recrowning help

[Rifleman1776]

From those who have experience doing this, please.
What is the best way to recrown the muzzle on a well used ml rifle?

 

[LRB]

The BEST way is a lathe, but you could try a large round headed bolt and fine grinding compound followed by wet & dry sand paper on a bolt, unless it is really bad. If you have access to a large enough ball file and a hand drill, that will do better. Just don't hurry the job.

 

[Swamp Rat]

Best ways are different for differnet people depending on eqpt. Larry potter field has videos on You tube doing a couple. I used a 11" disk sander and plan on coning. There is a coning post on here that was well written.

 

[galamb]

Here's a quick cheap method - mostly described in some of the posts here.

 

[Rifleman1776]

The BEST way is a lathe, but you could try a large round headed bolt and fine grinding compound followed by wet & dry sand paper on a bolt, unless it is really bad. If you have access to a large enough ball file and a hand drill, that will do better. Just don't hurry the job.

No lathe. I have the drill and round file and round stones. But wouldn't the file be very coarse? I'm thinking of a brass round head screw and compound.

 

[LRB]

Depends on how much metal needs to go. I have a couple of ball files that cut very smooth, but have to be turned slow or they can chatter.

 

[Birddog6]

Go to the flea market & or NAPA to the welding stuff & buy a couple of their big cone bullet shaped blue grinding stones & chuck it in a drill & grind a crown in it. I have done several dozen of them & never one time had an issue with any of them. When you are done, piece of 220 Wet/Dry black autobody paper on your thumb & hold paper with pressure on the cone & rotate the barrel back & forth & slick it up. Works great.

Keith Lisle

 

[Zonie]

I prefer to use a tapered grinding bit to produce the crown on a muzzleloader.
Something like what is shown in this link
http://www.sourcingmap.com/grindin...gn=usfroogle&gclid=CJz0ofHc27wCFc5hfgodLzUA9A

A spherical stone/bit will leave a razor sharp edge where the bore and rifling meets the concave cavity and this IMO is no better than leaving the face of the muzzle flat.
Either shape will need to have the sharp edge removed if a patched ball is going to be loaded.

Using a tapered stone a tapered enlargement is created that helps in guiding and compressing the balls patch into the bore and I feel this greatly reduces the possibility of the patch being torn.

Although these tapered grinding bits are made to be used in power equipment I would never try to use it that way.
The slightest bit of sideways pressure would remove more material on one side of the bore than the other resulting in a poor shooting barrel.


Rather than using power equipment, I use my fingers to rotate the bit while keeping the shank parallel with the center of the bore.
The bore guides and centers the bit while this is being done.

After a sufficient amount of barrel material has been removed to compress a thick patch (.020-.030 per side) I still need to use wet/dry sandpaper to round off and blend the sharp edges left by the bit both in the bore and on the face of the muzzle.
To do this I tear a 1" X 1" piece and press it down into the bore with my thumb. Then by rotating my hand/thumb back and forth as I slowly rotate the barrel, all of the sharp edges are removed and the resulting radius is polished.

Notice, I always let the bore and muzzle face do the guiding of both the grinding bit and the wet/dry sandpaper to prevent uneven removal of the metal.