A used squirrel rifle with last 1 inch of rifling worn out.

[flynth]

Hi,

I bought a used 42 year old 38 cal Pedersoli Plainsman rifle with 40 inch barrel. On the photos I couldn't tell that the last inch or so of rifling is so worn that I couldn't practically feel the lands when I put the tip of my little finger in the bore(but they are visible). The rest of the bore appears better as the rifling grips a ramrod with a patched jag and I could feel the rotation when I pushed the ramrod. There is no pitting and the rest of the rifle appears as if it saw very little use. This and the marks on the ramrod make me think this wear happened during cleaning or when ramming the ball down.

It'll be few days before I get the right size lead balls and patches. I also have only few days to return the rifle if I choose to do so. What do you think? Will the lack of rifling in last inch of the bore affect the accuracy a lot? The crown itself looks perfect.

I'm a bit torn with this rifle. One one hand it was a good deal on the price and it looks good, but if it is likely it will not shoot accurately I'll have no use for it.

[rfd]

perhaps the muzzle was coned, a very common practice back in the day, and some folks will replicate that practice today.

[Edward]

perhaps the muzzle was coned, a very common practice back in the day, and some folks will replicate that practice today.

What Rob said /Ed

[elk hunter]

Shoot it, that is the only way to tell if it is accurate enough to keep the way it is. You could always shorten the barrel or possibly even counter bore it like some old military rifles.

[koger]

Worst case scenario, is that you have to shorten the barrel 1" or more, recrown. I have fixed several ML's like that, that had the rifling wore from using an abrasive aluminum or fiberglass rod without a muzzle guard. On all my ML's I shoot in competition have a muzzle guard on the rod, that centers the rod in the bore, as you shoot them a heck of a lot more than you ever will hunting. And like said above, it could be coned, shoot it and see, no big deal either way if you got a great deal on it!

[Fly]

I have shortened many as that & recrowned & cut new dove tail for the sights. But before doing so as the others said shoot it & see
how close the groups are it may be find.
Fly

[pietro]

I bought a used 42 year old 38 cal Pedersoli Plainsman rifle with 40 inch barrel

the last inch or so of rifling is so worn that I couldn't practically feel the lands when I put the tip of my little finger in the bore(but they are visible). .

What do you think ?

Will the lack of rifling in last inch of the bore affect the accuracy a lot ?




IF you decide to keep it, IMO you have a few different options - but they all require some work.

1) The barrel can be shortened & re-crowned. (except for bench shooting, I wouldn't want a barrel 40" long anyway - YMMV)

2) The barrel can be drilled out oversize from the muzzle, deep enough to get beyond the area w/o rifling (coned) & re-crowned down in there.

.

[waksupi]

I'm also betting it was coned. I do it just a slight amount, but have seen a couple done by Getz that had the rifling totally removed at the muzzle.

[Tasbay]

Could be a coned barrel. I bought a CVA Mountain Rifle a while back and thought the barrel had been coned. Turned out it was ramrod ware. You really need to shoot it and see the results. Mine wouldn`t group so hand cut off and filed square by eye the last inch of barrel. Re Crowned the barrel end with a tap washer seating stone and hey presto one ragged hole at 50yds. Took about a hour to fix the situation once I figured out the problem.
Shoot it then decide but from what you have said it should be an easy fix.

[rfd]

from my readings, coning the muzzle was a common practice for all guns, rifled or smoothbore, to best facilitate the most important thing about all 18th century firearms - ease of loading for increased rate of fire. coning provides a "ramp" to rifle lands that helped ease the patching into the grooves. accuracy was not as important, though if done correctly the coning didn't affect any inherent gun accuracy. loads were "loose", with the patched ball thumb seated and then an easy push down the tube with only the gun's plain ramming rod. again, it was all about rate of fire that mattered most for self defense and warfare. it seemed to have also worked well for sustenance - putting food on the table.

[Buzzard II]

Shoot it and see how it does. You could also have it lined by Bobby Hoyt if it really is wasted, or cutting off an inch or so. Good shooting.
Bob

[Hanshi]

Yes, it does sound like a coned barrel; shoot it and see.

[flynth]

I went to the range with the rifle and it shoots great. I think everyone that said the muzzle is coned is most likely right. I shot the rifle at 50 meters and got holes line up vertically when I held the windage right. When my group size opened up I think it was due to not so ideal sights installed. The rear sight is a tiny little V notch - probably 20-30 thou at the widest and 40 thou deep. By itself it is not a problem, but the front sight is a huge post that is between 1/8th and 3/16th wide. It is very difficult to center the V-notch on the post . I ended up covering the target with the post (it turns out to be almost exactly the bull of the 100m target at 50 meters) and then focusing on the V-notch to align it (pretty much the opposite I normally do when shooting with iron sights).

I originally thought this humongous front sight is something previous owner put in, but having found some photos of other Pedersoli Plainsman in 38 cal online they all seem to have this sigh (pictured below)
245699
The rear sight:
245700
And the sight picture - bear in mind the mobile phone camera has different focal length than the eye and when looking the post appears to be at least twice the size it looks like on this photo:
245701

So I'll either have to make, or order a blade sight for it. I would prefer original silver blade (a small bit shouldn't cost too much), but I can't find any ready made ones online. Then track of the wolf shop appears to have nickel plated blades. Can anyone comment if these are visible on a bright green background (grass etc)?

Another issue with the gun was that when the trigger was set and pressed after the gun was cocked the hammer moved a tiny bit and didn't fall one had to set and press it again to fire. Upon disassembly I found out the notch the seer rests in on full cock became gouged and the seer was stopping in that gouge when it was pressed once. Second pressing released it. I fixed it by filing the face of the full cock notch.

Finally, the nipple installed had a much larger hole than new nipples I have in my other rifles. The hole looked like it could be around 60 thou. Even with 20 grains of powder the hammer was blown to half cock. I replaced it with a new nipple with a regular hole and now the hammer stays put on the nipple when the gun is fired even with 60 gr.

[starnbar]

You could have a smith cut about 2 inches off the barrel and make a false muzzle out of the piece if it is done right you have a great way to keep the rifling pristine and also easy to load too I have a T/C done that way and the barrel looks as good as the day it was made

[waksupi]

I went to the range with the rifle and it shoots great. I think everyone that said the muzzle is coned is most likely right. I shot the rifle at 50 meters and got holes line up vertically when I held the windage right. When my group size opened up I think it was due to not so ideal sights installed. The rear sight is a tiny little V notch - probably 20-30 thou at the widest and 40 thou deep. By itself it is not a problem, but the front sight is a huge post that is between 1/8th and 3/16th wide. It is very difficult to center the V-notch on the post . I ended up covering the target with the post (it turns out to be almost exactly the bull of the 100m target at 50 meters) and then focusing on the V-notch to align it (pretty much the opposite I normally do when shooting with iron sights).

I originally thought this humongous front sight is something previous owner put in, but having found some photos of other Pedersoli Plainsman in 38 cal online they all seem to have this sigh (pictured below)
245699
The rear sight:
245700
And the sight picture - bear in mind the mobile phone camera has different focal length than the eye and when looking the post appears to be at least twice the size it looks like on this photo:
245701

So I'll either have to make, or order a blade sight for it. I would prefer original silver blade (a small bit shouldn't cost too much), but I can't find any ready made ones online. Then track of the wolf shop appears to have nickel plated blades. Can anyone comment if these are visible on a bright green background (grass etc)?

Another issue with the gun was that when the trigger was set and pressed after the gun was cocked the hammer moved a tiny bit and didn't fall one had to set and press it again to fire. Upon disassembly I found out the notch the seer rests in on full cock became gouged and the seer was stopping in that gouge when it was pressed once. Second pressing released it. I fixed it by filing the face of the full cock notch.

Finally, the nipple installed had a much larger hole than new nipples I have in my other rifles. The hole looked like it could be around 60 thou. Even with 20 grains of powder the hammer was blown to half cock. I replaced it with a new nipple with a regular hole and now the hammer stays put on the nipple when the gun is fired even with 60 gr.

If you are older, I would recommend widening the rear notch, and appreciate the wide front sight. My rifles have all been converted to that set up, and gives me a good sight picture. I like to make the rear sight wide enough to get equal amounts of light on both sides of the front.

[Tasbay]

I open the rear knoch in all my open sighted rifles with a chainsaw file. Lets more light in and a clearer sight picture with aging eyes. Doesn't affect accuracy.... In my case better accuracy.

[flynth]

Few of you suggested I open the notch rather than make the post narrower. I'll probably end up doing both. I'm quite happy with a 80 thou (2 mm) post on an insert for the tunnel front sight for my Sharps so I milled this rifle front post to the same width. Now I can actually see the sides of the post through the notch. However I still didn't manage to obtain accuracy I was expecting. I think this is probably because the notch is very steep and narrow. Looking through it, it is a bit blurry and consequently I wasn't aligning it right.

To be fair, my only positive experience in shooting accurately (2MOA) with iron sights is when I'm using a peep sight (and front post) with aperture no larger than 60-80 thou. The only exception to this was when I tried to use an express style flip up sight on the same Sharps. I could still shoot fine with it. Perhaps I need more practice in using the steep and narrow notch, or I might file it for the wide V - express style.

[KCSO]

The rear sight looks to be a replacement as IIRR my Plainsman bought in 1982 had a peep sight.

[flynth]

The rear sight looks to be a replacement as IIRR my Plainsman bought in 1982 had a peep sight.

This is very interesting. Was your Plainsman made by Pedersoli?

I found out CVA sold some in US that looked different and were available in different calibers. Perhaps they made a number of versions.

I think my current sight is likely an original because the few pictures I found online of a Pedersoli Plainsman in 38 or 45 cal have the same sight (the picture is a bit blurry, but if you expand it you can just make out the shape of the sights same as on my rifle, the picture below is from https://www.gunsamerica.com/998659648/Pedersoli-Plainsman-Replica-Arms-Inc-38-Cal-295-made-in-Italy.htm it seems to be a deluxe version perhaps as it is engraved)
245776

They must have made lots of different versions under the same name as I also found this in 45 cal https://www.armslist.com/posts/7019978/eugene-oregon-muzzle-loaders-for-sale--plainsman-percussion-45-cal-by-pedersoli-stk--p-27-50 that not only has completely different sights, but also has a short 28 inch barrel...

Was your peep sight a tang mounted one? Was it like this?
245777

[flynth]

I'm getting a bit better shooting that rifle. It is much more of a learning experience than I expected. Being able to shoot other rifles with peep sights accurately I thought I'll just transition to this tiny V-notch easily, but it is taking some practice.

My goal at this stage was to verify the rifle is capable of good accuracy and I've managed to convince myself it is. Any "flyers" are probably due to my shooting. Anyway, I have this result on a 4.4 inch (112mm) bull target that was set up at 30 meters(7 ring is about 2 inches):245826
And on a 100m target with a 7.8 inch bull (200mm) at 50 meters distance:
245827
So as one can see I'm having a bit of a trouble aligning that post vertically, but the rifle appears to be sufficiently accurate with all loads between 24 and 70 grain I tried.

I'm not going to be modifying the rear sight, but I'll try to get a period correct "buckhorn" type sight for it.