Question

[Flintlock58]

Anyone know where to get a smoothbore jug choked in or near Wisconsin?

 

[CoyoteJoe]

It's a simple enough do-it-yourself project. Get a brake cylinder hone from your auto parts store for less than ten bucks and chuck it up in your 1/4" drill. Starting about 1/2" down from the muzzle run the hone from there back and forth about two inches with most time spent in the middle of that 2" range, leaving that 1/2" at the muzzle untouched. Keep it lubed with light oil and stop often to brush the stones clean. Running at 2500 rpm it will take about 1/2 hour to cut a jug which should produce improved cylinder or weak modified patterns. Be careful not to let the hone come out of the bore while spinning, which will destroy stones and could be dangerous. Good luck. :v

 

[roundball]

It's a simple enough do-it-yourself project. Get a brake cylinder hone from your auto parts store for less than ten bucks and chuck it up in your 1/4" drill. Starting about 1/2" down from the muzzle run the hone from there back and forth about two inches with most time spent in the middle of that 2" range, leaving that 1/2" at the muzzle untouched. Keep it lubed with light oil and stop often to brush the stones clean. Running at 2500 rpm it will take about 1/2 hour to cut a jug which should produce improved cylinder or weak modified patterns. Be careful not to let the hone come out of the bore while spinning, which will destroy stones and could be dangerous. Good luck. :v

Joe, I'm surprised an auto parts store would have brake cylinder hones small enough to fit inside a ML bore...what caliber bores have you used this approach in?

What were the % pattern improvements, etc?

Thanks

 

[Okwaho]

If anybody knows it will be Mike Brooks,gunsmith in Davenport,Iowa
mbrooks [email protected]

 

[Black Hand]

Before jug-choking your barrel, have you tried shot cups (commercial or home-made)? This would be an easier way to tighten your pattern without modifying your barrel. Of course, that is assuming that this is your reason for wanting to choke your barrel.

In my trade gun, using pre-measured shot loads wrapped in newspaper, I tightened my pattern considerably at ~25-30 yards.
Black Hand

 

[CoyoteJoe]

RB, the hone I've used has two stones mounted on spring loaded arms attached to a flexible shaft about six inches long. It won't quite enter a .50 caliber bore but works find in .54 or larger.
I just finished a jug in my Jack Garner .56. Haven't patterned that one yet as I have other work to do on it, like a rust blue with Laurel Mt. Forge. Half an hour of actual grinding cut the jug about .006-.008 deep, as near as I could measure by the feel of an inside caliper. Wish I had a more precise way to measure but for the rare occasion I do such work it just ain't worth investing two hundred bucks in a bore mike.
I should add, if your bores are chrome plated like some double shotguns, forget it, you'll wear out stones and never get through the chrome. :shake:

 

[Itegorm]

That sounds like a pretty interesting project. Matbe a trip to the auto parts store is needed in the next couple of days. I even have a couple of 2o gauge cylinder bore barrels laying about. HMMMM.

 

[paulvallandigham]

If you check other posts on jug choke, by using the search mechanism on this site, you will find a phone number for a man who lives near Peoria( 309) area code, that Mike recommends. He has another man in Iowa close to his own home that does his work. Also, check the ads in Muzzle Blasts. I just ran across the comments and phone number in a post when I was seeing what has previously been written on jug chokes, yesterday.

 

[Flintlock58]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!