I recently picked up a used Pedersoli Scout in .45 on a good deal. I like how short and handy it feels & think it will be a perfect backpacking rifle for my backcountry ML hunts.
However, I'm mostly a round ball shooter/hunter and my other rifles are all .50s. So I'm thinking about having it re-bored to .50 to keep everything the same. Plus, I'd be able to redo the twist to something more roundball friendly, like 1:66 instead of the 1:48 it comes with. The barrel measures right around 13/16" or 0.82" when measured across the outer diameter of the octagon. Pedersoli makes the same rifle in .50 so I'm assuming that this is possible. But is that a safe assumption? Does anybody know if a barrel of this size can be safely widened out to .50? Or is it probably stuck as a .45?
And just to head off any ideas about a .45 being perfectly adequate for hunting deer, I don't doubt that at all. But our balls have to be lead free here. So casting my own Bi alloy in .440 would only weigh around 100 grains -- kind of light, I'd say. I could go conical but, again, I much prefer to keep it to round ball & have all my rifles match.
However, I'm mostly a round ball shooter/hunter and my other rifles are all .50s. So I'm thinking about having it re-bored to .50 to keep everything the same. Plus, I'd be able to redo the twist to something more roundball friendly, like 1:66 instead of the 1:48 it comes with. The barrel measures right around 13/16" or 0.82" when measured across the outer diameter of the octagon. Pedersoli makes the same rifle in .50 so I'm assuming that this is possible. But is that a safe assumption? Does anybody know if a barrel of this size can be safely widened out to .50? Or is it probably stuck as a .45?
And just to head off any ideas about a .45 being perfectly adequate for hunting deer, I don't doubt that at all. But our balls have to be lead free here. So casting my own Bi alloy in .440 would only weigh around 100 grains -- kind of light, I'd say. I could go conical but, again, I much prefer to keep it to round ball & have all my rifles match.
