Coning a Muzzle

[duelist1954]

Frank House, Hershel's brother, has restored a lot of original rifles. He told me that every eighteenth century barrel he worked on had been coned. Likewise John Getz has told me the same thing.

Custom builder Mike Miller, who made rifles for Mark Baker and John Curry tells me he cones all his barrels, unless requested not to by the client.

 

[AZbpBurner]

Back in the early 1970's I had opportunity to fire numerous original flintlock rifles of an old gent's family heirloom collection. I learned how to properly load, prime and fire - they were all right hand locks and I was a lefthand shooter, but in no time the flinch disappeared.

Thinking back on it, many of his rifles were unusually easy to load, as opposed to the brand new Douglas barrel my Dad used to build his cap rifle. I never gave it any thought, but coned barrels on many of that collection of old, original rifles offers the most plausible explanation on why they were so smooth and easy to load.

 

[Scota4570]

Colerain will void the warranty if you do it. http://colerainbarrel.com/tips-and-suggestions/ I know of no decent target shooter using a coned muzzle. IF you goal is to ring gongs on a trail walk or other informal less demanding shooting you probably will not see the accuracy drop off.

Accuracy standards are subjective. When someone talks about accuracy testing off hand you know they have low standards. If they can make them all touch at 50 yards off the bench that is a different type of shooter with different expectations.

 

[Stumpkiller]

As far as I know the only reason has always been for ease of loading.

I discussed it at length with L.C. Rice when I was ordering a barrel and he recommended instead a medium radius crown with no coning. Seems to work as I can thumb start flush with a 0.010" under bore size ball and 0.018" patch material.

 

[Gene L]

Is there a historical precedent for coning a barrel, or is it a 20th century thing? I'm not for or against it, don't matter, just wondered when it became semi-popular.

 

[45man]

Wear from a rod when loading or cleaning did the damage. Target shooters used a false muzzle to start a ball and I have done that. Very, very hard to align the rifling.
TC came out with an easy start muzzle but it shot like junk. Seems to have gone away. There is no way I would cone a muzzle.

 

[Iron Jim Rackham]

I purchased a rifle last spring with a coned barrel, and wasn't able to achieve acceptable accuracy. I cut the barrel and stock back 2" to clear the coning and the groups immediately improved as indicated by the targets below.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

FWIW I’ve only coned a dozen muzzleloaders and NONE of them ever lost any inherent accuracy. I won’t own a hunting gun without the muzzle coned (by the Joe Woods tools) ... and would have no fear shooting it against a ‘target’ shooter, even rang the 180-yard gong today 3 out of 5 shots offhand. But admittedly I know my ballistics and hold.

 

[Daryl Crawford]

I thought about having my .50 Hawken coned, but never did. Using the ball starter was something that slowed me down, and I can still pretty easily start a ball for the first few rounds. It isn't so easy I can start it with my thumb, but the first few aren't too hard. Once it is I figured it was time to run a cleaning patch. Maybe I should reconsider this.

 

[bang]

Really only needed if there is damage. Y Walker was off and the muzzle had what looked like poor clean up. Cut and glued some fine emery cloth to the round end of a screw driver handle and slow turned it with a drill till it was clean of burrs. Shoots fine now.