New Lyman .54cal possible crown issue...

[Crewdawg445]

Good morning folks, been prowling the site and the Web for a good source of information from other smoke pole lovers. This site seems to have it all! My first post and question regards a recent purchase, less than 72 hours ago in respect to a Lyman .54cal deerstalker rifle. Rifles sole purpose is for use in our gun season here in Ohio, I love my lock rocks but decided to try my hand at a cap lock dedicated to hunting only. Enough of that, once I took ownership from the FedEx man, I was rather impressed with the rifles build and finish quality until... I looked at the muzzle. First good look indicated a horribly uneven crown, looks as if the machine decided to take a nap after rifling. Since I've never experienced this problem would this be a cause for concern? I certainly do not want to shoot this being a new rifle, unfortunately only way to test accuracy would be to do that. What do you folks think? Contact Lyman or Dixon? Or shouldn't worry? Thanks guys!

 

I don't understand your concern or why you don't want to fire the rifle?

 

[Katahdin]

Load it up and go for it.. The Crown isn't in contact with the ball when it exits the rifling...
I don't make it any more "rocket surgery" than it has to be,,I just try it ,, if it doesn't work ,, I either figure it out or move on!!!! Enjoy and welcome to the site,,good fellas here ,, for the most part ,,, ha ha ha ha ha

 

[mooman76]

Maybe it's the picture but I'm not seeing it either. Shoot and enjoy. Should be fine but if it doesn't shoot, then I'd contact them.

 

[gwalker]

Well, I see it and it appears to be some poor machinist work. I agree with the others that you should take it out and shoot it to see how it groups, recognizing that a new rifle/barrel is not going to group as tight as you'd like until it is 'broken-in.' That usually takes about a hundred balls. If it appears to group nicely, you should be ok to use it as is. But, every time you load that rifle that crown and muzzle will be staring you right in the face. Before contacting the company/manufacture, shooting the rifle now will help you see any other deficiencies that you may want them to take care of.

Did you put a carpenters square against the barrel flats and muzzle to see if it is cut square at a 90 degrees angle? A good gunsmith with a lathe can easily square up the muzzle for you and put on a new crown, with little material removed. I've done it by hand and its not difficult but time consuming. Dixon's, 'The Art of Building the Pennsylvania Longrifle' gives very good instructions on how to do it by hand. He also describes a way to shorten the break-in period by using steel wool on the end of a ramrod. Your confidence in the rifle will be much higher after such a treatment and you won't have to look at that muzzle every time you load the rifle.

If you do decide to fix up that muzzle and crown and wouldn't mind, please post photos so that we can see before and after affects.

 

[longcruise]

That crown is typical of the Italian and Spanish made guns. It can and probably will cause problems. Not when the ball exits the muzzle, but when it is started.

some will tell you to "shoot it in", but you probably won't live long enough or have a bank balance sufficient to wear it in by loading it :haha:

 

[Crewdawg445]

You guys are great! I absolutely agree that shooting the rifle is certainly the best option. I have no problem with range time! The lands and grooves exiting the bore are completely square and sharp so indeed besides poor machining, all my be well. Just a disappointment that unfortunately in today's mass production world your hard earned dollar suffers as does product quality.

 

[MacRob46]

You guys are great! I absolutely agree that shooting the rifle is certainly the best option. I have no problem with range time! The lands and grooves exiting the bore are completely square and sharp so indeed besides poor machining, all my be well. Just a disappointment that unfortunately in today's mass production world your hard earned dollar suffers as does product quality.

As has always been the case, one gets what one pays for. Unfortunately, in most cases involving guns, inexpensive usually means lower quality. I know from bitter experience.

 

[Crewdawg445]

Quality of the gun for the price paid is great. Lyman seems to be one of the best when buying production guns... However, I just came across a used T/C renegade in .50 cal that I just snagged for $240.00! Very excited as the rifle is gorgeous all around and appears to have been un-fired. I'll post pics asap! Lord help the addiction...

 

[Crewdawg445]

Pictures as promised!

 

[longcruise]

Dude!! You scored!

 

[Crewdawg445]

Thank you! About screamed when I grabbed it! Couldn't make it to the register fast enough, when the tagged said $240.00 then I REALLY couldn't pay fast enough! Wood is perfect, metal is 100% with a pristine bore. Very happy... Just don't tell the wife.

 

[Zonie]

The only thing I see that is wrong with the muzzle crown is as you said,
"The lands and grooves exiting the bore are completely square and sharp so indeed besides poor machining, all my be well."

All is not "well".

Those razor sharp corners on the rifling grooves and the edges of the bore will likely cut any cloth patch during loading.

The best way to solve this problem is to buy a sheet of black wet/dry silicone carbide sandpaper. Get the 320 or 400 grit.

Tare a 1" X 1" piece off and use your thumb to push it down into the bore.
Then, rotate your hand/thumb back and forth while you slowly rotate the barrel.

Change the sandpaper often and in almost no time, all of the sharp edges will be dulled and slightly rounded off.

Once done, patch cutting during loading will never haunt you.

The only other thing I will mention is all of the guns Lyman sells come with a hard to remove coating in the bore. It is there to keep rust away.
Several applications of acetone, lacquer thinner or disk brake cleaner on a patched cleaning jag will remove it.

 

[Crewdawg445]

Thanks for posting that good advice! Funny thing is, I actually just did that this morning! Along with taking some 0000 steel wool down the bore on a worn out brush to remove any leftover burr's. It's actually amazing the difference in sound and resistance you'll get after a few passes with a steel wool wrapped brush. Everything cleaned up nice, but unfortunately no range time today, and it's beautiful here in western OH today...

 

[jatuttle]

I have "dressed" several crowns on rifles using an appropriate size round head slotted brass bolt, valve grinding compound, and a cordless drill on low speed. Just apply some compound to the bolt head, chuck the threaded end in the drill, and slowly rotate the spinning head in the recessed crown for a bit and check occasionally to see progress. It will smooth out nicks. Finish with a green scotchbrite pad. Re-bluing should be simple if desired. This has cleaned up several for me.

 

[Billnpatti]

Lyman makes a good gun at a reasonable price. But, as you have seen, you often need to do a bit of finishing. You can use either Zonie's or jatuttle's method of polishing the muzzle crown. I favor Zonie's method over jatuttle's method because you are less likely to over do the polishing. But, both will work, just go slowly and carefully with jatuttle's method. Then use some Scotchbrite on an undersized jag to smooth out the bore. You can use some soapy water to lubricate your Scotchbrite patches. When you do this, be sure to use full length strokes so that you evenly polish the whole bore and not just spots as you might if you use short strokes. Change your Scotchbrite patch frequently to maximize your polishing efficiency. It will take a minimum of 100 full length strokes to polish your bore. After 100 strokes, wipe out your bore with a clean patch and then run an oiled patch down the bore carefully feeling the smoothness of the bore as you go. If it feels nice and smooth with no feeling of the edges of he rifling catching on or cutting the patch, you are done and ready for the range. If it is anything other than smooth as a baby's butt, you will need to go at it again with another series of Scotchbrite patches until you achieve a baby butt smooth bore. Rinse out your bore with clear water and thoroughly dry with a series of dry patches. I like to spray some WD-40 down my freshly cleaned bore to remove the final traces of moisture and then I thoroughly wipe out all of the WD-40. It has absorbed any moisture that was lurking in your bore and needs to be removed. Then run a patch with something like Barricade on it down your bore to protect it from rust.

 

[Crewdawg445]

Very good idea, I've heard of many using that method. I recently found someone describing the use of a glass marble coated in lapping compound. Apparently this is an old school method that was used back in the day. Can anyone clarify this? Sounds easy enough, but I was curious as to the consistency of it being completely spherical.

 

[Billnpatti]

I, too, have heard of using a marble or a ball bearing with the valve lapping compound on it. Just use the palm of your hand to roll the marble or ball bearing around. Be sure to roll the marble or ball bearing in circles so that you evenly polish your muzzle.

 

[garra]

I would contact Lyman as this cannot be repared properly without the use of a lathe and proper crowning bit. It seems to me that if you mess with it you would void any recourse for their error.
An offset crown could effect accuracy as when the gas escapes and the crown is offset the unequal pressure from the offset crown could push your projectile off course.
It's one thing to polish an existing crown that was done correctly, but repairing an offset one requires alignment to the bore.

 

[Crewdawg445]

I'm going give it a good range session first and see what the groupings say. I honestly have no intention of using this rifle beyond 50 yard's. To be realistic, it probably will never reach out to 50 in a hunting environment due to our dense wooden cover which makes getting a shot like that rare. Giving it a closer look over, I'm going to assume that concave area at the muzzle is used to aid in loading and probably doesn't effect accuracy to much, like say a flat faced crown on a match rifle or a 11 degree target crown. Come to think of it... awhile back I modified a Marlin XT heavy barrel rifle that had a similar issue. Took her out and even with an uneven crown it shot under 1 MOA at 100 yards. In conclusion I'd say I better just get it out and shoot!