Muzzel treatment.

[Dave B]

I picked up a rather plain longrifle from a gun shope going out of business last week and it has a distinct look as many we see having seven wide lands and  small grooves at the muzzle. I went to drop my small bore lite down to the breach and it got hung up about an inch inside the bore. It was plain that the front inch of muzzle was quite abit  larger than the section just and inch back. Having removed the tape that I had wrapped around my bore lite it slid all the way to the breach and shows a bore that is not matching the muzzle shape. My original understanding was that the bores matched the muzzle all the way back. Some of my rifles do just that but this one is not. Is this an early form of coning the muzzle?  The grooves are round bottomed at the muzzle but not in side the bore The flats are three times the width of the grooves but not inside the bore. That seems pretty obvious some one with a file has gotten after the front end to pretty it up.  Has any one else made this same observation?

[Don Getz]

Dave......just a thought.   Perhaps this gun was made to shoot a picket bullet, or something like that, the enlarged portion
of the bore is to be used as a starter??    Don

[JTR]

Dave,
I've seen similar, in fact have a couple rifles with bores like that.
Methinks the coning was done originally to make it easy to push the ball and patch onto the barrel. I don't have one handy to measure, but I think the muzzle bore is about 50 thousands larger than further down in the barrel.

So where's pics of the rest of the gun!

John

[bdixon]

I have a Christian Sipple barrel that looks pretty similar.  No information thought, I dont really know much about the rifle other than that.  Looks like this except my photography skills really stink.