What if anything are the drawbacks to barrel re-lining?

[Old Time Hunter]

Ok, had a thread as to what the perceived causes are for "shot out" bores. To repair or make them a serviceable rifle again and maintaining originality, would it not be best to re-line? What might be the negatives?

Found what appears to be a Model 1873 Winchester in Musket configuration with a half-moon and star cartouche on the stock. My guess it was built for the Turkish military contract of 1879/81 but somehow never made it there. It is chambered for .44-40. It only has about four to five inches of rifling left towards the muzzle and even there the rifling is only a couple of thousands deep. My intent is to re-line, to save the "proofs" and other stampings that went with military issued firearms of the day. Now, I've done this before with Trapdoors and hve been especially pleased with the out come (Had Bobby Hoyt in Fairfield, PA do them...excellent job!), but never have done it with a repeater. Secondly, I also have an all matching K98k Mauser '36 Erma with pristine markings, and no import marks. Unfortunately the accuracy of this gun is minute of barn, not even minute of barn door. The throat is pretty much used up and even though it has fair rifling, it is well beyond being tight. Bore gauge puts it at military unacceptable. Being high powered, is it still re-lineable?

[Pete44ru]

JMO, but if the job is well done, i.e. fitted so the juncture at the muzzle isn't readily discernable, then there is no downside ro a rebore for a shooter.

For a war relic like that Mauser, which are getting harder to come by in said condition anymore - I would leave it alone, and admire it for what it it: An enemy rifle most likely captured/taken by some G.I.

[Gun Smith]

A collector will almost always pass on a Winchester with a relined barrel. To him it's the same as rebluing, refinishing stocks, extra holes, etc. The musket, being a fairly rare configuration, may depreciate somewhat less. Think of the old saw, location,location, location. It's original, original, original to them. You want a shooter - go for it.

[Malamute]

You could have a barrel made for the musket to be able to shoot it, and keep the original barrel for collectibility. Mike Hunter can make barrels.


Mausers are still being sporterized, you can probably find a good barrel for cheap. If you're concerned about originality of the Mauser, just keep the original barrel with the gun, and it could be swapped back in the future. I'd get a decent barrel and enjoy shooting it. But then, unless it was something very unusual and valuable,.... I'd sporterize it and never look back,.....


There has been some re-lined high power barrels come apart. They were doing it to some Garand barrels, but they started blowing out in the chamber area. Mausers are much thinner in the chamber area.

[junkbug]

I do not believve many gunsmiths would want to touch the Mauser. Besides chamber problems, a 7.92mm can easily be fired to get hot enough to melt solder. I know many use hi-temp epoxy now, but the negative results of the past still leave many leary.

Actually, it sounds like your Mauser is far from gone. The throat is shot out for sure, but that can be dealt with with oversize cast bullets. A .329" mold made or the Steyr 95 would be a good place to start. Then you have to use trial and error to see how large a bullet you can load and have the cartridge still drop in the chamber with no resistance.

The only tricky part would be if the chamber neck area is too tight for bullets over about .324-.325" That might still work, but probably not. Then you might have to carefully hand lap the neck area with a lead chamber cast attached to a dowel, with lapping compound on the neck only. That would need to be slow, careful work.

I would be betting that if the throat were worn from years of heavy combat usage, the chamber neck area would also be enlarged somewhat also. I would just tru seating an overrsized cast bullet first, and see just how tight it is.

If a unfooled with rifle like that were mine I would not dream of removing the barrel. To many things could go wrong. To me, it would be a functioning artifact, more so than utility tool to be slightly altered to make it work better. Chamber lapping would be a last resort, and as drastic as I could allow myself to aler the rifle.

But it is your rifle, to do with as you see fit.

Sean

[Old Time Hunter]

Yea, I'm thinking along the same lines regarding the Mauser. Hate to re-barrel, kind of like the thought of retaining original metal with all it's original stampings. Actually the chamber of a K98k is much stronger than a Garand, strong enough for H&H 375 Mag, .338 Win Mag, etc with just a rebore and re-chambering. Which makes me think along another way to make this a shooter....Hmmmm. Maybe a .358 Win???? or something similar??? I can buy new barrels (Oberndorfer) from Numrich, but something is lost to me when I do that. Guess re-lining this one is probably not the best, being high pressure and all.

Regarding the '73 Musket...yes it is a model that probably is on the rarer side, but if I can not shoot it, it is nothing but a canoe paddle to me. My wife and I go round and round on things like this (on historical items, not specifically firearms, she thinks that I only have about 10 instead of over 100, she can't tell the difference about the rotating rifles in the display case) in that I am not very esoteric into the imagined perception of a historic (or old) object, but feel the need to actually use it and feel the similar sensations as to the original users. Therefore she calls me an accumulator and not a REAL collector. Since I have an aversion towards parting with any of my accumulated treasures (to me), value depreciation is not a factor, but outwardly for me, I want to feel the same wood, same metal, and see the same thing as when that person picked up that '73 rifle in 1885, aimed and fired at whatever(and of course, hit it). Thing is, I've never had a Winchester re-lined, if it isn't a practical solution, I'll keep diggin or let it go. Remember, the muskets had a different length barrel than all the commercial offerings from Winchester.

[junkbug]

From what I have heard, the Winchester is an excellent candidate for re-lining. You can even buy barrel liners from Brownells in all the Winchester 73 and 92 chambering.

You will have to ask others what that may do to the resale value of such an unusual rifle.

If you rechamber and rebore the Mauser, you will ned to chose a cartride with at least as large outside dimensions as the 7.92x57mmJS round None of the .308 Win family of cartridges will work. The Europeans have their 9.3X57mm sporting cartridge just for that purpose (.366"). The new land diameter will also need to be larger than your existing groove diameter.
A wildcat .338 based on the 7.92mm round might also work.

Just so you know, I have owned several M-95 Steyr carbines, and one rifle in 8X56mmR Hungarian. Supposedly, they have a groove diameter of .329", but most go .331-.333". One of the ones I had actually was .329" For whatever reason, the throats in these are HUGE. I used a Lee custom sizing die to reduce all mu bullets to .334" both jacketed and cast, for shooting in these things. But just to experiment, I loaded unsized .338" Jacketed gullets once with a mild load of 2400 17 grains or so). They dropped in the chamber fine, and fired without any pressure signs. The barrel got hot really fast, though, and they left a lot of copper fouling.

This showed me that SLIGHTLY oversized bullets would do no harm, as long as the chambe was big enough to release the bullet, and the loads were moderate.

You could buy a Lee push thru sizer in the standard .323", and start enlarging by rotating a 1/4" rod wrapped with emory cloth. Then push through a .338" jacketed bullet through every so often untill it is .325-.326" or so. Then load a test chambering dummy round. I bet a .325-.326" jacketed bullet might change things noticeably.