pistol barrel

[Hungry Horse]

 I was given a pistol barrel, that appears to be from a replica Harpers Ferry pistol. The barrel markings are of the Belgium variety ( ELG in a circle with a star) 14.4, and Faul. The bore is good, and appears to never have been fired. This is a good thing, because the breeching is criminal at best. The threads in the barrel go past the area where the touch hole is bored, and end with a giant tool relief, seemingly designed to collect foulings, and generate an unsafe condition. My question is, would it be possible to rebore the breech to accept a larger breech plug, and plug the existing touchhole? If I shorten the barrel instead, the breech size would be reduced, because of the taper of the barrel. And, the barrel lug would be too close to the lock mortise. Any ideas?


                 Hungry Horse

[Hungry Horse]

O.K. how come I always get the stuff nobody has ever seen before? I stuck a .562 round ball into the muzzle, and it just barely fits, with no room for a patch. So I suspect this thing is somewhere in the fifty seven caliber range. Does that ring a bell with anybody?

                      Hungry Horse

[pathfinder]

Even in my early day's before I really knew anything,I stayed away from the Spanish "junque". My suggestion is to use it as a paper weight.

[Captchee]

 a photo would help . Its kinda hard to  know what you have  without seeing it
 if what i think your seeing , if i understand you correctly , is that your barrel was drilled for an improved breech design  which would put the threads ending forward of the touch hole .

 By tooling relief , are you saying there is a shoulder   at the end of the threads ?

As to the bore size .
 Not uncommon  to be under bored , even with today’s barrels . Bores can very from barrel to barrel .
  TC’s tolerances were as I recall , + or - .010 .
 I have purchased smoothbore barrels from US makers that  were said to be 62 cal but  mic’ed out at .613

[James Wilson Everett]

Hungry Horse,

Given the bore size, it would be a simple thing to purchase a section of 5/8 inch tubing, the wall thickness would determine the exact final bore size.  Then use slow set epoxy to line the barrel with the liner tight against the breech plug.  Since the original barrels appears to have passed Belgian proof, adding a liner would make it even stronger.  If you use stainless steel for the liner tube - well that really is cheating!

Jim

[Hungry Horse]

 Thanks guys. Now, first off, Pathfinder, Belgium is not in Spain, and this barrel does not appear to be junk. Captchee, yes there is a large relief just past the threaded section of the barrel, just before the riflings start. James, the whole idea is that the barrel has good fast twist riflings that I would like to utilize.
 I did find out, that Dixie imported a bunch of Harpers Ferry pistol parts back in the day, that they bought from a defunked replica manufacturer. This might be one of those barrels.
 I am thinking of reboring the breech threads to a larger diameter, eliminating the tool relief, and silver soldering a plug in the old touch hole. Do any of you see a danger in any of this?

                             Hungry Horse

[Longknife]

HH, If the breech threads can be duplicated, then all you need top do is to drill and tap it deeper, then make a type of counterbored "manton" breech. Counter bore the plug and then install a t-hole liner threaded right into the breech and intersecting the counterbore.....Ed

[Hungry Horse]

Ed;

  The tool relief is of the same, or a little greater diameter, than the bottom of the breech threads, which is why I thought of resizing the breech. There is plenty of meat in the breech for a larger diameter plug. I think I could shorten the breech a little, just not the length of the breech threads.
 I have built a fowler with the breech you describe, and found the ignition much slower than a simple flint touch hole, with a white lightning liner from Chambers.

                  Hungry Horse

[Dphariss]

I was given a pistol barrel, that appears to be from a replica Harpers Ferry pistol. The barrel markings are of the Belgium variety ( ELG in a circle with a star) 14.4, and Faul. The bore is good, and appears to never have been fired. This is a good thing, because the breeching is criminal at best. The threads in the barrel go past the area where the touch hole is bored, and end with a giant tool relief, seemingly designed to collect foulings, and generate an unsafe condition. My question is, would it be possible to rebore the breech to accept a larger breech plug, and plug the existing touchhole? If I shorten the barrel instead, the breech size would be reduced, because of the taper of the barrel. And, the barrel lug would be too close to the lock mortise. Any ideas?


                 Hungry Horse

If the threads are metric a Metric bolt might work for the threaded portion. If the barrel is too thin wall to allow boring and retapping.
Dan