Anyone ever use a modern barrel for a smoothbore?

[Otony]

I have a couple of modern barrels here that are take-offs from cartridge guns. One is an older 20ga Remington 870 barrel (no rib), and the other is from a 16ga pump action (again, no rib). Both have excellent bores and finish, and each was found for less than 30 dollars apiece.

A good friend here locally can easily breech these for me, along with carefuly removing the mounting "ring" that secures the barrels to the tube magazine of the original host gun. In fact, he suggested cutting the "ring" down and leaving a small nub as an underlug on the barrel intended for a fowler. The other barrel will actually be shortened and used for a smoothbore pistola.

I am just curious if anyone else has ever done such a thing? These are a great source for nicely contoured barrels that are NOT of questionable origin or strength, albeit only in shorter lengths. If anything, I suspect such barrels to be a fair bit stronger than the typical leaded steel stock used by Getz, Colerain, etc, but for the intended use that is really neither here nor there.

A few years back one used to be able to purchase longer shotgun barrel blanks from either McGowan or E.R. Shaw, I cannot recall which, but checking both of their respective websites reveals no such product any longer. I truly need to cal both companies to inquire, as the prices were quite reasonable at the time. Too bad, as a good, inexpensive fowler barrel would be a hot seller amongst the smoothbore affecionados.

 

[BillinOregon]

Otony: It ought to work, but modern barrels are so slim that I think you would end up with a flyweight firearm that might not be terribly fun to shoot. Would probably make a great "canoe gun" though!

 

[Otony]

And you would be correct! The 20ga is actually intended as a light weight fowler for my soon to be six year old son. It will be full stocked and likely never see much more than 3/4 of an ounce of shot. When he outgrows it my three and a half year old daughter will be waiting in the wings! And yes, very young kids for an old fart getting close to sixty!

The 16ga is to be used for a horse pistol, and as a pistol barrel has very nice dimensions.

 

[Moose_Owner]

The book Recreating the Double Barrel Muzzle-Loading Shotgun by Brockway has a chapter devoted to converting cartridge barrels to muzzleloaders. The biggest issue is dealing with the chamber and forcing cone of the cartridge barrel. Brockway turned a breach plug of the correct size to fill up the chamber and forcing cone area.

An alternative way of dealing with the chamber and forcing cone is drill out the chamber/forcing cone area with a 13/16 inch drill bit (for a 12 gauge barrel). The 13/16 inch hole is the correct size for a 7/8x14 thread. You then tap barrel end for the breach plug and fill in the area in front of the breach plug with a "sleeve". The sleeve is nothing more than a section of 12 gauge barrel with the outside diameter turned down to 13/16. I have a number of barrels which have been breached in this manner and they all work great.

For 16 and 20 gauge barrels, you would have to work out the correct thread sizes for the breach plug.

good luck.

 

[hanshi]

I keep reading that the old time flint fowling guns had very thin barrels. Should make for a lively handling upland ML.

 

[tg]

I bought a second hand 12 gauge flintlock made with a modern barrel and a choke tube setup,one open cyl, tube and one extra full Turkey tube which I never had the chance to use, it did well with ball in the open tube, I never did shoot much shot thru it, just a few trips for Grouse and Quail with # 6's and the equivilant of low base target loads as I recall, it was light and pushed pretty hard with stiff loads I pretty much stuck with modern low end load combos due to the thin breech walls and made up a brass ram rod to add some weight which really helped the "feel" of the gun overall, it was a good fast handleing gun for Quail and Grouse,I think the barrel was 32-34" but do not remember for sure, I sold it to help fund a Fusil which I had been thinking about for several years, I miss the big bore gun at times as I think it would have been Hell on GobbleDucks out to 40 yds with a bit more powder and a bit larger shot, but I have not had the chance to hunt Turkeys since I sold it so nothing really lost I guess.

 

[justtim]

I have built 3 guns using modern barrels. One a 12 ga was an old Belknap shotgun barrel. Made a great gun. It's since been sold. The other two I still have. A 20 ga Stevens barrel went into my grandon's flintlock English shotgun and the other was a Reminton 870 barrel, full choke. I got it in a trade. I cut the vent rib off, kept the lugs for the vent rib and used them to pin the barrel. (I turned the barrel upside down). I made a Northwest style trade gun from it. Excellent turkey gun.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

It was fairly common to use modern shotgun barrels many years ago before modern smoothbore barrels were available. I have a saddle ring carbine made by Todd Carpenter. Todd used an old single shot 12 Gage shotgun barrel. It is very light a great fowler to carry in the field for long hunts. It would not be that good to use when you are shooting 40 shots a day on Smoothbore re entry matches.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

The first smoothbore I ever built, a NW gun, used an unchambered 16 gauge barrel blank. I hand filed the breech end to octagon on five flats. That was around '73 or '74 and I knew of no source of ready made smoothbore barrels. It turned out pretty good.

 

[justtim]

That reminded me of another gun I built from a modern barrel. I too built a NW gun from a 16 ga blank I got from Springfield Armory for as I remember, 8 bucks. I made all the parts from Hanson's Northwest Trade Gun Sketchbook at no cost (scrap sheet metal lying around the shop). I got a lock kit from Bud Siler for $25. Total cost of gun--$33 plus a few bucks for screws and ramrod.

 

[justtim]

OK, my memory is getting bad. Just remembered anpother gun made from a modern barrel. Another one of those Springfield blanks in 12 ga

 

[Shine]

There used to be a fella that went by the name Sweet William. Used to make shorter trade guns with a bunch of old unused LC smith barrels. He rough cut the stocks with a chain saw. But they were not bad. Really light. Traded mine to a friend down in PA.

 

[Supercracker]

An alternative way of dealing with the chamber and forcing cone is drill out the chamber/forcing cone area with a 13/16 inch drill bit (for a 12 gauge barrel). The 13/16 inch hole is the correct size for a 7/8x14 thread. You then tap barrel end for the breach plug and fill in the area in front of the breach plug with a "sleeve". The sleeve is nothing more than a section of 12 gauge barrel with the outside diameter turned down to 13/16. I have a number of barrels which have been breached in this manner and they all work great.

How did you address the area where your plug mated up to the bore? How I'm envisioning your process it sounds like that would be an issue.

Would you happen to have any pictures of this?

 

[justtim]

Bill's book gives all the various tap sizes for the different gauges of shotguns. On all mine I just cut the barrel off at the breech and made the breech plugs to fit. Much easier. The forcing cone becomes the bottom of the threded section.Now having said that, all the barrels I used were plenty beefy at the breech. A real thin barrel would have to be done as above.

 

[Supercracker]

Yeah. I've got the book and have started ona set of barrels. I hit a wall when I found that the chambers in my barrels had been cut at a very slight angle to the bore. So when I tried to tap it the tap doesn't hit the cone square. Same with the breech plug I machined.

The quest for a solution has been in the back of my head ever since. But I've pretty well drawn a blank. The next set I try to do I'll probably mount it up on the lathe and trim/cut the chamber just enough to be sure it's square with the bore and then cut the threads.

I was also thinking that (the next set with recut chambers)I could make a close to bore size hollow insert to rest up against the forcing cone, lap it in place on the cone and then solder it in place. Once it's soldered It could be cut to bore diameter, square to the bore and then polished along with the bore. This would give me a flat, perpendicular face for the breech plug to rest against.

Later next year, when i get some time, I'll probably separate the two I have and use the one that has not been tapped yet to work out this new process and then make a lightweight single barrel fowler out of.

 

[Supercracker]

FWIW, I have seen 4 sets of Belgian Damascus breech loader barrels now with the chambers cut out of square in the identical way.

 

[Moose_Owner]

How did you address the area where your plug mated up to the bore? How I'm envisioning your process it sounds like that would be an issue.

Would you happen to have any pictures of this?

If I understand your question correctly, you are asking about the area where the front of the sleeve meets the bore of the barrel. The sleeve should have the same internal diameter as the bore of the gun (that is why a piece of 12 gauge barrel makes an excellent sleeve -- it already has the correct internal diameter). The external diameter of the sleeve is turned down to 13/16 on a lathe.

The front of the 13/16 drill bit does have a taper and it leaves an angled shoulder at the front of the hole. You have turn the end of the sleeve to match the taper of the front of the drill bit. This is easy to do when you turn the sleeve down on the lathe.

As long as the bore of the sleeve and the 13/16 inch hole are concentric, there is not a problem with the inside of the sleeve matching up with the bore of the barrel. By the way, the 13/16 drill bit is very close to the size of a 12 gauge chamber, so the drill does not tend to wander.

The sleeve is cut to the correct length so that it is held firmly against the front shoulder of the hole when the breech plug is installed.

Hopefully, that all made sense.

Sorry, I do not have any pictures. Next time I sleeve a barrel I will take some.

 

[Supercracker]

OHHH, I missed that you were carrying it far enough forward to be reshaping the cone. That makes sense now. Sorry. It sounds like you're doing pretty ,much what I was talking about doing just with a drill bit instead of a boring bar.

The joint I was talking about is where it transitions from sleeve to bore. I was thinking that, without a lot of work, there might be a small seem there that could collect fouling.



When I was turning the plug for mine I made a chamber casting and then using measurements from it was able to calculate exactly what the angle of the cone was. Of course, it was not until later that I determined that the chamber was not square with the bore. So when the first barrel was tapped it impacted the cone at an angle and made fitting the breech plug squarely impossible.

 

Otoney,
I built a 20 ga on an underhammer action and had a .36 cal barrel for it also. Used a Remington 870 barrel with RemChokes. Cut off the barrel ring and left the stud for mounting the forestock, added a second one. Cut off the barrel extension and had a breach plug made to fit the remaing 20 ga chamber which was threaded, no sleeve. Works great.
Mark

 

[colmoultrie]

This is one of Sweet William's (Bill Douglas). He may have cut his stock blanks with a chainsaw, but he did a little bit of work with finer tools.