Coning a muzzle

[ronrryan]

I have a .50 flintlock with a coned muzzle. It is easy to load. I have a .50 without a coned muzzle. It requires .495 balls to shoot well, although of course it will shoot .490's, it just gets dirty pretty quick and loses accuracy rapidly. I would like to get the 2nd gun coned. Is this difficult to do? I have read of a coning tool, but I am no gunsmith, never worked with metal at all. I am not afraid of tools atall, have done valve jobs, etc in past. Appreciate advice from someone who knows how to do this. Does the barrel have to be removed from the gun? This is a pinned fullstock barrel, never unpinned to date. Thanks, Ron in Fla

 

[paulvallandigham]

Ronryan: I just did a search for coning reamer on the site, and found what I remembered reading. Contact Joe Wood, The Firelock Shop, 5311 Briar St., Amarillo, Texas 79109, phone: 806-452-3032, or email him at [email protected]. He makes or has the reamers you need, and they are caliber specific. Run about $40.00. If you have the handles to use in holding Taps, they can be used to hold onto the reamer for turning. Have a wire brush fitting for your ramrod, and some 0000 Steel wool to wrap around the brush. Use this to take any burrs off the edges of the lands after reaming is done. Then you may also want to use a couple of patches, and load them with a valve grinding compound, or JB Bore cleaner, and work that through the area that has been cut by the reamer to smooth out the sides and grooves. Take your time, Cut a 1/4 turn, then back the reamer off, then go another 1/4 turn, etc.,and clean the flutes frequently and reoil often. The cleaner the flutes on the reamer, the less chance you take in having scratches to the land and grooves of the barrel as you cone the muzzle. You will have to flush the barrel with alcohol to get the oil out, and with it, any steel chips that have fallen down the barrel during your work. Then run a patch down to catch anything that might remain, and do that several times until you are convinced that you have no more chips, or filings down the barrel. Check the muzzle with a large patch and ball to see if it is coned deep enough for you to start the ball with just thumb pressure. Then pull on the patching to pull the ball out of the muzzle. oil or lube the barrel for storage until you are going back out to shoot the gun. Someone suggested that there be an exchange started on this forum so that people could loan or swap reamers to others to use for different calibers and guns, but I didn't see anything come of that. That kind of idea would cost Joe money, and I think you will find enough friends at the firing line who see you not using a short starter, and will want their guns coned, too, that you will get your money out of the reamer in time. I need to order a couple of reamers from him myself.

 

[Packdog]

Joe is a super nice guy and will be more than happy to send you some information and the instructions for coning a barrel. The instructions will show and explain it far better than I can here. In very simple terms you wrap sandpaper around a tapered brass cone. Turn the barrel one way while turning the cone device the other. It will take you anywhere from 1 hour to 2 hours depending on barrel steel and how your arms hold up. In addition to his tool you will need a 1/2 Tap handle, wet/dry sandpaper in several different grits. From 220 through 600 or 800. Carpet tape of spray adhesive. You will need to remove the barrel but it is a very simple process.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

email him at [email protected]

FWIW, that email is wrong. The kit is sold by Joe Woods of the Firelock Shop and you can reach him by email at "flintsteel at[url] cox.net[/url]", substituting an ampersand for the "at" and removing the spaces ... this is prevent email/spam robots from getting his address.

FWIW, here's a brief write-up of the process with pictures, see here.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Thank you Mowery50 for the correction. I read that twice as I typed it, and still typed it wrong! Maybe that's why I am not a secretary. Its nice to know when I make such an obvious mistake that someone like you can come on board and indicate a correction. You are a true friend. I owe you.

 

[Swampman]

"It requires .495 balls to shoot well, although of course it will shoot .490's, it just gets dirty pretty quick and loses accuracy rapidly."

Are you using 3F Goex? For the life of me I can't understand why using a smaller ball would cause is to get dirty faster. Maybe I'm missing something.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Could be a lot of reasons why a gun might foul worse with a looser patch and ball combo. Blowby around the patch, less cleaning of the bore when ramming the loose load, but mostly just that every rifle is an individual.
A .36 cal I've recently put togather seems to foul very heavily in the first (or last) six inches of barrel, that is to say 6" from the muzzle. Once the ball is past that sticky area it goes on down smoothly. Just seems to be a quirk of this barrel, though I recall a similar experience with another .36 many years ago. I expect heavy fouling at the breech, that's where the powder burns and the area below the ball doesn't get cleaned by seating of the next ball. But why the heavy fouling 6' from the muzzle?

 

[ronrryan]

Swampman, when I got the rifle new from Cabin Creek, I began shooting with the same PRB load I had used before in an old caplock gun, 490 ball and 15 patch. First couple shots fine, then accuracy went out the window at 25 yds. Then I cleaned up, everything very dirty. So I called the builder. He said "No, no--use 495 balls. That barrel does not like 490's." So I got 495 balls and have had excellent accuracy and normal cleaning ever since--on that rifle only. My other 50 cal flintlock shoots 490's swell. Not being an expert, I operate on the empirical: if it likes 495's, OK by me. God smoke, ron in fl

 

[ronrryan]

PS, I forget to mention I use 3-F for everytrhing, so I don't think that's the issue. Ron in FL

 

[ronrryan]

Here is an update range report of sorts on 495/490. Today I shot the Cabin Creek rifle in question. I decided to shoot one string of six shots off the bench, using 490 ball and .15 patch, 70 grns 3F, same load as always used with 495's. This will shoot cloverleafs off the bench and indeed offhand if I were always able, have one on the fridge from a whilw back offhand a cloverleaf.The 490 group was miserable, maybe 3 inches square. The cleanup took longer, too. Dont ask me what barrel this is, but whatever it is, it sure knows what it likes to eat. Good smoke, Ron in FL

 

[paulvallandigham]

YOu might try that again, but use a .018 or .020 patch to see if the ball groups better. If you are using pure lead balls, they should be able to bump up and fill the grooves even if you use the small diameter ball. With the thicker patching, you should be able to load the smaller ball easier, yet get similar accuracy to the one you now have to hammer into the muzzle. I like Swampman's practice of using the smaller ball for ease of loading, and make your adjustment with the patch thickness. You might also try using a filler over the powder to provide the seal and protect your ball and patch. Did you look at the patches after firing these .490 balls? They can tell you much.

 

[ronrryan]

Paul, thank you for the suggestion. I will try thicker patches next occasion. I use an overpowder wad below the patched ball on my smoothbore, and groups improve noticably. Good smoke, ron in Fla

 

[catskin]

I am curious, what is the taper per inch on a coned muzzle? Is this something sharp or a real gradual taper like 1 to 3 degrees?

 

[paulvallandigham]

someoone far better with math than I ever will be will have to figure out the degree of taper, but it can't be much more than 3 degrees. The coning usually is 2.5-3 inches deep from the muzzle back, and you are only removing the lands at the muzzle to get to groove diameter to make seating the ball and patch easier. If the groove diameter is .008 " , then you are removing that much material from each side of the lands of the barrel, and then slowly tapering the cone over the next three inches to the point when you are back to the bore diameter( land to land measurement.) A .50 caliber rifle typically has only a .490 groove diameter, which means you are only dealing with .005" on each side of the muzzle when you use a tapered reamer to cone the barrel.Someone can tell us, I am sure what the degree of taper is, if that is done over 3 inches of the barrel.

BTW, we currently use tapered reamers to relieve the Throat of shotguns to get rounder patterns, and to remove some of the recoil from modern cartridge guns. I also did this with my slug barrel, and saw my groups shrink by half at 50 yds. I can shoot off-hand, and have 3 holes touching in the center of the bullseye with my slug barrel. So, all these tips can work with other guns and for other purposes.

 

[Stophel]

I have seen old cones that were about an inch and a half long into the bore. Cones like this are very visible. Others much more in the know than I am say that they often see American rifles with a very gradual cone about 4 or 5 inches down the bore. Now, the GROOVES ARE FILED TO MATCH. The grooves don't simply fade out at the muzzle (at least not where I have seen or heard about), they are flared as is the bore. I have wondered if some sort of swaging tool might have been used to achieve this (without having to do too much filing on the grooves), and then simply clean it up with a taper reamer, but haven't been able to come up with a good answer on exactly how it might have been done yet....

 

[paulvallandigham]

I have seen coned muzzles with the grooves cut to follow the coning, and I have seen coned muzzles where the grooves fade out a half inch or so before the muzzle. I think both were used, just as some used a relatively short taper, like your 1 1/2 inch, vs. the 4-5 inch long taper. I asked my engineering Brother to help me figure out the angle on a tapered reamer that would remove 6 thousands of an inch of material over 3 inches, and he came up with 1/3 of a degree of taper! Of course, that reamer is removing the same amount of metal from both sides of the reamer/barrel, so I suppose the actual taper may be 2/3 of a degree!