Lead lapping a Baker Fusil

[heelerau]

P1030153[/url] by Gordon Hazel, on Flickr[/IMG] Gentlemen I have been working up a mates little Baker Fusil, I actually suspect it is an English sporting rifle with a Baker Rifled barrel. It has a ver slow twist 1 in 110 .62. The bore is somewhat pitted so when I shot it the other day I used a greased hard felt wad over 2 1/2 drams of FFg goes, .61 ball and a heavy greased denim patch. 50 yards off had after the first 5 shots it settled down and put the last 6 nicely in the black. I did put over 30 rounds through and the greased felt wad did a great job of keeping the fouling in order and easy loading. But !! the ball and patch feels somewhat rough going down so I thought a trip to the smithy and a lead lapping would be the go. I used linotype which I melted over a kero primus, I keep lead away from my forge ! wrapped a cloth around a .303 cleaning rod at the join where the brass jag goes. I pre heated the muzzle on the lip of the pot , set the barrel vertical in the post vice ( lead slippers over the jaws) and poured the lap. I drove it half way out carefully and cut it a bit shorter then rubbed a little coarse valve grind paste on . I had to tap the lap up and down the barrel with a long rod and hammer a few times to and a little WD 40 to get the lap to the point where I could push it back and forth with the cleaning rod . I did not get rid of all the pitting but got rid of a rough constriction about half way down the bore. Before I replaced the breech plug I passed a patched ball down the bore and it feels nice and smooth inspite of the remaining pits. I will still use a greased felt over powder wad as the pits will still pick up to much fouling if I don't. I will see with interest next Sunday how the rifle goes at 50yds bench rested.

[rich pierce]

Cool project. The experienced guys in my club who have shot a great many old guns tell me that 3-4 fouling shots are sometimes needed to get a pitted barrel to start shooting well. The fouling starts to fill the pits I guess. Be extra diligent when cleaning and oiling and you should be fine. If you can seat a lubed patched ball, driving it through the breech, and see good imprint of rifling, and no tears in the patch, it will probably be reasonably accurate.

[Daryl]

Interesting gun indeed, Gordon.  I agree with lapping, but the pits might be too deep to make much headway.
I would try Scotchbrite Cloth first, with thin oil, tight combination on a jag first and see what happens.
What Rich said is really good advice in my opinion.
The wad is likely necessary at this point.
Not a lot of meat in that tube and want to be careful of possibly really deep pits.

[heelerau]

Thank you  all for having a look. Pits seem look pretty shallow,  but not shallow enough to lap out. I will post a target next Sunday if it is worth a look.  That last view is of the bore after it has been lapped.
   You are quite right I won't have got all the pits out but it, but I can now at least pass a patched ball down the bore with out it feeling rough. Before lapping even the first load, the ball felt mildly rough going down the bore.

Cheers

Gordon

[HelmutKutz]

Swab the barrel with a greased patch before shooting and the minor pits will not pose problems with fouling without wad needed. I have some pitted bores which do not foul not even one with substantial pits. Important is having an absolutely clean bore before applying lubricant.