De-rifling

I've got a TC 54 barrel someone shot and put away without cleaning that has me thinking about the same project.

Deep hole boring and reaming is a little specialized from what I have been able to gather but barrel makers do it all the time so there must be someone out there who can help.
 
Just smooth bored or opened up to a shotgun gauge?
Consider the barrel diameter and the breechplug thread diameter.
Perhaps vagrantviking's .54 could be reamed up to 24ga.

Check Pacific Tool and Gauge's offerings. They have bore reamers which could be used to clear rifling. Start at US$139. A pull reamer, low rpm drill and cutting oil would make it a DIY job.
I have reamed up ml shotgun barrels for lining using a method like this.
 
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A hone might work for polishing a bore after the rifling has been reamed out.
I suspect rifling could be removed with one pass of an appropriately sized reamer.
 
Rifling isn’t very deep but a tapered reamer should make pretty quick work of it. I might try working my way up, could be attempted at home unless the gun is a rare or expensive unit.

A hone would be very hard to be consistent with by hand, that’s a very long pull stroke.
 
I have adjustable reamers welded to a length of rod I use to open up chokes. The same would work for this. Rifling is only a few thousands deep. You can polish it afterwards with a length of wooden dowel with a slot in the end...put as much emery cloth in as will fit. Start with about 100 grit.
 
trapperdan2061 said:
I want to use the gun in a shotgun zone and shoot buck and ball. Sighting it in based on the ball which would be followed by 7 buckshot. This would be a legal load.
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It is currently a .50 rifle.
Ream it smooth, then load it with a .50 round ball and 7 buckshot? What size buckshot?
Sorry, that sounds like an overload.
 
A .54 could become a 28ga have the machinist make a jug choke. TC used to make a Hawkin 20ga barrel that would be .62
 
tiriaq said:
It is currently a .50 rifle.
Ream it smooth, then load it with a .50 round ball and 7 buckshot? What size buckshot?
Sorry, that sounds like an overload.
Click to expand...

Buck and ball probably wouldn't be any more lead than a big Minie bullet so should be fine.
32ga is around 50 or 51 caliber so there might even be information on loads for shot. Otherwise I would use shot weight equally to the Minie bullets and an equal volume of power. Would be a good starting point. Putting a jug choke into it would be great.

There's enough wall thickness on a rifle barrel to go up to at least 28ga or 24ga, maybe 20ga. Thought would need to go into whether that's wise and look at the breach and bolster design.
 
if the original poster has access to a metal lathe, I would suggest pulling the breach plug and then opening the bore by pulling a series of spade bit (D bit) reamers down the bore and stopping short of the threads for the breach plug. I would also consider turning the front half of the barrel into a tapered round barrel to get rid of weight as well as remove the under rib and I guess soft solder so ram rod pipes to the bottom of the barrel. 7 pieces of buckshot, if 00 buckshot plus a ball seems like a pretty heavy load and i would expect the gun to shoot quite a bit low. How many buckshot balls to use depends on whether the game regs say single projectile prohibited or say X number of 00 buckshot required


cheers mooncoon
 
7 buckshot in addition to a ball might be a bit much. My poor reading comprehension or assumption was 3 buckshot. They would have to be pretty small to stack nicely either way.
I'd personally use one or the other. A smoothbore with sights can be pretty accurate.
 
vagrantviking said:
7 buckshot in addition to a ball might be a bit much. My poor reading comprehension or assumption was 3 buckshot. They would have to be pretty small to stack nicely either way.
I'd personally use one or the other. A smoothbore with sights can be pretty accurate.
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I believe the original poster wanted to hunt in shotgun only areas and in BC that does not include slugs. If the regulations read single projectile prohibited, one or two pieces of buckshot dropped down the barrel first then a patched round ball meets that description. If the regulation reads shotguns with shot only, a buck and ball load is probably not permitted. If the original barrel is 1" across the flats, about the biggest you could ream to is around 58 caliber and I doubt that you could get much of a useful pattern from that with buckshot only. A slight possibility which I think meets the regulation would be to pre cast several pieces of OO buck into a bore diameter cylinder of wax. I have heard claims that in 12 guage that gives a fairly tight pattern out to about 40 yards although I have never tried it myself

cheers mooncoon
 
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