furniture is worth about $500. I have a new Kibler lock as well. It will be hard to trash such a beautiful rifle, I could turn it into a safe queen if I decide to keep it intact. I have about a thousand in it and could probably get the barrel rebored to a .58 but that would be sinking another $150 into a flawed project. My work is impecible, the stock had too many flaws to start with.
Here is one flaw that I didn't notice until I was adding finish to the stock; the precarver didn't cut the ramrod channel straight, it has an arc in it.
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Tell ya what Eric ill take that barrel off your hands if you end up not wanting it!
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I bought a NOS B weight .50 Hines Rice Barrel for a bargain; I have a cherry stock blank that has a big knot in it but I found that the Haines pattern layout will miss the knot.
I have never made a rifle completely; I always had someone inlet the barrel and drill the ramrod hole, I did the rest. I decided that a new rifle was in order with me doing everything. So off we go; this will be a LONG project.
The blank was over 3" thick, I sliced off 1/4" to make a pattern out of to cut stock my blank to size. This didn't work, the shop worn Haines plan was all over the place and I couldn't get everything straight.
(https://i.imgur.com/3gpUJsv.jpg)
I decided to use my current Haines rifle to lay out the pattern. To be more exact I am going to pull the barrel to mark the top of the barrel channel more precisely. You can see that I missed the knot in the layout.
(https://i.imgur.com/InPUw7p.jpg)
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That is going to look so cool! Super stoked that youre doing the whole thing. Its a lot of work but super super rewarding. I found a neat trick for octagonal barrels. You can take a skill saw and put the blade depth 1/8" shy of the depth that you are wanting to inlet the barrel and make 2 cuts at that depth to form the bottom flat of the octagonal barrel. And then you put the blade about an 1/8" from the correct depth for the side flats on the octagonal barrel and them you just chisel it out. That saves a tooooooooon of time. And makes it really easy to get the shape. Of course you cant make the cuts all the way down to the breech end because of how circular saws work but it makes it much less work and gets you that initial shape more quickly
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Thanks for the tip!
I broke down my over coned Haines rifle, I removed the barrel and lock so I could use it for a pattern more easily. With the barrel out I started looking for anything that might make the rifle shoot poorly. When I got the pre-carve the barrel had been inletted at a slant instead of straight down. I worked for a while to get the barrel inletted properly but as soon as it was just about right, I quit.
I noticed some strong contact points on the lower oblique flats so I got out a scraper and some sandpaper and went to work on these points. I put Permatex marker on the barrel and pressed things together to see if my scraping relieved the contact points. After a few scrape and check sessions I had the barrel inletting perfectly.
The rifle is a .54 with a very tight bore. I have to pound a .530 ball down the bore when I use my favorite pocket drill cloth patch. The pocked drill is indestructible. I ordered some .526 balls the other day so while I was fooling with rifle, I decided to go shoot to see what I could come up with a different load. I was getting 4" groups at 50 yards with the .530 balls after over-coning the barrel.
I was shooting 85g of 2F, the recoil is punishing for an old guy. I dropped my load to 70 gr for my first test with the .526 balls. The balls loaded easily with a pocket drill patch. My first shots were to the right and 3" low with 70g of powder and the .526 balls, the group wasn't all that good.
I knocked the rear sight over a little and increased the powder load to 75g and BINGO! I got a 1 1/2" group at 50 yards out of a gun I had given up on. This just shows every one of the rifles has its own personality, when I coned the barrel, I changed the personality and had to hunt around to rediscover what the gun liked.
I hunted on-line for a .526 mold and found that Track of the Wolf was the only place to buy one, they have a deal with Lee to be the exclusive dealer for this unusual mold size. The mold they stock comes without handles, (sold separately), is a 6-gang mold and will set me back about $80.
I have another tight bore .54, if it shoots the .526 balls well, I will order a mold, if not I will order balls already cast because I don't shoot these guns all that often. I tune them up for deer season and let it go at that.