bedding a swamped barrel

[yip]

  watched Mark Silver inlay a swamped barrel and just did about 6" from the breach and about 6" at the muzzle and the rest is cut round, is this okay?
'

[Stoner creek]

  watched Mark Silver inlay a swamped barrel and just did about 6" from the breach and about 6" at the muzzle and the rest is cut round, is this okay?
'

If Mark Silver did it, it's OK......

[rich pierce]

It’s cool when a master does it. When the rest of us do it’s sketchy 

Functionally it’s fine!

[gunmaker]

Many old rifles have a round bbl. channel. Touched wood on bottom & sides only.   

[yip]

   gunmaker; thats what Mark said only inlayed front and back. it makes sense.

[Daryl]

Interesting. This pistol has both an octagonal to round bl. .54 bl. that has a slight swamp, as well as a full 7/8" across the flats .45 cal.octagonal barrel.
It swings both ways, except now, it has a drum and cap-lock for the .45 bl. The channel is actually round.
Both barrels are a good fit.

[flehto]

Irregardless as to how a bbl was bedded "in the good ole days", I prefer having all the flats along the entire length  of a bbl touch wood. Perhaps the gunsmiths of yore had to take economic  short cuts and perhaps some modern builders do likewise, but as a hobbyist I wouldn't do it, But if it's a necessity because of health circumstances, then this shortcut would be worthwhile.....Fred

[Craig Wilcox]

Most of us are amateur builders, who make longrifles for fun.  So, who is to deny you the fun or taking every step possible to make a rifle or smoothbore as nice as we can?  Go ahead and inlet the whole thing, and avoid taking shortcuts when possible.

There are others here on the forum who make products for sale.  Profits being marginal, at best, they need to take reasonable steps to decrease the time necessary to make a very functional, very beautiful product.  And it sure does no harm to only bed-in the first and last 6" sections.

Me?  I'd rather bed the whole barrel - prolong the fun, so to speak.

[yip]

 Craig; i've done several swamped barrels in me life when things were good but being diagnosed with this @!*% M.S. every things are done from the sitting position, things are a pain but i refuse to give up. so it's forward and up!

[Bsharp]

  watched Mark Silver inlay a swamped barrel and just did about 6" from the breach and about 6" at the muzzle and the rest is cut round, is this okay?
'

Right or wrong, would you not want contact at the pins?

[Ian Pratt]

Quite common in old rifles. The barrel isn't just swimming in a long round channel, if you do an inlet like this you shoot for barrel to channel contact at the corners of the barrel flats. Works fine with pins. The sides still fit against the barrel. It's not what most of us are probably accustomed to, but done properly it's not to be considered shoddy work.

[bama]

Just because it's quicker does not make it "OK" "or better" it's just a short cut to get the rifle finished. If you can live with a short cut, then by al means do so. I have restored a number for antique rifle fore stocks and I do advocate the round barrel channel on an octagon barrel. Was it done back in the day, yes it was. You make the choice, it's your rifle.

[Stophel]

It's easier for me to make the barrel channel full octagon anyway. I hate inletting round barrels!  It used to take me about 4 1/2 hours to inlet a rifle barrel in walnut. An hour or so more in sugar maple. I probably couldn't do one that quick now.

[J. Talbert]

Many of us (myself included) expedite the barrel inletting process by shipping off the barrel and wood to David Rase or Dave Keck.   

Jeff

FYI: Jack Brooks is another advocate of this early shortcut for American Longrifles.

[Dave B]

I know that I have un intentionally done what Mark , Jack and I am sure others do with the mid section of the barrel when hand inletting. On spec rifle I built was on consignment with some friends that did west coast Trade shows had a fellow want to buy that rifle but he didnt like the fact that if you squezed the fore stock there was a little play in the wood to metal fit up and down not sure how this happend when I had attemted to fully seat the barre flat in the block of wood but some where a long the way this drifted the point of the cross pins were solid just the inbetween areas were able to be compressed. The customer wanted the whole swamped barrel bedded be fore he bought it. I just about %$#%#my pants when the barrel stuck in the stock and wouldnt pop out. I had used turtlewax on the barrel and it did not release worth a hoot. I had to heat the bejesus out of the barrel with a torch. I ended up driving a thin steel bar stock into the end of the stock barrel inlet to start it off and made a punch that staddled the top of the barrel to drive down on to the stock wood on either side. It was like a wooden tuning fork. I was able to finally break it loose several sections the bedding compound broke away from the stock sticking to the barrel in chunks. No problem! finally done but I have taken pains to make sure that that never happens again. I send all my swamped barrels to Dave Rase to be inlet into the stocks. End of problem.

[alacran]

I have seen a stock bedding job by Dave Rase, and he does a fantastic job. I understand that if some one is trying to make a living making longrifles, he might chose to have Dave bed the barrel and drill the barrel for him. After all the cost of the work and all the shipping would just be passed on to the customer.
However if I were to buy a rifle from some one. Specially one that was supposed to be HC, I would expect that the builder actually build the rifle.

[flinchrocket]

In 2014 you could order a completely handmade rifle from Colonial Williamsburg for a starting price of
$20,000 and only had a nine year wait.