Fixing dent in old sxs barrel
- Thread starter crunch68
- Start date
Fred'k Williams was a good medium sized Birmingham maker for over 100 years, their quality was consistently good within the price class of the individual gun. Most of their production was for the trade, guns with their own name are not common, reflective of this fact. This is not another tired old Belgian clunker and if otherwise sound may well be worth salvaging.
Properly trained journeyman gunsmiths use a special shotgun barrel dent remover that is positioned inside the bore under the dent and hydraulically expands against the dent to raise it while lightly peening the outside edges of the dent. They will not attempt sharp dents or those showing a beginning crack, or in badly pitted or dangerously thin barrels. They usually charge $40-50 per dent and the interior will be near perfect, the exterior may barely show. When properly done and finished this method will show as a new gun and is the only method recommended for fine quality guns, old or new. As mentioned, an acceptable job can usually be accomplished by forcing a tapered plug or series of increasingly sized plugs past the barrel obstruction caused by the dent. It is vital that the plug contact as much of the interior barrel wall opposite the dent as possible. Because it doesn't require specialized tools and the plugs can be made by anyone with a lathe this method is popular with hobbiests and gunsmiths who don't do a lot of shotgun work. This method usually leaves some slight noticeable marking both inside and outside but the cost to customer should be considerably less. J.
Properly trained journeyman gunsmiths use a special shotgun barrel dent remover that is positioned inside the bore under the dent and hydraulically expands against the dent to raise it while lightly peening the outside edges of the dent. They will not attempt sharp dents or those showing a beginning crack, or in badly pitted or dangerously thin barrels. They usually charge $40-50 per dent and the interior will be near perfect, the exterior may barely show. When properly done and finished this method will show as a new gun and is the only method recommended for fine quality guns, old or new. As mentioned, an acceptable job can usually be accomplished by forcing a tapered plug or series of increasingly sized plugs past the barrel obstruction caused by the dent. It is vital that the plug contact as much of the interior barrel wall opposite the dent as possible. Because it doesn't require specialized tools and the plugs can be made by anyone with a lathe this method is popular with hobbiests and gunsmiths who don't do a lot of shotgun work. This method usually leaves some slight noticeable marking both inside and outside but the cost to customer should be considerably less. J.
gunsaholic
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- Location
- Winnipeg, Manitoba
If it checks out sound, these old guns can be a pleasure to shoot. As mentioned, it is not another Belgian clunker. Hopefully the deal turns out.
Try a piece of doweling that is slightly smaller in diameter than your bore. Cut it to a sharp diagonal angle. Force the doweling in from both ends and slowly, patiently peen the dent out while forcing the doweling together where the dent is. Keep in mind some of the very excellent advice already presented in this thread. Good luck.
It is possible to repair this but firstly the wall thickness of the barrels needs to be checked if that is ok it is possible to raise the dent and polish out the bores, the reason you check the wall thickness is because when you raise the dent you are thinning the thickness of the barrel as you will when you polish the bores, so good wall thickness will allow you to do this with no safety issues arising. it sounds like your buying the gun from someone so really it needs to be checked over properly it could have many unseen things wrong with it.
