How Do You Tell If A RIfle Barrel Is Old

[Dave B]

On these half stock jobs one way to tell if they were original is by the way the under rib is attached. Most were riveted down  as you see this barrel was done. The rifling on this barrel is shallow as well. That said yours looks too clean to be original period rifling. I would agree if the barrel is an old one, it was reamed and re-rifled in modern times. I have seen quite a few of the old barrels use staples to hold the tenons in place as well. Whats the barrel look like out of the stock?

[Acer Saccharum]

Bore could have been re-rifled.

Most old roundball patterns are deeper grooves. This shallow type rifling could be made for a paper patched bullet or a grease-groove bullet. The twist would tell you something about that.

[Howard]

I have a friend, for over the past 50 years that I have known him, has every old barrel sent off to be rerifled. Bores don't always tell the truth.

[JTR]

Bores don't always tell the truth.

That's sometimes true, but, it's generally pretty easy to tell the difference between a hand operated machine early style rifling, and automated machine type rifling.
John