Thanks Don, appreciate the information. In my younger, more foolish days I filed a fairly substantial taper in and even swamped a number of barrels. Tapers weren't too bad, tapering and flaring were! Now I just call Jason at Rice barrels and place my order. Less blisters.
I have a question for you though. Having done more research in my older and less foolish years, I find that many of the original tapers were much more subtle than some of what we see from our commercial suppliers today. Do you think the original Hawken barrels were intentionally tapered by filing? What would have been the reason if, like you say, it was probably not accidental although many of them have only a slight taper? I wouldn't think that slight taper would make that much difference in weight or was that just a by product of the production methods at the time.
