.54 and 15/16" barrel, plus contact for Fred Miller

[BrentD]

Al, I assume the black mark is a burn.  I don't know for sure. 

I have my barrel weight calculator of my own making, so that's no big deal. I  just don't have a barrel!  I thought finding a barrel would be easy, but not so!  Seems that tapered barrels are hard to find in stock anywhere.  And waiting periods could extend for very long times.  I'm especially gun-shy (bad pun here), of leaded steel barrels which rules out a few.  After the comments here and talking last night with one very experienced custom Hawken maker, I am leaning to a 1 to 7/8" tapered barrel in the 32-36" range.  But I have to find one!  Not so easy.

Brent

[Roger B]

Rice may have your tapered barrel in stock.  If not, I'll bet you can have Longhammock or DeHaas make one for you fairly quickly.  You might also check with Don Stith at St, Louis Plains Rifle Co.  Once you shoot the tapered barrel offhand vs the heavier straight barrel you may see the advantage of the tapered barrel.  Plus, they give you the right profile for the lock area to angle in to the forestock in the Hawken.  As for heavy rifles & hunting, I have a straight 1 1/8" DeHaas barreled .58 (36") that I carried to the top of Snowbasin Ski Area in Utah a number of times.  This was before the 2002 Olympics when they made it a downhill venue.  Of course I as 35, not 53, at the time!  I wish that rifle had a tapered barrel.  It will kill bison like nothing you've ever seen though.
Roger B.

[T*O*F]

Brent,
Saw "non-leaded" steel in your post and it just dawned on me at that moment who you are.

[keweenaw]

Brent,

Just bite the bullet, call Ed Rayl and have him make you the barrel you want.  Ed is usually about 4 months behind but that's not bad.  You can spend some time getting in the other bits and pieces, etc.  Ed doesn't use 12L14.

Tom

[BrentD]

Roger, on Saturday, I too will be 53.  And while I can carry a 11-12# gun, I don't want to have to.  Just don't see the point actually. 

The barrel issue is my biggest stumbling block so far.  But it has led me down some interesting paths talking to folks here and elsewhere.  And in the end, that is almost as much fun at building and using the rifle itself. 

TOF - sorry   

I don't know a lot about different steels but some looking into it a while back made me certain that I will not be buying a 12L14 barrel.  What I don't know about is some of the other steels.  In looking at the Green Mt barrels I thought I saw that they were made of some 1100 series steel.  I don't know what that means, I know their cartridge barrels are made of 4140 but I can no longer find anything on their website that says what steel their muzzleloader barrels are made from.  And why the heck don't they make a tapered barrel anyway?  They do for cartridge rifles and virtually every Sharps, Winchester, Remington, Ballard, etc etc. uses tapered barrels.  Why are these so bloody hard to find?

Oh well.  The search continues.  I have good leads, but it is looking less and less likely that I'll have a barrel to work on by 1 January when I hoped to be safely ensconced in my shop whittling away.....

Brent

[T*O*F]

Green Mountain Muzzle Loading Rifle Barrels are machined from high quality American made bar stock, A.I.S.I. 1137 modified, stress relieved, annealed, certified rifle barrel quality steel. All barrels are drilled from solid stock, reamed to a high degree of smoothness, then optically checked for straightness.

IF you can find one, just buy one of their C weight, swamped 38" or 42" barrels and cut the front end off to your desired length.  Use the stub to make a matching pistol.  I think they are 1.06" at the breech and .780 at the waist which should give your desired weight range.

Tip Curtis is probably the only guy who might have one in stock.

[P.W.Berkuta]

BrentD - I have 4 tapered barrels made by Jerry Cunningham (Orion Barrels). Two are .40 cal X 42" long and two are either .50 or .54 cal X 42" long. I had them special made and I will check on their taper and let you know what they are. I do not know what type of steel he used - they are nice barrels and would make a fine rifle. I have one of his .36 cal X 40" tapered barrels in a Lancaster flinter and it "hangs" real nice  .

[BrentD]

Great suggestions PWB and TOF.  And thanks for that info on the steel in GM barrels.  I spent half an hour trying to refind that on their webpage.  Must be blind.

I had thought of the swamped barrel but ruled it out.  I think I was too hasty.  But who is Tip Curtis, or more importantly, how does one reach him? 

PWB, I'm interested if the barrels are of proper steel and caliber and twist.

[T*O*F]

Tip Curtis Frontier Shop
Cross Plains, TN
615-654-4445

Probably the largest supplier at Friendship now.  He built his own building.  No website  best to phone.

[BrentD]

Thanks!  I wonder how many years it has been since I have been to Friendship - long time!

[Ted Kramer]

Back in the late1980's and early 1990's I used  a lot of Orion barrels.  They were very nicely made barrels and were, I believe, made of 12L14. Never heard of one of Jerry Cunningham's barrels failing. One of my favorites was a 1" X .62 caliber- made a nice light hunting rifle that packed a punch.

Around 1977/78/79, there was a discussion about steel for ML barrels that lasted many months in the old "Buckskin Report" magazine published by John Baird in Big Timber, MT. Jerry Cunningham was involved in that exchange and I sure wish I had saved the articles as I cannot remember what the final "verdict' was. But I do remember that I concluded there was no reason to avoid a muzzle loading rifle barrel made of 12L14.

Ted K.

[P.W.Berkuta]

BrentD, I took the dimensions from the barrels I have and here they are; - .50 cal, 41-1/2" long with a taper starting at the breach of 1.02" to .089 at the muzzle. They probably are not what you want - but like I said I will let you know what I had and I did - thanks.

Ted Kramer - thanks for the info - I did not know what Jerry used but I always had good luck with his barrels - smooth loading and accurate  .

[BrentD]

Ted,
I am really determined to stick with the .54. 

Right now, I'm penciling out the Green Mt. C profile swamped barrel in 42" length.  It sure looks like it would do the ticket.  Gotta be something wrong with this idea, but I can't see it yet. 

Brant Selb suggested another obvious good idea for building the stock.  Buy a cheap reject "Carson" profile Hawken blank and bondo it to the shape of the pistol grip gun and use it as a pattern.  Way too intelligent an idea for me to come up with on my own.  But sure seems to make sense.

Brent

[Ted Kramer]

Brent,

Here's a link to "The Gun Works" in Oregon  and the page with tapered octagon barrels on it. Give them a call, they might have what you want ready to ship. I've bought barrels and other stuff from them and they've always been reliable.

http://www.thegunworks.com/custprodgun.cfm?Cat2Name=Oregon%20Barrel%20Co.%20Tapered%20Octagon&SubCat2ID=68&do=list&Cat1Name=Barrels

Ted

[tpr-tru]

Ted Kramer,  was Orion barrels, Jerry Cunningham and Montana Rifle Barrel Company the same owner ?

[Ted Kramer]

Capote-

I'm not sure.  I once heard that Mr. Cunningham  was owner or co-owner of  Montana Rifle Barrel Co., then that was sold and he started alone as Orion Rifle Barrel Co.

Ted K.

[Daryl]

Brent - Taylor made a couple 1/2 stocked cap-lock English guns for a client in Kansas a couple years ago.  He used GM swamped barrels, .32, .40 & .54 cal.  The .40 and .32 were interchangable barrels on one rifle - hooked English Breeches, of course. Shortened on the taper, they made into perfectly tapered barrels of light weight, but descent breech size for lock and stock geometry.