ML rifle into a Smooth bore

[RetiredMedic]

Has anyone tried to make a .50 cal ML rifle into a smooth bore..

I have a older T/C Renegade in .50 cal..
I was thinking of having the rifling lathed off and making it a shotgun smooth bore in 20 ga..

Any advice and would it be safe to do........

Have been given Yes and No's on the subject..

 

[Rebel]

Yes it could be done but why? The cost would be more than you could find a used .56 cal T/C smoothbore or a Traditions .50 cal smoothbore Frontier rifle. And you wind up with a gun that would be hard to find wads for and essentially about the same as a .410.

 

[54mountain]

I've done it with a .50 cal t/c barrel brought it out to .59cal or 24ga rounded the barrel to lighten it up and set a bead on the muzzle. It shoots great but I agree with Rebel if you don't have the stuff to do it yourself the cost would be prohibitive.

 

[RetiredMedic]

Thanks for the quick response..

Cost would not be a factor, I have a friend that owns a machine shop.
I will making my own wads to fit also.

Looking at the bore dimension chart, a true 20 ga is .615 size.. Which means he will be taking .115 of metal off..
My only concern is barrel pressure.

 

[snagg]

I could very well be wrong, but I believe that taking a .50 cal out to a 20 gauge would be stretching the limits of safety. It seems I read somewhere that 24 gauge is the max on a .50 cal.

snagg

 

[rice1817]

Assuming that your Renegade was built on the 1" barrel (Hawkens were 15/16), your remaining barrel wall would be .1925. If you leave the reduced diameter chamber alone, and just bore out the barrel, .1925 should be OK in theory. A 40 caliber 13/16 barrek has .1983 barrel wall thickness. And barrel pin tennons are inlet into that reducing the "meat" of the barrel even more.
That being said, my concern would be the area where the wedge lugs are inletted into the barrel. Remember, the lugs were inlet to a safe depth when there was plenty of steel around that 50 caliber hole. I would check the depth of the inlet there and subtract that from the barrel wall thickness to see if there is enough barrel left to give you a safety factor.

 

[Slamfire]

Well, TC did that with their Smoothbore Renegade. It was necessitated by the Mass. shotguns only law, at the time. I believe they reamed the rifling out of .50 caliber barrels and ended up with a .56. Some folks say it was a .54, but that wouldn't clean up the rifling, even the shallow grooves TC uses. .56 is close enough to be called a 28 gauge, at least the wads and cards fit my barrel just fine. :v

 

[54mountain]

I stopped boring at 19/32 or .593 mainly because my 15/16 barrel had a 5/8 breechplug and thats as far as I could go without cuttin' into the barrel threads.

 

[roundball]

I have a older T/C Renegade in .50 cal..
I was thinking of having the rifling lathed off and making it a shotgun smooth bore in 20 ga..

That's a 1" barrel...GM makes .62cal(.20ga) smoothbore "drop-in" barrels for the Renegade & Hawken using 1" barrels bored out to .610" bore diameter...I have a couple GM .20ga in 1" barrels.

My suggestion would be to call Ed Rayl in Gassaway, West VA. and ask him what he'd change to do it...a .20ga would be far more versatile than a .56cal smoothbore.

 

[MSW]

i looked into putting a 20 guage on my Renegade before my paycheck dropped off the ends of the earth- Green Mountain sells them for a tad over two hundred bucks, which is a boatload less than you could do yourself, if you count the tennons, sights, breechplug, touch hole liner and so forth. (not counting the 'fair market' value of your time)

i would suspect that that's a good way to go.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

While it may well be safe, if done by someone who knows how, would it be practical? A rifle just is not a good base on which to build a shotgun. The stock shape of a Renegade was set up to be a rifle with very high sights. If you just pull off the rear sight and try to force your face down the line of the naked barrel I think you will find that nearly impossible. I actually have to force my cheek very tightly to the stock even with the very tall sights in place. Then you have the double-set triggers and hooked trigger guard which really don't belong on a shotgun and neither does a straight octagon barrel. I think you'd end up with neither fish nor foul, neither rifle nor shotgun. :shake:

 

[Slamfire]

I took off the TC sights that came on my Renegade and put another sight that fit the dovetail at the front. It was pretty tall and the gun shot 530 round balls really low. I've filed the sight down to about half of what it was, and may soon get a chance to try it out, as it looks as if I'll be able to stop splittin' firewood in a week or two. :applause: