Barrel Crown

Pathfinder

Pathfinder

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I was looking at a sporterized Ross Rifle I had in the safe and realised that it had no crown.

How much Am I losing by not having one and How much of a big deal is it to do. (I dont' think anyone local is equiped for this.)
 
It does have a crown. The crown is the end of the muzzle, the last thing a bullet touches. Yours may not be finished in a configuration that you may normally see. Crowning a rifle is not something one normally does at home...
 
guntech said:
It does have a crown. The crown is the end of the muzzle, the last thing a bullet touches. Yours may not be finished in a configuration that you may normally see. Crowning a rifle is not something one normally does at home...
Click to expand...


What I meant is that it was probably cut down and left as is so its not recessed. Im not sure what the end of a Ross barrel looked like in the orginal configuration.

didn't think I could do it at home and Im pretty sure no smith around here is setup to cut one. I would have to send away but Im wondering if its a big deal and If I would gain from it......

I had a cut down Swede 96 that had a nice target crown cut, I would be tempted into getting the same done to this bastard Ross if it would help.
 
It requires the barrel to be removed and put in the lathe then the crown being cut. Its not a huge deal when you have the right tools. It would make a considerable difference in the accuracy.
Dave
 
FWIW, some Rosses originally had their muzzles finished with an absolutely flat surface. Others had a more conventional radiused crown.
A recessed crown insures that the actual end of the rifling is protected a bit.
There are various ways of doing the final cut on the muzzle. A lathe is one way, there are also hand tools which can be used.
If the rifle shoots OK, don't worry about it.
 
Need To Jump In With A Crown Question

I have this nice old Long Lee Sporter, the barrel is an Enfield and is the original receiver matched barrel. I am pretty sure that this was a volunteer pattern rifle and belonged to a gun club. Likely shot lots..

Now to ask I am trying to confirm the reason my bullets are impacting sideways at 100 is due to a bubbied crown...

I would have thought the barrel just worn out and that is why they are tumbling. But could it be the ####ty or no crown causeing that... The only reason I ask, is because when I look down the bore there seems to be strong rifling left.

Granted the bore is dark, and totally frosted, lands and groves. I can slide a .338 cal bore brush through it no problem... I shot .311 cal .303 bullets. But I also have a box of 303 that say .312 would a thou of an inch allow the bullet to grabe a smaller or worn rifling

OR do you figure it's just shot out?
 
K98ACTION said:
I have this nice old Long Lee Sporter, the barrel is an Enfield and is the original receiver matched barrel. I am pretty sure that this was a volunteer pattern rifle and belonged to a gun club. Likely shot lots..

Now to ask I am trying to confirm the reason my bullets are impacting sideways at 100 is due to a bubbied crown...

I would have thought the barrel just worn out and that is why they are tumbling. But could it be the s**tty or no crown causeing that... The only reason I ask, is because when I look down the bore there seems to be strong rifling left.

Granted the bore is dark, and totally frosted, lands and groves. I can slide a .338 cal bore brush through it no problem... I shot .311 cal .303 bullets. But I also have a box of 303 that say .312 would a thou of an inch allow the bullet to grabe a smaller or worn rifling

OR do you figure it's just shot out?
Click to expand...

Worn out and the bullets are not getting spun fast enough to stabilize is my guess... the bullet is sliding through the little rifling that is left, rather than engaging the rifling and spinning more...
 
Sorry, got a little long winded.

The best way to do a crown would be to index a barrel in a lathe and have a good metal smith have a go at the crown and this is the only way to do it if you were re-crowning a bench rest rifle.
However hunting rifle, you have choices. Redressing a crown on a hunting rifle at home is very doable IF you know what you are doing. I recently dressed up the crown on my new Rem. 700 VLSF in 221 Fire Ball. It shot about 1 inch groups at 100 yards with my best handloads. Did the ole cotton swab test on the crown and showed it had problems, big time. After re-dressing the crown that gun shot 5, 5 shot groups the largest just a red cat hair over ½ inch. Schweeeet! (And I just barely know what I'm doing.:eek:)

My grandfather years ago showed me how to redress a crown with an appropriate sized round headed brass screw chucked in an electric drill and a dab of valve grinding compound. He plugged the end of the barrel (so as not to get valve grinding compound down in the barrel), and just took the drill chucked with the brass screw head and rotated it around lightly on the bore of the rifle until it wore a nice dish shaped crown into the muzzle/bore junction of barrel. However, for this to do any good this is assuming the muzzle is cut square to the bore of barrel. Making sure barrel is cut square is a job for a good gunsmith, but it’s cheap and quick to try this first before spending the $ for a gunsmith.

Brownells has many tools for the home Gunsmith for this type of work. Some can be pricey for the one time use but they would pay for themselves in no time if you had many to do or friends to do work for. Friends could even go in together to purchase items. They even have a tool to square the muzzle to bore (no lathe needed).

http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/st...=PRECISION REAMERS MUZZLE CROWN REFACING TOOL

Told you they could be pricey. :p

Oh yeah! Almost forgot the cotton swab trick… Fluff up the end of a cotton swab and lightly pull the swab out the bore and over the crown. If the crown is buggered with jagged edges to up set the bullets exit it will pull the fibers of the swab. Do this to a very clean barrel as fouling will pull on the fibers also. Also a good optical magnifying glass to get a very close look at the crown under strong (sunlight) light will tell you a lot also.

Good Luck, Larry

P.S.
If it aint broke, don't fix it!
In other words if it shoots good the crown is probably in good shape.
 
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Larry offers very similar advice as Andy P gave me. A rifle I got this summer had the barrel hacked off by bubba, many moons ago. I did not realize it until after I took it to the range. I was concerned if I bumped the bore against anything I would loose all accuracy. I wanted to crown it as it would have origonally been.

He talked me out of it. Sure if the gun has a boo boo and it lands on it's head and does not shoot anymore then get it fixed. It shoots very well right now so why not just leave it. And we lived happily ever after. :)
 
Interesting stuff Larry. I recall reading about home crowning done with a steel carriage bolt rather than brass. I believe the article dealt with shortening the barrel, so the crown was being cut from scratch, rather than just being cleaned up. Either way, I doubt if I would attempt this with a good barrel.
 
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