Joe Wood Coning Tool Question

[Eric Krewson]

After all the bore polishing with scotch bright, JB bore paste and Bore Bright and a dedicated load development, my rifle seems to shoot dead on with the first shot and shoots the same with a dirty barrel. As this was the initial sight in, I didn't notice any fliers but because I was filing sights and drifting them at the same time, there could have been one.

I have her really slicked up;



This is a before the scrub picture;

[Daryl]

Those cross-wise reaming marks are hard on patches. You did well to try to get rid of them and smooth things up.
My .69 GRRW barrel was bad for those reamer marks, but shot well, right off the bat. I did have to go to a .030" patch(12 ounce), though
so they would stand up to the heavier loads. Now, about 5,000 or more shots through her, she does well with a 10 ounce(.021") patch, same ball.
Edited.
I'm not sure why some guys still insist on easier loading with a cone. 
Leatherbelly and I found that to be not true at all & actually the reverse was true.
His coned muzzle made it almost impossible to use the same combinations I was using in my slightly tighter bored rifle barrel.

[Dphariss]

This is my group adjusted for point of aim.  I have always shot a three-shot group and measured center to center to determine MOA, taking into consideration my first Red Rider BB gun (no bird was safe) I have been doing this stuff for 70 years.

One poster suggested without a 5 shot group my target had no merit so I adjusted my target to reflect point of aim and impact.

I held on the center of the bull for the first shot that hit high, I took a 6 o'clock hold on the bottom of the orange dot for the next two shots which both hit slightly above the bull. I measured from the bottom of the dot to the center of the first two shots and the distance from the center of the bull to the center of the high shot, both measurements were the same.

I dropped the high shot to reflect the point of aim and came up with this, that's good enough for me. The barrel is a Rice .50 that I had Bobby Hoyt re-bore to .54 because I like a .54 for deer.

 

For  initial load testing 3 shots are fine. It saves powder and lead. Shooting additional shots at an already bad group will not make it better.
However, its necessary to CONFIRM the load with more shooting and longer shot strings.
There is also the rule of compensating errors where errors in holding or sight alignment can result in a poor group being a good one. I.E. the error in holding and/or sight alignment puts a flyer(s) into the group. Even a telescopic sight can do this with holding errors.

[Dphariss]

Barrel smoothing.
Back in the day 0000 steel wool on a patch for a tight fit worked wonders in removing burrs (patch cutters) at the edges of the lands. This was routinely done on some barrels by some makers. Its also a really good idea to check bore uniformity with barrels from ML “custom barrel makers” before building a rifle around the thing. Loose in the middle and tight at both ends don’t work.
There are a lot of reamed and cut rifled barrels with rough lands and burrs are the edges of the lands that can be an “issue”. Steel wool/Scotch brite will remove burrs. But saw tooth lands need more “adjustmentz”.  It is possible to buy from suppliers  such as MSCdirect a “barrel lap”. This is an adjustable brass lap that when adjusted to size and coated with 320-400 grit lapping compound to smooth reamer marks on the lands. It will not greatly enclarge the bore and should not be pulled/pushed all the way out of the muzzle as it will cause belling as will any lap if this is done every stroke as the compound resets as the lap enters the muzzle. This create a slight coning. These laps can be bought for both through hole and blind hole designs. I have a through hole for 62 cal and a blind hole for 54. Both were used on barrels with rough lands.  One was a 54 rifle that was loading extremely hard down the barrel some inches and I smoothed the lands without pulling the breech and the other was one I had recut and it was rough reamed. Its going to pistol barrels.

[Dphariss]

I shot MLs for DECADES with a simple crown, 32-36,40, 45, 50, 54 and 58 caliber with no need for “coning”. The only thing I had ever seen similar to this was a friend who had. 58 cal flint “Hawken” that was bored smooth about 3” down the bore.
I also once saw a light fowler labeled “militia rifle” at a show and when I asked about this apparently smoothbore gun the owner said look down the muzzle. It was smooth down about 3-4”. Apparently to keep the rifleman from being bayoneted if captured. The rear sight was identical to those I have seen on trade guns, a sharp chisel used to raise a “flap” on the top flat then a notch cut in this for a rear sight. So there were some pretty strange things done even back in the day.
The saying “only accurate rifles are interesting” is very true. Since I could and for years did and still could, load a heavy ticking patch and .535 ball in a 54 Douglas barrel with just the rod why bother coning? Someplace I have a video I did of this and I even posted it on this sight years back or one of the other ML sites maybe. Will see if I can find that.

So far as being an a$$hole and talking mean. Sometimes people need to be jarred loose so they THINK about subjects and not just go with the flow.
ML barrels are cheap. A 20” cut rifled barrel for my brass suppository match rifle is about 500-600 bucks now and they are (at my rate of shooting trash after about 4 summers no matter how good it shoots. Some change them every year but I don’t have access to that many matches. They are simply expendable like shooting patches to a ML shooter.
I love shooting making and shooting MLs. But I like to shoot. I like to shoot competition. I don’t much care how the ammo is loaded. Or what the propellent is. ML matches are just for fun and connecting with other ML shooters.

[Longknife]

I have coned two rifles with Joe Woods tool, on these threads there is always someone who has never used the tool who will tell us we will never get any kind of accuracy and will ruin our guns if we use this tool.

76-year-old eyes that see a slightly blurry back sight, coned .54, 50 yards off sand bags, initial sight adjustment after coning.
I was hitting low so I added 5 gr of powder, I aimed high with the first shot and hit high. I went back to my 6:00 hold with the slightly stouter powder load and shot the next two shots.

One of you nay sayers, tell me again how I am ruining my barrel with a Joe Woods coning tool.



Another thing, the nay sayers tell us "coning" is not historically correct for an 18th century rifle, that is because it was called "funneling" back then, not because it wasn't done.

Looks to me like you are doing everything right! All shots touching, it doesn't get any better!

[Eric Krewson]

Lots of good info Dan, thanks.

My rebore job was questionable at best, I did a lot more to this barrel than I let on to get any kind of accuracy from it and stop it from shredding patches into little balls of fluff.

It shoots and loads great now and I could reshoot the patches.

[Daryl]

I have tins of my .69's patch recoveries that I use often for the monthly matches.
More lube and away they go.
Once back in the late 80's, I used the same patch for a 5 shot group fired at 50yards offhand. The group turned out quite nice, about 1 1/2 to 2" in diameter.
12 ounce denim and Windex (at the time) for lube. Due to having to go retrieve the patch after each shot, the barrel never got hot, which is a
problem with that rifle.