thought i've seen it all

[yip]

  at 72 years old i thought i seen it all. i friend of mind has a smooth bore and the barrel got bend about 4" from the muzzle, and he made a correction by bending it in his trailor hitch while still in the stock, after a few bends he got it straight again. the bend was quite noticeable.but he done did it.

[Mike Brooks]

I would have taken it out of the stock, but a trailer hitch sounds like a good bending place for me. I built a long fowling gun for a guy, 60" barrel. The gun shot to the left. He bent the barrel over his knee while it was in the stock. It shot dead on after that.

[Eric Krewson]

I bought a bunch of used metal T posts very cheaply, they had been snatched out of the ground with  tractor and were bent up. It surprised me how easily I could bend them back in a trailer hitch.

[Marcruger]

The best bending option I have found is using a wood block on each end, and a c-clamp over a block of wood in the middle. Controlled bending versus guessing.

[Daryl]

This is a method noted - for in the shop.
Another is to stand on the barrel, supported at both ends.
Another is bending it between 2 trees that are close together. Yet another is to whack the barrel against a tree.
Taylor has used the pictured method and the tree more than once.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The barrel in the picture Daryl posted is a Tulle barrel, possibly from Larry Zorne's shop.  I was unable to bend it to make it shoot to the sight.  You can see that both the barrel and this solid core door/bench are bent.  Both returned to straight....I accomplished nothing.

[wmrike]

Whew!  One would think that would be enough to take a set, eh?  Pretty springy stuff there.

I had a Dixie barrel once that had three kinks in it.  Just by working with a bench vise and leaning on the thing, I was able to get out two of the kinks.  I got tired of fiddling and left the last one that was in front of the plug.

[Don Stith]

The old Gemmer range in St Louis had a 2"diameter hole, about shoulder high, in one of the range posts for straightening barrels.  I always wondered if they created a similar post at the new range. Maybe Rich can let me know
Don

[Not English]

There's stories out there of HBC selling northwest trade guns to indians in the NW Territories as late as the 1920's. The indians would routinely stick the forestock in the crotch of a tree to make it shoot where they wanted.

[jerrywh]

A gun will shoot where ever the last 6" of the barrel points.  To each his own.  Forgive me if I refrain from the contest to determine who has the most crude and primitive methods. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
 

[Mike Brooks]

A gun will shoot where ever the last 6" of the barrel points.  To each his own.  Forgive me if I refrain from the contest to determine who has the most crude and primitive methods. Even a blind squirrel finds a not once in a while.