Used and Abused

[Cat Dr]

I scored a used Hawken 50 Italian manufacture for $50 at deer from a friend. It shot well enough to take a cull buck at 40 yards but the bore was a bit dirty. After a good cleaning the bore is pitted the rifling is faint and completely gone at the muzzle. The wood is very nice with brass hardware.
What to do? Send it on down the road?
Rebore it to 54? New barrel? Shoot it like it is?

Pat

 

[BillinOregon]

Clean it again, It may simply have shallow rifling for conicals. You can also have the rifle counterbored a couple of inches if that will get you to the good rifling. Depends on how it shoots.

 

[longcruise]

A new barrel would probaly end up being less expensive and more practical than reboring the old one. Guess it depends on the quality of the rest of the gun. Does it warrant any expense? A barrel might run you 180 to 200. For another 100 or so you can buy a new rifle.

OTOH, having the old reamed to a smoothbore and adding a new rifled barrel would give you a dual purpose firearm.

 

[Dphar]

I scored a used Hawken 50 Italian manufacture for $50 at deer from a friend. It shot well enough to take a cull buck at 40 yards but the bore was a bit dirty. After a good cleaning the bore is pitted the rifling is faint and completely gone at the muzzle. The wood is very nice with brass hardware.
What to do? Send it on down the road?
Rebore it to 54? New barrel? Shoot it like it is?

Pat

If its pitted its junk. Replace the barrel.
it will foul like mad with BP and the corrosive substitutes will keep working on the pits.
Dan

 

[rafterob]

With enough research my guess is you could find a new replacement barrel -Italian made for closer to $100. I bought a brand new Mountain Rifle barrel-US made for $110.Replaced a Traditions barrel for $115-new. Give us some manufacture names, serial numbers, etc.. and someone can probably lead you to a source.The 180-200 cost estimate is closer to a "premium" US made barrel.I concur that the one you have is probably junk and should be replaced.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Talk to Bobby Hoyt at 717 642-6696 and see if he is willing to do a .54 caliber re-bore. If he'll do it, it will be under 100 bucks with shipping included. That's by far the least expensive way to restore your rifle to practical use.

 

[longcruise]

The 180-200 cost estimate is closer to a "premium" US made barrel.

I was thinking more middle of the road like a Green Mountain at that price. If they make a drop in it will cost in that range. If not, the barrel alone will cost about 100 to 110, plus breeching, plus under lugs, plus underrib if needed plus finishing. Probably would go over 200.

 

[ozark57]

The barrel may clean up better than you think. Get a brush and put plenty of solvent in the bbl. and realy give it a scrubing. If you have a solvent tank available soak it overnight after you first go with the brush. Run a patch every so often to clean out what breaks loose. After you get clean patches wrap the first brush that you used with 3-000 steel wool and polish. I put the bbl. in a vise to do this so I can really get with it ( wrap the bbl. with a piece of leather)
This may take 30 minutes of hard scrubing and 2 or more brushes to do.
You may be surprised at how good it will turn out. With a patched round ball some pitting seems to not hurt accuracy much or at all.
Shoot it before you right it off as junk! :thumbsup:

 

[Rogue River]

Do as ozark57 advises and shoot it, clean it and shoot it some more. I bought a rifle online and the barrel was trash when I got it, I almost tossed it. I cleaned and brushed it and then I started shooting it and the more I shot and cleaned it the better it got. It has some pitting but it is getting bright and shiney and it is pretty accurate!

 

[cowpoke1955]

Dang Joe, I knew I heard that before. Maybe you could add that to some list here so others can find it :thumbsup:

 

[hrchotaw]

I just got a barrel for my lyman trade rifle in 54 cal from midsouth shooters supply for $95. and change. They also have a 50 caliber barrel which should fit right on your gun for the same price. It will fit your gun because I put my 50 barrel on
a $30. investarms hawken with a bad bore.Thats a hard price to beat, as I tried everything to clean up the hawkens original barrel!The chrome bore had rust pits in it and just couldn't be cleaned up!

 

[Mulebrain]

Used Hawken of Italian manufacture. Got any pics, just curious of what make and model it is?

There may be replacement barrels for it!

 

[hrchotaw]

I should of added in my post yesterday to make sure your guns lockplate is inleted for the barrel to set down all the way! my cabelas hawken is,but my sons investarms isn't! Otherwise it would require a little filing on the lockplate. Just thought I'd let you know, as my son came over to shoot yesterday and we discovered this!

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Dang Joe, I knew I heard that before. Maybe you could add that to some list here so others can find it :thumbsup:

To do that would far exceed my level of technological expertise! :haha:
Maybe Claude could come to our aid here. :bow:

The problem with the "get a new barrel" replies is you first have to know exactly which rifle you have before you order something that may well not fit. By getting your old barrel rebored you know it will fit.

 

[nkbj]

Check all the threaded holes and dovetails depths to see how much barrel wall you have left. Then you would know how much larger it could be rebored. Another consideration is how much metal to metal engagement there is on the percussion drum to the barrel.
By past experience if you look around at providers it'll probably turn out that reboring isn't all that expensive. And, you can pretty much have whatever you want instead of what's on the shelf.

 

[CoyoteJoe]

Correct. Bobby Hoyt told me he hates to rebore T/C Hawken barrels because they have that excessively deep dovetail cut for the underlug, lots of deep screw holes plus the bore isn't always straight and centered to the outside. He said he has ruined several by running into a screw hole or the dovetail cut. Then the owner expects him to replace their barrel, refusing to believe it was T/C's fault. He had no problem in reboring my T/C New Englander barrel to .58 caliber, but I had measured the depth of all screw holes and dovetails and sent that information along with the barrel to reassure him.

 

[bdhutier]

I'd shoot & clean a few more times, and see what happens. I just bought a used deerhunter a few weeks ago for my oldest son. The bore was rusty and pitted, but I figured for an 8 year old, and $50, we'd give it a shot.

I cleaned the heck out of it, and couldn't get all the rust out, but one trip to the range sure did. Now the bore's bright, the pits are very faint, and it shoot plenty straight for him. Give it a shot!

 

[redwing]

I picked up a J. Browning some years ago. The old JBMR looked real bad down the bore,very rough. I had time to kill between shoots a Raton so I cleaned the gun over a couple of days. I used alot of Hydrogen Peroxide down the bore. There were big chunks of lead in the bore. Anyway after deleading the rifle it had a perfect bore under all that metal. You never know. :hmm: