Reboring how far

[Jaymo]

Yup. Going smoothie isn't going to help accuracy. Then again, a tightly patched RB from a smoothie can be plenty accurate out to about 60 yards.
My reason for doing it is strictly to make a rifle with a pitted bore into a shotgun.
I have 3 other .50 cal frontstuffing rifles.
Don't have a frontstuffing shotgun.

Variations in powder charge and patch thickness will affect POI, as will the positioning of the sprue (cast balls only).
Voids inside the balls and deviations in shape/roundness will also give you fliers.
Then, there's operator error. The most common cause.
I'm sure there are other factors I'm failing to mention.
Removing the rifling will eliminate one possible cause (poorly rifled or wrong twist rate), but will leave all the other variables in place, as well as introducing a greater sensitivity to patch thickness.

As I stated earlier, I have a flintlock .50 and a TC Renegade caplock with perfect bores. I also have an inline TC Thunder Hawk .50 cal.
The TC New Englander is a perfect candidate for conversion to a 20 gauge shotgun. It would be a perfect companion to the howdah pistol, since I already have a 20 gauge RB mold.

Honestly, though, the Thunder Hawk is slated to become a .45 caliber precharged pneumatic air rifle. I'm not a huge inline fan, but it cost me $30 at the pawn shop due to the pitting in the bore, at the muzzle, and the Timney trigger in it is worth twice what I paid for the rifle.
I figure 2 air reservoirs and interchangeable barrels in .22, .25,.284, .308, and .311 along with .45 cal will take care of all my pneumatic hunting needs.

Besides, the New Englander has a nice round barrel and shotgun buttplate with a single trigger. It should have been a scattergun from the get go.

Did I mention that I can't find a left handed drop in barrel?
I thought about having it bored out and rifled to use as a rifled 20 gauge RB/slug gun for deer/hogs.
I even thought about reaming it to 20 gauge, chopping the barrel and maybe even flaring the muzzle for a musketoon or blunderbuss.
I just don't think I'll be repelling any pirates any time soon.

 

[Busyhands94]

Well I'll play around with different charges and see if I can get better results. I am considering getting a scale and weighing the round balls to make sure they are uniform in weight.

 

[Busyhands94]

I still think it would be cool to have a smooth rifle, so if I see a barrel for a good price I could probably ream it out and use that instead of the original barrel. Or maybe see witch one is more accurate and use the less accurate one to make a smoothbore, I have always liked smoothbore guns, there is just something about them appeals to me.

 

[TheRodDoc]

Busyhands94,

I have noticed in several of your posts that you use hard lead for your patched round balls. This could be causing major inaccuracy problems.

Of all projectiles, patched round balls are the most important to be pure soft lead. Since the ball is a little smaller then the bore, The ball has to be able to deform or pancake some when the charge goes off. As it does this the ball grows in diameter and forces it's outer diameter into the rifling grooves. Also at the same time completely sealing the gases behind the ball. The ball isn't round when it leaves the barrel.
With hard lead the powder charge isn't strong enough to do this. So You lose spin on the ball, lose some velocity and such.

 

[StrawHat]

Turner Kirkland used to sell smoothbore barrels. They were 44 inches long, 42 caliber and 13/16" across the flats. I have two of them and so far have only fitted one of them to a stock and I am going to replace it with a 45 caliber rifled barreld at some point. For me, the rifled bore is the way to go.

 

[[email protected]]

You should be able to mark the ball with your thumb nail easy. It has to be
soft so the patch material can push into it. Place a piece of pillow ticking
about 2 inches wide by about a foot long over the barrel and place the ball
on this and tap it in. Push it down about 2 inches. Then holding on to the
patching, pull it back out. You should see the weave from the material on
the ball. If the ball is perfectably patched you will see the imprint real deep
where the lands are and just a wisper of a mark on the grooves.

 

[Busyhands94]

Thanks for the advice I do have some soft lead I'll try, and I also have pillow ticking that would probably work well for that.

~Levi