Well I got the Smoothbore, but now...

[Britsmoothy]

Excellent. Much appreciated and I will give it a shot. You know, the muzzle does look a little thicker on one side, but I figured it was my eye sight/glasses throwing it off. Maybe this will finally give me the fix I needed. Makes sense too, because if looking down the bore it's appears thicker at the muzzle where current POI is, so if filing a muzzle is like adjusting a front sight, then that means this will work.

EDIT: I do want to make sure, this will work for round ball correct?

For legal reasons I could not possibly comment on its effect on roundball. I live on a land governed with funny laws!
Give it a shot. It's no big deal. But do sprinkle the blood of a day old chick on it first .

What you say is correct and I never thought of it before but yes, the direction you would adjust a frontsight to is the same side you need to vent earlier.
Don't remove mor than say .040" at a time without testing.

 

[Travis186]

For legal reasons I could not possibly comment on its effect on roundball. I live on a land governed with funny laws!
Give it a shot. It's no big deal. But do sprinkle the blood of a day old chick on it first .

What you say is correct and I never thought of it before but yes, the direction you would adjust a frontsight to is the same side you need to vent earlier.
Don't remove mor than say .040" at a time without testing.

Ha! Understood.

Hopefully the information posted here and lessons learned will help many for years to come, including myself. If not, well there will be a dandy Fusil De Chasse that is a shotgun only for sale after Texas deer season.

I will report back soon. Might go to the range tomorrow.

 

[stephenprops1]

Bending a barrel seems so wrong to me. I guess, if you know what you are doing it might be OK. If you don't do it right, you could ruin the barrel and maybe make it dangerous to shoot. --- Just my honest opinion.

 

[cornstalk]

If I may make a suggestion. Before unsoldering the sight, or bending the barrel again, or filing on the muzzle, let someone else (who is a decent black powder marksman) fire a half dozen shots and see if they experience the same points of impact as you.

 

[DuncNZ]

If you bend a barrel to either side to sight it in then it will only shoot center of aim at that distance .At all other distances it will be off and you will have to compensate for both windage and elevation even when there is no wind .

 

[Britsmoothy]

If I may make a suggestion. Before unsoldering the sight, or bending the barrel again, or filing on the muzzle, let someone else (who is a decent black powder marksman) fire a half dozen shots and see if they experience the same points of impact as you.

Why? He has to shoot it no?
Pray for courage and grasp ye file of joy. Fear not the dark valley of the unknown. Boldly thrust forward thy spirit and emerge triumphant.

 

[Travis186]

If I may make a suggestion. Before unsoldering the sight, or bending the barrel again, or filing on the muzzle, let someone else (who is a decent black powder marksman) fire a half dozen shots and see if they experience the same points of impact as you.

I appreciate the suggestion, but the gun shoots fine and has an experienced BP shooter behind the trigger. I can hold a group size equivalent at 25 yards of the 9 ring on an NRA TQ-4 Target, and the 8 ring at 50 yards. There is how ever, no sight picture that will bring the POI in. If you'll recall from my Kibler 58 thread asking about technique or barrel harmonics, windage was never an issue which would suggest trigger pull or technique. I also don't have anyone else to get behind the gun.

If you bend a barrel to either side to sight it in then it will only shoot center of aim at that distance .At all other distances it will be off and you will have to compensate for both windage and elevation even when there is no wind .

After the first bend it was shooting well at 25 and 50 yards until it moved back. I can see how this would be though.

Why? He has to shoot it no?
Pray for courage and grasp ye file of joy. Fear not the dark valley of the unknown. Boldly thrust forward thy spirit and emerge triumphant.

In smooth mill bastard file we trust.



Thought I'd make it to the range today but I wont. Maybe in a few weeks.

 

[Brokennock]

If you bend a barrel to either side to sight it in then it will only shoot center of aim at that distance .At all other distances it will be off and you will have to compensate for both windage and elevation even when there is no wind .

Yes. I had this exact problem with a muzzleloading rifle that I bought used, not knowing the barrel was bent. Of it shot center for windage at 25 yards or was off to the right at 50. If I centered the sights for 50, it was off at 25.

 

[Rudyard]

All very interesting I had never given thought to barrel bending other than obvious old damage .But a gentleman who had bought an' In the white' trade gun from North Star was seemingly unhappy with its POI .He had Willis Boitnot solder a taller front sight but that made it worse , But knowing I was into such guns he kept whittling about bending the barrel. I told him it can be done but needed a bench & cramps ect , But he kept whittling I was talking to Gerry Flynn on the Primitive range at F 'ship the musket owner kept on whittling so Gerry says to me " You don't understand he wants it Now" Then saying" Excuse me " took the gun put it between a forked tree gave it a yank & handed it back & continued our conversation .I was Gob Smacked but the Whittler wandered off seemingly content. I later learned it had kinked the barrel but presumably the owner was happy .I got to know him well later on so found out about the kink.
Rudyard

 

[megasupermagnum]

If you bend a barrel to either side to sight it in then it will only shoot center of aim at that distance .At all other distances it will be off and you will have to compensate for both windage and elevation even when there is no wind .

No you wont. Bending the barrel will send the ball out straight. It would be no different than Britsmoothy's muzzle method. It will hit in line at every distance, and elevation will not be effected unless you bend it that that way.

I've never tried to bend a barrel on a full stocked muzzleloader. It's going to be slow having to drive the pins out every time to make adjustments. I've bent barrels on modern shotguns. It is scary, but once you do it, you will realize it is amazingly simple you'll wonder why you didn't do it months or years ago.

 

[Britsmoothy]

The thing with bending a barrel is that if the desired amount of adjustment is but a couple of inches then the bending only needs to be slight, barely noticeable.
It's when like the OP it's several inches. To dial that amount of windage out via bending, it gets ugly.
Up or down adjustment is not as ugly but can be.

 

[DuncNZ]

Bending the barrel to straighten it is one thing , the old barrel makers often bent barrels straight or if you like straightened bent barrels , whacked them with a lead hammer or somesuch . Bending a straight barrel to move the front sight is another thing .

 

[Toklo Etee]

Guys.......I see this thread is still alive & kicking. I just don't get all the hand wringing over flexing a barrel to move the point of ball impact. It seems some of you would rather try and compensate if the gun is shooting right by aiming to the left or modifying the way you sight down the gun.

We are talking about moving the barrel a few thousands of an inch to move the POI.....A standard piece of notebook paper measures .004". Most people can not visually see a difference of .012" and that is the type measurements discussed. I can not look down either of my barrels and see any type of "kink" or deformation but they shoot where I place the front blade.
I think too many people envision the forked tree being used historically by Indians to get their guns to shoot to point of aim and freak out about the idea that the barrel of their gun will look like a snake.

To each his own but I refuse to own a gun that will not shoot point of aim. I think the Older method is just so foreign to alot of folks and that combined with horror stories of the wrong application.
As the the gentleman said Earlier......
If Mr. Getz , a master barrel maker would flex a barrel to change the POI.....
It is not some absolute that the barrel should never be touched.

David

 

[smo]

It only took removing my barrel two times too move the point of impact up 5” and too the right 2”….
The Club has a jig made too do this….
It was missing , so back too the forked tree ..

The “pucker factor “ was there, but soon went away when that .648 ball hit where I was looking instead of low and left.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Guys.......I see this thread is still alive & kicking. I just don't get all the hand wringing over flexing a barrel to move the point of ball impact. It seems some of you would rather try and compensate if the gun is shooting right by aiming to the left or modifying the way you sight down the gun.

We are talking about moving the barrel a few thousands of an inch to move the POI.....A standard piece of notebook paper measures .004". Most people can not visually see a difference of .012" and that is the type measurements discussed. I can not look down either of my barrels and see any type of "kink" or deformation but they shoot where I place the front blade.
I think too many people envision the forked tree being used historically by Indians to get their guns to shoot to point of aim and freak out about the idea that the barrel of their gun will look like a snake.

To each his own but I refuse to own a gun that will not shoot point of aim. I think the Older method is just so foreign to alot of folks and that combined with horror stories of the wrong application.
As the the gentleman said Earlier......
If Mr. Getz , a master barrel maker would flex a barrel to change the POI.....
It is not some absolute that the barrel should never be touched.

David

How many inches were you needing?

 

[Britsmoothy]

It only took removing my barrel two times too move the point of impact up 5” and too the right 2”….
The Club has a jig made too do this….
It was missing , so back too the forked tree ..

The “pucker factor “ was there, but soon went away when that .648 ball hit where I was looking instead of low and left.

Up or down is not as big a deal as shifting it right or left 5".

A 2" shift at under 50yds would need a very slight bend that it may not be noticeable but 7" would require enough bend so as to make the gun look ugly.

As for barrel manufacturers bending barrels, it IS NOT done to treat a symptom. It is done to straighten them!

 

[Britsmoothy]

So to recap.
The OP was shooting right by 6 plus inch @ 25yds.
So at 100yds theoretically that would grow to 24 plus inches.
So in theory the barrel needs 25 minutes of angle adjustment.
Bow I ain't no mathematician but I reckons that is alot of bending to achieve! No?

 

[Rató:rats]

From “Trade Your Furs Or Die; Translations of the Writings of Pierre Espirit Radisson” page 220
“I ordered him to go with another Frenchmen to where our Native allies were smoking fresh stag meat to ask if they would bring some to us. On the way over he fell on his gun, bending the barrel and rendering it useless. So he straightened it. After he arrived to meet our native allies he fired some blanks from his gun to test it.”
This happened on the Hayes River in 1684.

Just don’t overdo it or you might end up like this guy

 

[#BPBReloadingFFL]

It's you your not griping the stock correctly-maybe to tight anticipating the shot seeing all 3 are in the same quadrant of the target. Back off on your grip -thumb pressure and take your time squeezing the shot off. Also make sure you are sitting square and back erect. None of that bent over looking out the top of your eye stuff over the barrel.

You paid good $$$ for a smoothie the barrel is suppose to be straight!!
#blackpowderbill

 

[Britsmoothy]

From “Trade Your Furs Or Die; Translations of the Writings of Pierre Espirit Radisson” page 220
“I ordered him to go with another Frenchmen to where our Native allies were smoking fresh stag meat to ask if they would bring some to us. On the way over he fell on his gun, bending the barrel and rendering it useless. So he straightened it. After he arrived to meet our native allies he fired some blanks from his gun to test it.”
This happened on the Hayes River in 1684.

Just don’t overdo it or you might end up like this guy
View attachment 108277

I hope they are only shooting peashooters back at the guy with the bent barrel otherwise that table ain't going to work as a barricade for long!