How do you guys go about crowning the muzzle of a sharply cut barrel? I don't want to cone it, just a nice crown to keep the patches from shredding.
"Low tech" will make excellent crowns. You can file in a crown with needle files. But I would do as below.
If you lack other tools you can start it with a large counter sink, preferably a single flute. Don't go too deep when you start to cut groove depth stop. SLOW speed if you use power tool.
Now wrap the countersink with 220-320 grit wet or dry and smooth the cut since its usually chattered with a multi-flute tool.
Do the same with 400 grit and 600. Fine grit polishing is done with the tool hand held in most cases.
This will produce a usable crown. You can further polish it with some 600 simply pressed against the muzzle with a finger or thumb and rotate your hand. You can also cut/polish with a large flathead wood or machine screw and lapping compound.
As Daryl mentions hardware stores often have shaped grindstones to be used with a brace or electric drill. Rough with the stone then wrap with wet or dry to clean and polish.
It need not be terribly deep.
The crown pictured in the "No Cone" thread in BP shooting is deeper than needed but this rifle suffered some crown damage a few years back and I cleaned it up in the lathe so now its deeper than it was.
Using a coning tool can give just a slight relief at the top of the lands if used to put about 1/8" long cut on the lands.
The tool below works very well but requires a lathe to make. But sized right would work on 45-54 calibers perhaps even a wider range. This was made to do a crown on my 16 bore. The pilot keeps everything true with the bore. It is made of aluminum and removable. This one will do bores down to about 54 I suppose. But if you make or have one made remember that the paper and double stick tape adds to the diameter so the diameters have to be adjusted to allow for this.
Dan
