Can a DOM barrel be lined?

[Snow on the Roof]

I have a 15 year old 20ga Flintlock built by a Mississippi gunsmith. Over all the gun is pretty good but the barrel has always been a concern. It is straight octagon to round with several groves running the length of the bore almost giving the appearance of straight rifling.
My question is two fold. a) could it safely be reamed out smooth to a larger size, perhaps 17 gauge? b)could it be relined to a smaller size, perhaps 28 gauge?

I appreciate your input,

Snow

 

[excess650]

I'm not sure that either of those ideas is good. Both will require removing material from a barrel that you are already unsure of. IMO, replace it with a similar contour barrel, and you'll have no further worries.

 

[ohio ramrod]

A good liner should make your barrel stronger and safer as long as you don't remove too much steel to get the liner in. :hmm:

 

[54ball]

If you do not like what you see, do not have faith in it regardless of what you see, or feel you have no business playing gun builder, contact someone like Bobby Hoyt and have him inspect or even possibly line the barrel before you scrap the gun.

 

[Hatcon]

On the thread about barrel help someone mentioned someone named Whitaker who does this type of work. Does anyone know how to contact him ? Does anyone have any personel experience with him or this work?

 

[Many Klatch]

A buddy of mine had that done for his DOM barrel flintlock. It had so many grooves in it that the Primitive Range Officer at Friendship told us it would have to compete as a rifle not a smoothbore. He contacted Whitaker and had his 12 gauge relined to a 16 gauge. He has been kicking my @$$ ever since with it.

Many Klatch

 

[hawkeye2]

Whitacre's barrels are excellent quality, only one twist available, rifled for minies. He specializes in Civil War era firearms for skirmishers.
http://www.whitacresmachineshop.com

Personally I recommend Bobby Hoyt:

Freischutz Shop
700 Fairfield Station Road
Fairfield, PA 17320 - View Map
Phone: (717) 642-6696

A DOM barrel can be lined, the real question is whether or not anyone will be willing to do the work. Hoyt has an original fouler barrel of mine up there for work and I'm sure it is a lap welded barrel (seam ruining the length of it).

 

[matt denison]

A buddy of mine had that done for his DOM barrel flintlock. It had so many grooves in it that the Primitive Range Officer at Friendship told us it would have to compete as a rifle not a smoothbore. He contacted Whitaker and had his 12 gauge relined to a 16 gauge. He has been kicking my @$$ ever since with it.

Many Klatch

Hey Klatch,

How much (if any) weight did it add to that barrel, can you guess?

Thanks,
L'dog

 

[Many Klatch]

Laffin, it didn't seem to add all that much weight. The gun may have been a bit too light before and now it holds really great. It took a couple of months to get the barrel back but we figured that was a pretty fast turn around, and it changed a wall hanger into a competitive shooter. I'll alert the owner to come on here and give more details.

Many Klatch

 

[Lazarus]

Laffin,

I'm Many Klatch's buddy who had Whitacre Machine line an Ole Jackie Brown smoothbore flintlock that was made back in the mid 1990's.

The DOM barrel was octagon to round (.75 cal) smooth (in name only) bore. As Many Klatch has alluded, the bore was full of "straight" rifling. It took about 6 months to get the barrel back from Whitacre because they do a wide variety of machine work (mainly competition barrels for .58 cal Springfield's) so they only gear up for linings, such as mine, as the work load permits.

Twas well worth the wait! Fine work indeed. After a few 'tweakings" the ole sow's ear turned into a fine silk purse. The gun itself still needed plently of other TLC but the barrel issues were solved by Whitacre's expertise.

The weight? The barrel was too light to begin with, the lining helped some, but it still required more weight to please me, I then added a brass ramrod to the recipe which then pleased the palette

It's now a .69cal smoothbore that I've fired literally hundreds and hundreds of rounds thru. Bore conditions stay consistent, cleans up easy and is an absolute blast to shoot.

 

[matt denison]

Yes, nothing like a new shiney bore! 'specially if it doesn't make it heavy like a rifle barrel.

 

[rickystl]

Hoyt has an original fouler barrel of mine up there for work


So that's why I haven't got my barrel back yet. Maybe he's working on yours? :haha: Rick. :hatsoff:

 

[hawkeye2]

Ricky, he has that barrel and two others of mine and he had better be working on them! :wink: Seriously I have never had much of a problem waiting on Bobby. Drop off a barrel at his booth at the Fall Nationals and it would be on the doorstep in plenty of time for the following spring's shooting season. It will be interesting to see when I get that barrel back as several inches of the breech area was eaten out to a diameter quite a bit larger then the breech plug threads. Hoyt asked me if I wanted to save the original bore beyond that area!