Rifling Muzzleloader Barrels & Video
Over the years, I have received numerous inquiries about how I rifle a barrel. Here is a one minute video of the fatman rifling a short barrel on Number 2, my small rifler, mounted on a work bench. This hand-made Seabolt pattern wooden rifling bench will cut rifling in barrels up to 28" long. My long riflers, "Ol' No. 1" and No. 3 or "Tobacco Juice Annie", will accommodate barrels up to 48 & 49" in length. I've rifled some 50+ barrels in my time and only ruined one when the cutter head disintegrated unexpectedly. Kinda ruined my afternoon!
Now, when I rifle one of my 4 footers, a little over 3 miles of iron gets removed by the time we're finished. I apologize for the poor quality of the video, but hell's bells, I'm a gunsmith an' not a Hollywood movie producer! Now, if yer web browser supports video, "Click" your mouse down below and be prepared to wait a bit as this puppy takes a while to load up. Let me know what you think.
Here are a few photos of a rifler head under construction and the fat man's alter-ego: the infamous "Kommandar Rifler"!
Al took this photo of the barrel aimed at my back to try and get the rifling grooves to become visible.
Turning A Rifling Guide Or Worm Blank
Here I am turning a worm down for a customer. The surgical mask keeps the chips and dust outta my nose real well, but dang it all, it shore plays havoc with me tryin' to chew some Red Man!!
Here you can get an idea of how long this worm is. It's being shaped from a fir 4X4 that has "normalized" in my shop for several weeks to reduce warpage, cracking, and splitting. If you look close, you can see where Hoot Al 'n me stretched the lathe out to accommodate such long worms.
Here's a "before an' after" shot.
These show you my latest high-tech gauges used to insure there has been enough wood removed. There are 3 gauges needed, as well as some sand paper, plus Dan Land's Dite-Rite cola.
Look at the mess on the floor! It's over 5 inches deep and all over the shop. This turning guide blanks is sure messy business. Guess I need to get Hoot al over here and help clean the place up.
This is the finished blank after rough sanding. It takes about 4 hours to turn one out. This is the worm that is shown in the book and it can be made to most any length. It will handle 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 grooves. You could even do a gain-twist! I will occasionally make and sell a blank for $60, plus postage. I will not turn a worm for another type of rifling bench.
An Original Bookout Rifle Barrel
Below are two pictures of the earliest known original Bookout rifle barrel. It was made in 1820 and is lightly and irregularly swamped. It's original overall length can only be guessed at because the barrel shows evidence of being on 3 different rifles over the years and sub sequentially shortened during that time. It has always been in flint configuration and still has enough reasonable rifling remaining to shoot it. The hand forged rear sight is an unusual "V" shaped buckhorn thingy that is uglier'n all gitout.
Photo #1
Photo #1 shows "staple" type of tennons were used from day one. The raised portions indicate the barrel had been prepared with a cold chisel. The concave area suggests that a pin or nail was used to retain the barrel onto the stock. Dove-tailed tennons were never installed on this barrel. The remaining tennon locations are evenly spaced, but it is obvious that the forward location is too far back from the muzzle. Add another properly spaced tennon and this will suggest the barrel, in it's original configuration, was approaching 5 feet in length! Since the barrel has been greatly hogged out to allow free passage of a pin or nail, I think the pin location might have been mismeasured when they were getting ready to drill the stock. Hell, maybe they didn't own a ruler.
Photo #2 shows one of the wrought iron stapled tennons that remain on the barrel, obviously for a wedge. The barrel had been shortened before this type of tennon was installed because the locations of it and it's mates are correctly spaced for this new length.
These two photographs indicate that both pins and wedges were used to retain barrels on Southern Mountain rifles. I STAND behind my choice to install pins on the rifles I make.