Going to fresh a barrel, hopefully.

[rich pierce]

I bought a relic rifle and it has a mondo 47” slightly swamped barrel about .34 caliber. The rifling is rough but the ramrod spins when I run a tight patch down it. Seems to be about a 42” twist. I showed the relic to my club members yesterday and they challenged me to restore it to a shooter. They might just be messing with the new kid. So I will give it a go.

I plan to lap it first to get the lands evened up then make a freshing stick and give it a go. I have some Bevel brothers articles and a guru on our club. It would be entertaining to shoot the relic in a match. The barrel is 1 and 1/16 thick at the breech. Makes an honest Hawken rifle feel like a fowler.

[Ron Wehmeyer]

I look forward to following along Rich , I have a barrel that I want to try to freshen back up .Think its always worth a try to reuse the old stuff. RW .

[Ky-Flinter]

An admirable project Rich.  This piece from our old friend Gary Brumfield's web page may be of help.  http://www.flintriflesmith.com/ToolsandTechniques/freshening.htm

You might want to consider freshing the furrows first.  If you start with the lands, you might end up with a smoothbore.

-Ron

[rich pierce]

An admirable project Rich.  This piece from our old friend Gary Brumfield's web page may be of help.  http://www.flintriflesmith.com/ToolsandTechniques/freshening.htm

You might want to consider freshing the furrows first.  If you start with the lands, you might end up with a smoothbore.

-Ron

I hear ya, Ron. That would be a true peashooter. I’m not going to tote a 13 pound smoothbore anytime soon!

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Here are some links on freshing, Good luck to you.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=49600.msg491550#msg491550

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=77.msg536#msg536

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=19962.msg188827#msg188827

[Ron Wehmeyer]

Thank you James , this is extremely helpful information . RW

[rich pierce]

Last night I took those original barrels to our club’s work night get together to see if they could be turned into shooters.  We pounded a ball into the muzzle of each, then all the way through.  One is relieved at the muzzle quite a bit and could be loaded without a short starter.  Both feel looser toward the breech.  Here is what the slugs look like.  Seems both could be freshed.  One is .365 land to groove and the other is .380.  It sure is great to have help from guys with decades of experience.

[kudu]

If you do try this and would like a suggestion for a real good cutter / scraper read on ?

Get a good name brand Ie;( Morse, Greenfield Hanson etc.)High speed steel Tap a Four Flute.(High speed-cobaltt is sharp and not too brittle carbon tap is ok wont stay sharp but sharp enough for one barrel)

 Now you will have to decide by observation and measurement what size buttt??/ 5/16-18 ,  1/4-20 ,  3/8-16,  5, 6, 8,mm. something in those sizes i suspect.

I dont know how to draw on hear so I will describe???  Grind the Tap leaving one straight Flute, and totally getting rid of the other three (assuming your using a 4 Flute Tap) with a real steady hand and being careful this can be done on a pedastool grinder and bench stone. Ya it Takes time and careful measurement.

The reason for a Four Flute hand Tap is The width of the "flutes" they will be closer to youe groove width.

Try to never hit or touch the cutting edge you are saving and you will have a real nice and very sharp Groove cutter.

If you have or Know someone with a Surface grinder you got it made, Go and have them grind it for you.

One last thing if the bore is rusty try and get the rust out before using your nice new cutter RUST is hard on cutting Tools. use steel wool, stainlees Bore brush, chemicals whatever??

[stubshaft]

Those slugs look good.  It doesn't look like the bore is too rough so I would just lap it and go from there. 

[rich pierce]

It took quite an effort to pound the slug through but I will start by lapping. On the one barrel it was very loose at the muzzle (relieved?) then tight as the dickens the looser toward the breech. I think a little cutting of the tops of the lands could lessen that problem. Might work on it tonight.

[rich pierce]

Got busy yesterday. I am following a Bevel Brothers MB article for the most part. I made a hickory ramrod fit the bore closely. Then filed 2 square areas for leads to be poured, one an inch from the end of the rod and the other 4” away. Poured the laps or leads or whatever we call them. Then I lapped the bore with valve grinding compound to rid the high spots on the lands. Cleaned that junk out of the bote and made a cutter out of a piece of old crosscut blade. This .38 caliber barrel has 7 narrow grooves. The muzzle is opened up considerably for about 2” making pouring good laps challenging. Pour, pound it in, remove, and pare down the high spots with chisels till the lap will pass end to end.

Once both laps went smoothly with the valve grinding treatment I made the cutter mortise for deepening grooves in the wood between the lead laps. This is the hard part and I think I’d prefer to make that mortise in or right next to one of the lead laps. Getting it angled just right is tricky. Anyway I continued on, and started shimming and cutting. At first just crud came out but after a lot of shimming with paper I finally started to feel and hear the cutter cutting. I made enough swarf to choke a small fairy tale character.  I’ve got is to where it is cutting end to end in all grooves. Now I need to re-cast the lead laps because they are getting loose.

As I said, biggest problem is the mortise for the cutter. I am thinking I will make a very thin sheet metal trough to line the cutter mortise. That would make for easy addition of the flimsy, wriggly paper shims.

Better pictures to come. Rifling is addictive and I was up past my bedtime.

[JTR]

Hey Rich, When you get done with that one, I have a couple others I could send you! 
John

[rich pierce]

Hey Rich, When you get done with that one, I have a couple others I could send you! 
John

Send a big can of that waterless hand cleaner along with them!  I’m pushing and pulling the freshing stick without a handle, just hand over hand, Lewis and Clark style.

[Joe Stein]

"Rifling is addictive."  JTR, you are just trying to be an enabler.  Just say no to rifling addiction.

[Craig Wilcox]

We need to start a 12-step program for him.

[rich pierce]

Here’s a new rod prepped for pouring the leads. Then the pour.

[rich pierce]

Well this is a learning experience.  If you ever get an original rifle barrel in need of freshing, beware of pits that you cannot see at all until you’re a few hours into the job.  When the bore is dark, any deep pits are indistinguishable by the old “point it at a light and take a look” method.



To recap progress to date:
Lapped it
Recut the grooves quite a bit; lots of shims, and no more tight or loose spots except at the muzzle
Cut the lands till there are no tight or loose spots except at the muzzle
Have some troublesome pits

Next I will re-pour the laps and reset the groove cutter and go 3 or 4 shims deeper in the furrows to see if I can approach the bottom of the pits.  My shims are 0.0015 but I’m not convinced each shim nets that much additional depth because there is wear on the leads and on the side opposite the cutter.  I’m estimating closer to 0.001 per shim.

I am doubting the old tale that originals with big bores got that way by freshing repeatedly. Maybe 0.010 gain in caliber is achievable per freshing episode.  So from a .36 to a .37 for example.  Do that many times and it might eventually get to .40 caliber.  Would like to hear from those who have done it a few times. 

[bgf]

Are the pits in lands, grooves or both?  It would be interesting to see how it loads and shoots at this stage.

I wonder if "freshing" didn't often involve reaming to groove depth and recutting in cases of significant pitting?  That would account for bigger jumps, though I agree that most often a barrel went from 50, say, to 50+ with minor update.

[rich pierce]

The deeper, bigger pits involve both thanks and grooves. I would think that reaming and re-rifling are not really “freshing” the rifling, but it’s hard to say how words were used in the past.  I also imagine quite a few frontier guns were shot while the rifling was in a functional, but not pristine condition.  I’m going to keep at it till at least the lands are quite clean and grooves are sufficiently deep to use a decent patch thickness.

[David R. Pennington]

Following your progress, anxious to see how she prints on paper when you are done.

[rich pierce]

I’ll have to get Dave Brandenburger to bench it when it’s done. I can’t shoot well enough to really test a barrel!

Can’t see shooting it before December. Have to finish freshing it, breech it (no breechplug) then either re-install it in the current relic stock or do a Jack Brooks/Bob Leinemann 3 day build with the current parts. Anybody recommend a bore light that sends pix to phone or PC?

(Added in edit) Sorry Dave, forgot the “er” in Brandenburger

[Booner]

I purchased a Lyman bore scope on Amazon a while back for around $170.
But if I were to do it again, I'd probably just buy a mini camera setup for a lot cheaper.
The Lymans does what your looking for, and can fit into a .20 caliber barrel, I don't know if the mini cameras can go that small. The Lymans can only go about 20 inches into the barrel though, so it has it's limitations on a muzzleloader.

It's a nice toy to have. It showed me how well I clean my guns, as well as why some of them shoot the way they do.

[shortbarrel]

freshed a lot of old iron barrels, never used lead laps on the stick. never tried to fresh one that was in need of reaming and rifling.

[bgf]

The deeper, bigger pits involve both thanks and grooves. I would think that reaming and re-rifling are not really “freshing” the rifling, but it’s hard to say how words were used in the past.  I also imagine quite a few frontier guns were shot while the rifling was in a functional, but not pristine condition.  I’m going to keep at it till at least the lands are quite clean and grooves are sufficiently deep to use a decent patch thickness.

Actually, I think it is a modern somewhat romantic conceit that every old rifle with a big bore was used so much and freshed so many times.  As I think short barrel is saying, after a while, it would be more effective to just re-rifle, and that more easily explains drastic caliber changes.

Dave Brandenburg is a good resource !

You bring up a good point about the groove depth.  I was forgetting the wide lands and narrow grooves.  I actually think it would be fun to test "period" patch and load which is much different from what we prefer now but seems to have produced satisfactory results...

[Angus]

What hardness of lead are you using?

You could give Dave B a piece of water pipe and a gum drop and he could shoot a clover leaf. He's that good.