Tool for rifling coned muzzle.

[redheart]

I was looking at the Gordon books and the muzzles of his original rifles, particularly how nicely the faux rifling is filed back into the coned muzzles after the coning process removes the original  rifling. I just couldn't imagine the more prolific makers taking the time to hand file these grooves in. It seems to me that perhaps there was a tool with a bore sized pilot, like a tapered coning tool but with rifling cutters set into it that you could tap in lightly and pull out a number of times and be done with it. Have any of you seen or heard of such a tool? or is it only my laziness and inexperience that makes me think that there had to be such a thing?

P.S. Does any know if these cuts line up with the lands or the grooves? I would think grooves to grooves but I just don't know.

[smylee grouch]

I would guess the cut line up with the lands so the patch has a smoother start going over the ends of the lands.

[redheart]

I would guess the cut line up with the lands so the patch has a smoother start going over the ends of the lands.

That makes perfect sense to me Smiley, but I'd like to know for sure.
I'm hoping some of the lucky guys that own original rifles will get out their flashlights and tell us what they find.

[smallpatch]

Once he muzzle is coned, it takes about 15 minutes with one round file, and one three corner file to make a nice decorative heinie muzzle.

[redheart]

Smallpatch Sir,
 With all due respect.  I wasn't exactly talking about the "Heinie" style muzzle. That style seems to lend itself more to hand filing.
I was referring to the style that copies the square bottom grooves and appears to be filed deeply into the coned portion of a usually seven groove barrel
The concept is kind of the same, but not exactly.

[Daryl]

Dave Crysali (davec2) of this site, makes beautiful muzzle crowning tools.


redheart, those grooves, enlarging at the muzzles of many original guns, the enlarging of the bore and bottoms of the grooves was done by filing. There is no other way I know of for doing this.

This is especially easy to see in the Jaeger book sold by Jim Chambers (I think), on this site.

Dave's tool will give this crown. With this type of crown, you can load a VERY tight combination, that shoots with the gun's best accuracy and never needs wiping while you are out for a day's shooting. That is because of the smoothly radiused shape and finish.



The big one was crowned back in 1986, by hand, and is still shooting extremely well. I've shot over 100 shots in a day's shooting with this rifle, and have never had to wipe the bore out as
there is NEVER any fouling buildup in the bore due to the tight combinations this type of crown allowed.  The filed crowns should do likewise.



 

[Longknife]

I have studied and measured a lot of coned muzzles on original barrels and have determined that the muzzles were coned by filing the lands and grooves by hand. I have found that just the coning procedure will let you easily load without a short starter. If you want to duplicate the rifling the best thing I have found is a chainsaw file. These come in different diameters and you need one that is no larger than the width of the grooves. Not many people are brave "or skilled" enough to take a file to their muzzles. I will take pics of the next one I do and post a tutorial on here....ED

[redheart]

I have studied and measured a lot of coned muzzles on original barrels and have determined that the muzzles were coned by filing the lands and grooves by hand. I have found that just the coning procedure will let you easily load without a short starter. If you want to duplicate the rifling the best thing I have found is a chainsaw file. These come in different diameters and you need one that is no larger than the width of the grooves. Not many people are brave "or skilled" enough to take a file to their muzzles. I will take pics of the next one I do and post a tutorial on here....ED

Thanks ED,
I guess I have to be counted among the people that are not skilled enough to do this and would probably ruin a perfectly good barrel.
 However I'm going to have to face up to it in order to do them the way they were done. I pray I can get it right the first time so I don't have to make my barrel shorter and shorter and shorter.
I think I'd best practice on a piece of scrap before I even think of trying this.

[hanshi]

I'm another shooter who lacks the skills to file at the muzzle.  A hunting friend filed his .50 and did a beautiful job of it.  I've never considered coning and simply did the "thumb/sandpaper" crown smoothing.  I can seat tight prb with no wiping or fouling issues as Daryl pointed out.  Still requires a short starter, but we are talking tight.

[redheart]

Thanks Hanshi,

I'll try it a couple of times on a scrap barrel. If I have to give up on it I'll do as you say.

I'd still love to know if these grooves line up with the lands or the grooves?

[Scota4570]

Filing fake grooves in the muzzle can only hurt accuracy.  I don't get it. 

If you forced me to do it, I would use the cross feed on a lathe and move a from side to side,  like a shaper cutter.  The cut depth would be controlled by moving the saddle.  The chuck would be indexed and heald solid with the back gears. 

[Daryl]

For guilt-edge accuracy, 1/10" groups or better at 100 yards, a perfectly square or 11 degree muzzle is necessary, I agree Scota4570.
This form of muzzle crown was developed in the 1860's for muzzleloaders and on through the 1800's, called false-muzzles.
They would allow the use of tight loads, yet deliver the ball or bullet from a perfectly square crown.

Today, we need to find a balance between usable accuracy and easy loading, to allow shooting without cleaning, just as Ned
Roberts wrote, in 1934 in his book about muzzleloading shooting 'back in the 1800's', yet achieve adequate accuracy for our needs.
Granted, our needs vary, however, there are round ball bench-rest rifles used today, that use false muzzles and one favourite(it seems)
calibre is .69. The powder charges in these 50 pound beasts run upwards of 200gr. or more and they indeed shoot very accurately.

We've found, however, we can shoot sub 1" groups at 50yards, and have shot from 1" to 1 1/2" for 5 shots at 100yards, with crowns like I showed
above - my .69 and Taylor's Hawken.

I did about a 1" cone in a barrel for testing and lost accuracy, which is what I fully expected. I then cut the muzzle and re-crowned it
as before the test and shown above, and went back to shooting 1/2" groups at 50 yards with this barrel, a 60" twist .45 cal. by GM.

[Mtn Meek]

I'd still love to know if these grooves line up with the lands or the grooves?

It was a pretty common practice back in the day.  Here is a picture of an original Leman rifle with the treatment.

redheart, note in the photo that the filed grooves line up with the bore grooves.  The lands are also relieved a short distance down the bore.  It is a very short cone or bell opening, just deep enough that the patched ball can be started with thumb pressure.



One benefit that I can see besides being able to load without a short starter, is the deepened grooves naturally guide the folds of the patch into the grooves of the bore.

[Daryl]

Phil - I would like to see some target results from a gun with the muzzle treatment you just posted.

Actually testing is the only way to prove this work.

[redheart]

It was a pretty common practice back in the day.

The filed grooves line up with the bore grooves.  The lands are also relieved a short distance down the bore.  It is a very short cone or bell opening, just deep enough that the patched ball can be started with thumb pressure.

One benefit that I can see besides being able to load without a short starter, is the deepened grooves naturally guide the folds of the patch into the grooves of the bore.

Phil,

Thank you very kindly. This is exactly what I wanted to know and I was starting to wonder if I'd ever get there. This is certainly a beautiful job of hand filing and this kind of precision is what made me wonder if there wasn't some kind of special tool involved in doing it in a timely manner. I only want to do this for historical accuracy and do expect a certain loss in actual shooting accuracy.

[smylee grouch]

Phill, thats a very interesting and revealing photo of that Leman rifle. Gosh those cuts seem narrow and I would have thought to be a fouling trap because of that narrow aspect. If I would have had to guess I would also say the load would still need some gentile persuasion to get the ball into the bore with out compromising the patch. There is a lot more to these old guns that a casual glance won't reveal when  a real study is what is needed.  Thanks for posting the info and photos. 

[smallpatch]

Just my 2cents.
Before a muzzle is filed, it must be coned.  The filing is then done on the coned part.  Essentially, the crown is then INSIDE the barrel a short distance. The file work does not touch that crown.
If you're against coning, this is not for you.
Don Getz did my first, Allen Martin did my last.  Both barrels shoot great.

[Dphariss]

I was looking at the Gordon books and the muzzles of his original rifles, particularly how nicely the faux rifling is filed back into the coned muzzles after the coning process removes the original  rifling. I just couldn't imagine the more prolific makers taking the time to hand file these grooves in. It seems to me that perhaps there was a tool with a bore sized pilot, like a tapered coning tool but with rifling cutters set into it that you could tap in lightly and pull out a number of times and be done with it. Have any of you seen or heard of such a tool? or is it only my laziness and inexperience that makes me think that there had to be such a thing?

P.S. Does any know if these cuts line up with the lands or the grooves? I would think grooves to grooves but I just don't know.

If you do some research you will find that coning back in the day was not done as it is now. If you have a copy of John Baird's "Hawken Rifles.." You will find a description of the choke and coning on an original circa 1840 plains rifle.  In reality there is not valid reason to cone a muzzle and certainly no reason to cone it so far as to make the lands go away at the muzzle. It cannot improve accuracy.
Dan

[Mtn Meek]

Phil - I would like to see some target results from a gun with the muzzle treatment you just posted.

Actually testing is the only way to prove this work.

Daryl,

Testing would be interesting.  I wouldn't be able to do it.  I'm not good enough shot.  I have some rifles built by Jack Brooks with similar "belling" of the muzzle and some GRRW rifles with a radius crown like you showed, and I shoot equally bad with all of them.

I think the testing would need to take the human element out of it.  The barrel would need to be mounted on a bench or sled with fine mechanical adjustments for aiming, preferably with a scope.

Of course, redheart was asking about, and I was responding to, the muzzle treatment on antique rifles made as far back as the late 18th century and up through the third quarter of the 19th century.  Not the way modern muzzleloaders are crowned.  I guess those boys back then weren't too smart and didn't know filing the lands and grooves like that was messing up their accuracy.  Can't imagine why else they would have kept doing it for all those decades.

On a less sarcastic note, I wonder if there might be a difference between how a modern elongated bullet that's very aerodynamic and traveling 2,700 fps or better reacts to slight imperfections at the muzzle crown than a patched round ball traveling at around 1,500 fps and shedding velocity like crazy reacts to similar imperfections at the muzzle.  There is a lot of difference in the physics between the two--velocity, bearing surfaces, maximum pressure, shape of the pressure curve, aerodynamics, BC, etc.  For instance, a round ball can't yaw like an elongated bullet.  How would that effect its flight?  Another difference is the bearing surface of a round ball is the equator around the center of its mass, and that's the last part to contact the end of the muzzle.  For a modern bullet, the bearing surface extends for some length of the bullet towards the base, and the base end is the last part to contact the end of the muzzle.  How would uneven escaping gases affect each?  I don't know the answers, but I wonder if we can automatically apply what we've learned about modern high speed bullets, such as the importance of a perfect crown, to the slower round balls we shoot in muzzleloaders.  Food for thought.

[Rich]

Discussed coning and crowning with the gunsmith when I visited Williamsburg. It was his opinion that the barrel was first bored, then coned, then rifled. He said it made rifling the barrel easier when it is coned. I guess, if that's how the barrel is made, the grooves will be cut full depth through the coned area during the rifling process. I haven't seen crowns on originals. When I discussed the topic with Wallace Gusler, I was told the barrels were not coned or crowned.

[Longknife]

Thanks Hanshi,

I'll try it a couple of times on a scrap barrel. If I have to give up on it I'll do as you say.

I'd still love to know if these grooves line up with the lands or the grooves?

Redheart, I'm sorry I wasn't clear, I first use my coning tool to remove the lands and then file the GROOVES with a round file. On all the ones I have inspected the file work was done in the grooves. There are no "standard" ways of filing but using my tool makes it easier to get it right. I have coned many barrels without filing the grooves and they will easily start a patched ball with thumb pressure.  I have never seen two different barrrels that were coned alike. Here are some examples of coned barrels,,,

This is the "Bridger" Hawken




This gun marked W. Hawken



Unknown:




Fordney



Unknown percussion rifle



Unknown, Swivel breech , late flintlock period:

[rich pierce]

There are at least 2 questions at play:

1) how were rifle barrels of working guns (not match rifles) modified at the muzzle in the flint and percussion periods, presumably to facilitate loading?

2) how does modifying the muzzle in the way they did affect accuracy?  Do groups double in size?  50% larger? 25% larger?

The current popular gentle rounding of the muzzle on working rifles is somewhere between seldom and never seen (by me) on original period guns.  Instead we see a flat muzzle often with deep grooves apparent.  Now we know from experience that w/o a false muzzle one cannot load a patched round ball into a barrel that was simply cut off with no muzzle treatment.  It will cut the patch. Close inspection of original American longrifles by measuring, by eyeball, and by loading reveals that one can thumb start a patched ball, and the bore constricts after an inch or an inch and a half or so.  It looks like this form of treatment was done by filing both lands (slightly) and grooves (deeply and only right at the muzzle).

This leads to question 2, above.  Most folks are not so keen to mess around with accuracy, and so are reluctant to try an untested muzzle treatment that likely required some training and dexterity and vision back in the day.  Unlike a machine-operated procedure, results would likely vary depending on skill.

[rich pierce]

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=28972.0

[shortbarrel]

My brother made a fixture that clamps on to the coned barrel. It rifles the 1 inch cone to the same depth of groove that is in the barrel. It is self indexing and the process is done manually. Watched him do a barrel or 2, the process is done to 1 thousands of an inch or less. As my brother said, we will take them to the range one day and see how they shoot, along with 5 or 6 others. How many more came before that 5 or 6, I can,t remember,  but many.

[redheart]

My brother made a fixture that clamps on to the coned barrel. It rifles the 1 inch cone to the same depth of groove that is in the barrel. It is self indexing and the process is done manually. Watched him do a barrel or 2, the process is done to 1 thousands of an inch or less. As my brother said, we will take them to the range one day and see how they shoot, along with 5 or 6 others. How many more came before that 5 or 6, I can,t remember,  but many.

Shortbarrel,
I appreciate hearing about this fixture that your brother made, but I guess I'm too thick headed to picture how it rifles the cone.
Is there any way you could post a photo of it?

Also I sincerely want to thank all of you for your input on this subject.