Review vs rebarrel

[rjtodd]

I have seen a number of single action guns converted up in caliber by boring and rifling the existing barrel as opposed to buying a new blank. At first glance it seems a new match grade blank would be a better starting point. Obvious nods to re-boring for sights, ERH, and threading, but those seem straight forward compared to re-boring.

Anyone willing to fill in the details? I really want an FA83 in 50 JRH, and have been thinking about buying a field grade with the 7-1/2 tube and magnaports that have fallen out of favor and dropped in price. From there nothing between me and my goal but time and money!!

Thanks

Randy

[Encore64]

Definitely get a new barrel...

Jack is doing mine now with a 6" Octagon Barrel.

[Odin]

Reboring seems to be the best option when the barrel profile you wish to use is unavailable in the caliber you desire and having said profile carved from an oversized barrel blank would be prohibitively expensive. There are certain Smith & Wesson profiles that have long resided in this space.

For a standard round barrel on a JRH conversion, I'd agree with Encore64... the straightest path is to simply have Jack cut you one from premium stock at your desired length.

[bigbore5]

Odin is right. The machine time to cut a mountain gun, ovate, rib, etc barrel does cost more than reboring and rifling an existing barrel.

I've already ruined a few pieces of hot roll bar I'm trying to teach myself to mill into those profiles. Octagon is by far the easiest

[bushog]

Sept 29, 2024 20:44:26 GMT -5 Odin said:

Reboring seems to be the best option when the barrel profile you wish to use is unavailable in the caliber you desire and having said profile carved from an oversized barrel blank would be prohibitively expensive. There are certain Smith & Wesson profiles that have long resided in this space.

For a standard round barrel on a JRH conversion, I'd agree with Encore64... the straightest path is to simply have Jack cut you one from premium stock at your desired length.

What he said. .511 Redhawk rebores and .45 Anacondas are other examples….

[rjtodd]

So buy a 50 AE and then another cylinder to be cut to .500 JRH swag $2200 + ?? for a FA cylinder, or $1500 for a .454 that has a cylinder to cut, but will need a replacement barrel? Sure seems hard to argue against a 454 as the donor gun?

[lar4570]

I read somewhere that in the early days, John Linebaugh would have the stock Ruger barrels rebored for 475 and 500 Linebaugh conversions. He said that some barrels turned out fine, while others seemed to get much harder the closer you got to the outside and got scrapped. He still had to pay the rebore shop for their time and effort only to end up with a paper weight. So he switched to using new barrel stock. Please feel free to correct anything if I have not remembered all the details.
I asked John one time if he would build a 500 Linebaugh on a Stainless Bisley Hunter if I could find someone to rebore the barrel to .510". He passed on that project, so I went with an Octagon barrel on mine.

Doesn't JRH regularly rebore barrels for conversions?

[bigbore5]

My Reeder Redhawk "Mastodon" has a custom barrel. So does the Bowen 475. The JRH reused the 500L barrel on the BFR.

[bradshaw]

Oct 2, 2024 7:18:13 GMT -5 lar4570 said:

I read somewhere that in the early days, John Linebaugh would have the stock Ruger barrels rebored for 475 and 500 Linebaugh conversions. He said that some barrels turned out fine, while others seemed to get much harder the closer you got to the outside and got scrapped.

******

If someone has dope on this, please share it. Could a change in barrel hardness be attributable to tooling, lubricant, or feed rate? Or is it in the steel?

I’ve encountered alternating soft and hard spots in steel while doing trigger jobs, the most notable one on the trigger of a Mossberg Abilene. The Abeline was made by Sig Himmelmann on Long Island, until he split the sheets with Harvey Kahn. Kahn got the Abeline line, which he sold to Mossberg. Lee Martin knows the story. Barrels seemed really good, albeit with ruinous forcing cones. A bad forcing cone dooms accuracy of the best barrel. (Who made the Abekine barrels?) Himmelmann headed for Arizona to make his El Dorado.

I don’t think Sig Himmelmann understood the importance if a correct forcing cone, as the included angle on some of his cones was much too steep, others were rough, uneven, and/or too deep. I had Himmelmann rebarrel an El Dorado .44 Mag, and took pains to reign in his unsure treatment the forcing cone.

Also encountered hard spots in otherwise soft steel while working on some Spanish pistols; none of this is recent.
David Bradshaw

[bigbore5]

I have had alot of Spanish and Turkish steel with various hard and soft spots. I guess it just depends on the car bumper or refrigerator they recycle into their "Premium Alloy". Higher grades like 4140 and such should be consistent throughout. If not, someone is ripping the buyer off. They are probably passing a hot roll alloy off as the better stuff.

A properly cooled tool running in a good flow of real coolant will not heat a commonly used firearm alloy enough to change hardness. Machining dry could effect surface hardness if a bunch of metal were removed, but it's doubtful it would effect common gun metals on anything but the very surface. It doesn't stay hot long enough.

Ronnie Wells would know more than myself, as he deals with these alloys regularly and I don't use them very often.