How hard is it to rebore a barrel?

[PatMarlin]

How much work is involved in reboring say a .54 muzzloader barrel to 20ga smooth bore?

What kind of equipment to you need, and is this something the home machinst can do?

Is this something any of you fellers in the club can do?

[45 2.1]

I don't think your going to get much response on that. I've been looking for someone to redo a rusted 50 TC barrel to 54 RB twist for a couple of years with no leads. Maybe an old mountain gunsmith if you can find one.

[Bent Ramrod]

PatMarlin,

This is 75% from reading; haven't tried the hard part of it myself. We will assume you have a lathe or some other apparatus you can do some deep drilling and reaming on.

First you need a "short bit," which in this case would be a long-shanked drill with a pilot of bore diameter, which has the cutting flutes sufficiently large in diameter to take out the rifling and leave a hole somewhere around 0.010" short of the diameter you want. This bit will drill a rough hole with lots of ugly circles in it when you look down the barrel. Go slow, regardless, and clean the chips out every inch or so of progress. I've gone this far, anyway, in preparing barrels for relining. With a good fitting pilot, and slow progress, the new hole will follow the old one, without wandering off. Some people hedge their bets by reversing ends half way through and drilling from both ends to the center.

Then you need a "long bit." In the old days, this was a hardwood rod with a groove cut in it and a long square piece of tool steel fitted into the groove. It was in essence a 1-tooth reamer, and by adding shims or paper under the steel bit, the barrelsmith could ream the roughness out of the barrel and leave a nice finish of somewhere near the right diameter, the closeness depending on his skill. The rather chaotic barrel diameter readings of the 19th century attest to how easy this was done in practice, and especially in mass production.

Instead of the "long bit," you might get away with ordering a 6-flute reamer from MSC; they have them sized to about any diameter. If you go slow, you can get a nice job done with them.

[Jetwrench]

Pat,
Do you have a lathe? If so, I can offer a different method of drilling and reaming deep, without alot of dollars, let me know. Jetwrench

[PatMarlin]

Whoa! Is Cast Boolits great or what?

Thanks for the help fella's. Right now I'm just learning lathe work. I have a small benchtop lathe, and I've been making few parts for my boat here and there, and been repairing things like broken Lyman 54 luber shafts, so I'ma beginner with this craft.

I need some lessons, but I just read, and plow through what I need to do. I would like to be able to rebore the .54 cal with 1" across the flats to the .620 (smooth bore) ball park.

Funny you mention the rings Bent, cause this one shooter I've got that's been re-bored has them but not to rough, and so far it's shooting very well. I thought those rings were a screw up, but then I looked down the bore of my new Knight 12ga shotgun, and I'll be damn if the same ring marks are in it also!

Jet Wrench- I am all ears on this. I'm building phase one of a workshop right now, and I wil buy a larger lathe. I don't think my little chinesey lathe is big enough.

Get THis-
A guy has a lathe for sale at a second hand shop in town, and it's huge... prolly 8 feet long and it's one of the belt drive old timers.

He even has an electric motor upgrade that mounts on the ceiling, then has those wide old timey drive belts. Thing has all the tools and parts too, and needs restoring, but looks like a nice machine.

Prolly could bore cannon barrels with it.. :lol: :mrgreen:

[Jetwrench]

OK Pat,
Will look up the info when I wake up today. If your lathe will cut bushings good and true that ia all you will need. Jetwrench

[waksupi]

"Funny you mention the rings Bent, cause this one shooter I've got that's been re-bored has them but not to rough, and so far it's shooting very well. I thought those rings were a screw up, but then I looked down the bore of my new Knight 12ga shotgun, and I'll be damn if the same ring marks are in it also!"

Pat, are you seeing actual tooling marks, or the light bars that are in a smoothbore barrel? When looking through a properly finished smooth barrel, there should be concentric rings that appear the full length of the tube. These are light refraction bars, in the order of one hundred thousand per inch. Should they not be concentric, and show any egg shape, the bore is not good. You can also use the same bars to check a rifled barrel, but it takes a careful eye to judge the rings on the lands.

[Jetwrench]

PatMarlin,
OK, did some research and what I had in my head just wont work. So I thought a little about it and this is what I would try. Make a bushing to fit the end of the barrel od about 4 in long. half of the lenth over the barrel and half solid with a hole the size of the cutter. I would use a piloted reamer. This would start the hole, When the flutes pass into the barrel you will need a new barrel bushing, or make a bushing for the old one as the shank of the reamer will be smaller than the flutes. Now to go deep, when you have gone as far as you can with this setup pull it out and have the chucking end of the reamer ground to a 3/8 in square so it will fit into a long 3/8 drive extension for a ratchet. make a bushing to fit the drive end of the shank just below the square flats this should keep the reamer true in the bore.

This is all clear in my head, I hope I have put the idea across clearly. Feel free to let me know if I have not, or if you feel that once again my head is imbeded between my back pants pockets ;-) . Jetwrench

[PatMarlin]

Thanks for the reply Jetwrench...

I don't have time to digest it right now, cause I got a concrete truck coming Saturday, and I have to finish the rebar and forms, and I'm behind.. :mrgreen:

Also, the barrel I want to rebore is octegon? (don't want to pull it out the safe to count em').. or in other words 1" on the flats, BP. So I guess your bushings would have to fit that?

Anyway- I'll be back in touch.

[Jetwrench]

PatMarlin,
If the barrel has no taper, you should be able to get away with a round bushing. If the barrel is tapered it will make things a bit harder, but still possible. Jetwrench

[gregg]

These guys use to freshen and bore ML's . Did my wife's TC 50.

Bobby Hoyt, Freischutz Shop
700 Fairfield Station road
Fairfield, PA 1732

[shooter575]

Ol Bobby Hoyd has done a bunch of barrels for me also.Just droped off another 1863 3 band barrel to reline.He has done a rolling block,Smith,Henry and a bunch of C/W musket barrels. He can even restore a cut down barrel to full length.He bores out the org barrel as big as he can.Then makes full length liner that has the end full dia.Just slide em togther. Joint is under a band but I could not see it with naked eye.I had this done with two 1816 barrels. He has a P&W rifling machine so he can make any twist you need.
One thing nice is all of the orgional markings are still there.Simple reline is in the 150 buck range. To just bore one smooth shouldnt be much.