Heavy barrel

[streetsniper]

Recently aquired a 44" .50 cal barrel. Picking it up it seemed more like a barbell. It's a straight octagon barrel. Is it prudent to drawfile to a swamped profile, or just deal with it and hope there's a stout branch when I draw a bead on a deer. Was thinking I could make a Lancaster style out of it or maybe a trade rifle. Not sure yet. Got wood, got barrel and time.

 

[Vaino]

What's the outside dimension across the bbl flats? My squirrel rifle has a 7/8" straight bbl by 42" lg in .45 cal. It holds well, although slightly muzzle heavy.....Fred

 

[44-henry]

Some people do it, it's a lot of work and I suppose you run the risk of the barrel bending as stresses are released in the steel. You also want to make sure you don't remove too much material from the barrel, but I suppose if you stayed within the dimensions given by companies that sell swamped barrels you would be alright. Most antique rifles didn't have that much swamp in them to begin with. If you have the time and energy go for it.

 

[streetsniper]

The barrel is 1" across the flats. Even a taper would be good. But I'd rather not ruin a good barrel. If it's not wise to alter without great expense I'll learn to live with it. Thanx for the responses. Billy

 

[Zonie]

Just glancing at Green Mountains 44 inch swamped barrel I see that the middle area of their 1 inch breeched barrel is .718. Thats a reduction of .141 per side.

Of course I don't have any real numbers for the amount of stock a good new file will remove per stroke but I doubt that it is even .001 per pass.

If it were .001 per pass then it would take 141 passes to remove the material in the center area of the barrel. That is for one flat so really it would take 8 times that number for the whole barrel. That would be about 1,128 strokes (and several new files to replace the worn out ones).

Then there is the problem of keeping everything square so that the flats are even. :hmm:

I don't know about you guys but that definitely sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me. :shocked2:

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

You can check it on a bathroom scale, but that barrel probably weighs over seven pounds. It would make a good target or chunk gun type rifle but it will make for a very heavy hunting rifle.
Just for comparison, a 44" swamped barrel in .50 caliber would weigh 4 pounds. And balance like a dream.

 

[William Joy]

find somebody with a milling machine and rotary index table ( machine shop).....

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

You could always cut it back to 34" or 36" and make an authentic Plains rifle or Hawken, it will balance very nice and hang well on target. I have a 7/8" x 42" 45 cal. and that is what I have planned for it.

Just a thought.

 

[Mike Brooks]

I used to shoot a 1" X .50 X 38" "Hawken" rifle. It was a little heavy, but it held on target well. Your 44" barreled gun would be a pain in the butt to carry around because of the weight, but the actual shooting of it would work out well......unless you have a bad back! :haha:

 

[BadHorse]

You can check it on a bathroom scale, but that barrel probably weighs over seven pounds. It would make a good target or chunk gun type rifle but it will make for a very heavy hunting rifle.
Just for comparison, a 44" swamped barrel in .50 caliber would weigh 4 pounds. And balance like a dream.

this is true! i have a .54 cal 44" swmamped and it light and well balanced

 

[roundball]

Could make a nice .58 or .62cal out of it...