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Spence,
Coot basically understood what I meant, but since you did not, then others might not as well. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused. From what I have read on gunsmithing, it would seem to be that “refreshing the rifling” had at least three meanings, depending on what the gunsmith did. So I will break it down into the three categories.
1. The first category is the simplest and it basically would be running the rifling cutter back through the grooves to clean built up crud out of the grooves. I think this is what one of two civilians who did some gunsmithing on the Lewis and Clark journey did, because it would not require a large, purpose built, rifling bench. It would only require a wood rod, the correct cutter and some paper shims to clean out the rifling. The rifling may have been cut a one or a couple thousands deeper to get rid of rust, but that was all. This technique would not enlarge the caliber.
2. The second category of refreshing the rifling would have required more work in case the edges of the lands were either worn down or had turned rough from rusting. This would be corrected by using a slightly wider rifling cutter than had been used the first time. It would have been made so the cutter centered the new rifling cut in the old grooves and then widened them very slightly and perhaps or even probably cut the old grooves a little deeper. I may be mistaken, but I think this technique would have required a rifling bench to ensure the new cutter cut into the old grooves correctly, as more force and controlled direction was required to cut the grooves wider than just clean out old rifling grooves. Again, this technique would not enlarge the caliber.
3. The third category seems to have been still referred to as “refreshing the rifling,” though it was more of a period colloquial expression rather than an accurate technical term. In this case when the rifle owner brought the rifle to the gunsmith for refreshing the rifling, which seems to have been a commonly known maintenance requirement. Then either through the customers description of the difference in the rifle’s performance and any differences in loading or from what the gunsmith found in his examination of the bore, the lands were seen to have been either rusted or worn or both, then the lands had to have been reamed smoothly and as accurately as possible throughout the length of the bore. This reaming would have enlarged the caliber to get the bore of consistent size throughout the barrel, though there would have been a very slight taper in the bore down very slightly from the breech to the smaller diameter at the muzzle, due to the way the period reamers cut the metal in the bore ”“ which was very slightly less metal cut away as it neared the muzzle. At this point, period documentation is uncertain or nonexistent on how it was done and it is one of many questions I intend on posing to the gunsmiths at Colonial Williamsburg on my next visit.
I don’t know if they were able to ream out some of the diameter of the old bore size to get the lands back in shape, but not all the surface of the old lands. This because I have not actually worked with period reamers. I suspect they would have had to ream out most or all of the metal down to or just beyond the bottom of the old rifling grooves, but they may not have needed to ream that much. If they were able to just ream the bore down a bit to clean up the lands along the length of the barrel, then the caliber would not be enlarged as much as if they had to ream the bore so most or all of the original rifling grooves were cut out of the bore in this process. In either case, it would most likely still be seen as “freshening the riffling” by the customer, though in this last case the gunsmith may or would have needed to also cut the customer’s mold larger for the larger size ball required.
There is a further problem in that there really isn’t good period documentation on how often the technique described in (3.) above was required/done over time during the service life of a rifle, so we can only speculate on how much a rifle’s bore was enlarged over the years, done for normal maintenance of the rifle. We also will probably never know if a rifle was originally one size and when it needed freshening, the owner may have deliberately had the gunsmith make the bore larger to better suit his needs. It may/would have been cheaper than buying a whole different rifle.
Now as to the comparison I was trying to make with smooth bore barrels that were rifled by those like the Geddy brothers in Williamsburg, that could skew rifle calibers larger. I know gun barrels were imported finished, some with rifling and some rough bored. However, by 1751 when the Geddy Brothers were advertising their rifling service, there were already “boring mills” in operation in Pennsylvania for at least two decades that made and provided rough bored barrels to gunsmiths to turn into both smooth bore and rifle guns. These PA made barrels were already available in and around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where rifle making went on. Way back east in Williamsburg, there was not much of a rifle culture in eastern Virginia until around the time of the AWI some 20-25 years after the Geddy Brothers advertised their service and many of those riflemen came from the Shenandoah Valley or what is today South West Virginia and further west. (The furthest East and earliest period that I have been able to document a gunsmith who commonly made rifles was in Orange County in the 1760’s and that is two counties west of Fredericksburg, which in turn was a good distance west from Williamsburg.)
Is it possible for the Geddy brothers to have reamed and rifled barrels and supplied bullet molds for gunsmiths who built rifles further west in Virginia? Yes, it is possible, though not very probable as those riflesmiths working further west in Virginia had their own square reamers to ream rough bore barrels, finish reamers and made the bullet molds for the common calibers their customers wanted. IF the Geddy brothers actually rifled any barrels at all, it would seem they rifled smooth bore guns common to their area of Virginia and that may or probably were in the smaller smooth bore calibers of the day. Now, I don’t know what the smallest smooth bore common caliber was in the period, but I know that .62 caliber was a popular smooth bore caliber. So if they rifled a .62 smooth bore barrel, it would have skewed the rifle calibers larger than the more common .52 caliber.
Gus
Coot basically understood what I meant, but since you did not, then others might not as well. Sorry for any confusion I may have caused. From what I have read on gunsmithing, it would seem to be that “refreshing the rifling” had at least three meanings, depending on what the gunsmith did. So I will break it down into the three categories.
1. The first category is the simplest and it basically would be running the rifling cutter back through the grooves to clean built up crud out of the grooves. I think this is what one of two civilians who did some gunsmithing on the Lewis and Clark journey did, because it would not require a large, purpose built, rifling bench. It would only require a wood rod, the correct cutter and some paper shims to clean out the rifling. The rifling may have been cut a one or a couple thousands deeper to get rid of rust, but that was all. This technique would not enlarge the caliber.
2. The second category of refreshing the rifling would have required more work in case the edges of the lands were either worn down or had turned rough from rusting. This would be corrected by using a slightly wider rifling cutter than had been used the first time. It would have been made so the cutter centered the new rifling cut in the old grooves and then widened them very slightly and perhaps or even probably cut the old grooves a little deeper. I may be mistaken, but I think this technique would have required a rifling bench to ensure the new cutter cut into the old grooves correctly, as more force and controlled direction was required to cut the grooves wider than just clean out old rifling grooves. Again, this technique would not enlarge the caliber.
3. The third category seems to have been still referred to as “refreshing the rifling,” though it was more of a period colloquial expression rather than an accurate technical term. In this case when the rifle owner brought the rifle to the gunsmith for refreshing the rifling, which seems to have been a commonly known maintenance requirement. Then either through the customers description of the difference in the rifle’s performance and any differences in loading or from what the gunsmith found in his examination of the bore, the lands were seen to have been either rusted or worn or both, then the lands had to have been reamed smoothly and as accurately as possible throughout the length of the bore. This reaming would have enlarged the caliber to get the bore of consistent size throughout the barrel, though there would have been a very slight taper in the bore down very slightly from the breech to the smaller diameter at the muzzle, due to the way the period reamers cut the metal in the bore ”“ which was very slightly less metal cut away as it neared the muzzle. At this point, period documentation is uncertain or nonexistent on how it was done and it is one of many questions I intend on posing to the gunsmiths at Colonial Williamsburg on my next visit.
I don’t know if they were able to ream out some of the diameter of the old bore size to get the lands back in shape, but not all the surface of the old lands. This because I have not actually worked with period reamers. I suspect they would have had to ream out most or all of the metal down to or just beyond the bottom of the old rifling grooves, but they may not have needed to ream that much. If they were able to just ream the bore down a bit to clean up the lands along the length of the barrel, then the caliber would not be enlarged as much as if they had to ream the bore so most or all of the original rifling grooves were cut out of the bore in this process. In either case, it would most likely still be seen as “freshening the riffling” by the customer, though in this last case the gunsmith may or would have needed to also cut the customer’s mold larger for the larger size ball required.
There is a further problem in that there really isn’t good period documentation on how often the technique described in (3.) above was required/done over time during the service life of a rifle, so we can only speculate on how much a rifle’s bore was enlarged over the years, done for normal maintenance of the rifle. We also will probably never know if a rifle was originally one size and when it needed freshening, the owner may have deliberately had the gunsmith make the bore larger to better suit his needs. It may/would have been cheaper than buying a whole different rifle.
Now as to the comparison I was trying to make with smooth bore barrels that were rifled by those like the Geddy brothers in Williamsburg, that could skew rifle calibers larger. I know gun barrels were imported finished, some with rifling and some rough bored. However, by 1751 when the Geddy Brothers were advertising their rifling service, there were already “boring mills” in operation in Pennsylvania for at least two decades that made and provided rough bored barrels to gunsmiths to turn into both smooth bore and rifle guns. These PA made barrels were already available in and around the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where rifle making went on. Way back east in Williamsburg, there was not much of a rifle culture in eastern Virginia until around the time of the AWI some 20-25 years after the Geddy Brothers advertised their service and many of those riflemen came from the Shenandoah Valley or what is today South West Virginia and further west. (The furthest East and earliest period that I have been able to document a gunsmith who commonly made rifles was in Orange County in the 1760’s and that is two counties west of Fredericksburg, which in turn was a good distance west from Williamsburg.)
Is it possible for the Geddy brothers to have reamed and rifled barrels and supplied bullet molds for gunsmiths who built rifles further west in Virginia? Yes, it is possible, though not very probable as those riflesmiths working further west in Virginia had their own square reamers to ream rough bore barrels, finish reamers and made the bullet molds for the common calibers their customers wanted. IF the Geddy brothers actually rifled any barrels at all, it would seem they rifled smooth bore guns common to their area of Virginia and that may or probably were in the smaller smooth bore calibers of the day. Now, I don’t know what the smallest smooth bore common caliber was in the period, but I know that .62 caliber was a popular smooth bore caliber. So if they rifled a .62 smooth bore barrel, it would have skewed the rifle calibers larger than the more common .52 caliber.
Gus
