Relining a barrel-1894 ?

[hemiallen]

I picked up a very nice looking 1894 half octagon/ half round barrel, full length tube rifle that has been refinished but price meets my needs. I couldn't get the bore clean at the sellers, got it home and found, as usual, the reason it was reblued was it had rusted.... No surprise but hoped barrel was ok inside.

No pits on the action, internals of action look good and proof/ barrel markings and corners look sharp. It has a flip down rear leaf and the side mounted peep, very nice wood. Barrel looked powder fouled even after scrubbing w/ a 243 ( 25-35 chambering) bronze brush and hoppe's still left some fouling particles. Put the soft wood stick of a 6" Q-tip and can feel the bore is rough, even though lands look tall.....

Curious if it is worth relining the barrel to save this gun, or just return it and keep looking for a patina'd gun that is in my price range( around $1k). This WAS to be a shooter, probably lead gun for fun and etc. I don't care about resalve value, never been a collector, just shooter/ hunter.

I have until next week for the seller to see if he has another gun for trade, or just get my money back. Good seller, just didn't know anything about the inherited gun and agree'd to take it back. I suspect it would be $500 to reline/ rechamber?

Thanks for any suggestions

Allen

[TedH]

If the seller is okay with it, I'd get it as clean as I could and shoot it before making any decisions. It may surprise you.

[pokey]

can you take it back if you shoot it a little?
some times a little funk in the bore wont
affect accuracy. if you decide to keep it
there are abrasive coated bullets that could
smooth it out some , all if the lands stand
proud and sharp.

[marlinman93]

Relining it will run around $300 for a TJ's hammer forged liner. If you can shoot it, I'd do that before deciding on doing a return or reline.

[Griff]

If you can shoot it, I'd do that before deciding on doing a return or reline.

Ditto!

[Nate Kiowa Jones]

I agree, shoot it. It won't make a long range sniper rifle but even if you reline it still won't. If it doesn't have serious pits you can fire lap it and probably get it shooting as good as it ever did.

[hemiallen]

Thanks all for the replies.

Funny thing is, I can feel roughness at the muzzle, and putting some hoppes down the bore shows copper fouling......

Even though I scrubbed it well, it looks fuzzy like dust particles but a soft Q tip doesn't remove it.

Maybe this is so fouled it looks bad. I would expect a badly pitted bore to have both lands and grooves missing in spots, but down the barrel a few inches lighting the action with a lucite rod device I see tall lands.....

You may be correct, my wife's family 1926 savage 99 30-30 shoots well but the bore looks to me to be a wallhanger and not a shooter.

I'll give it a few days of copper remover before deeming it trash.

Thanks
Allen

[Ray Newman]

Here's my take.

let's say you paid US $900.00 for it. A reline will be about US $300.00. Total cost is now US $1200.00. For $1200.00, could you find one in better condition?....

[Malamute]

I agree with the shoot it camp. It may shoot fine as is, (with a good cleaning).

You may also want to use a stronger copper remover than Hoppes, or an electronic bore cleaner. A friend used the foaming cleaner on a really ugly bore on a 1917 US Enfield, it turned out to have a pretty decent bore, and shot well. It took many many doses to get it cleaned out.

I've shot a couple of guns with pitted bores and they shot pretty well. One I had recrowned and it improved quite a bit.

As far as the reline, if that becomes a neccesity, I'd opt for a rebore. You can make it a 30 WCF (30-30) or 32 Win Spl, and have a fresh bore, with no liner.

[20cows]

It sounds like you could bore it out to .38-55 cheaper than a reline.

[hemiallen]

Thanks again.
More good food for thought. Yes, even with a reline the total would be within reason.

I really wanted to find one of you savvy shooters wanting to trade up, so I would know the rifle shot whatever seller says groups were obtainable, as any internet/ gunbroker deal would normally be a collector grade and probably not meet my needs. I just don't have enough "extra" cash yet to post, as I would get an offer of say a $1500 gun and it would get sold before I could come up with the additional funds.

Found this really nide looking gun local and didn't want to miss a nice looking gun, from a reputable guy who I know will take it back. I'll look for ammo and ask his permission if it seems to clean up better.

I really like the 25 cal for lighter recoil, but could do a 38-55 and load down I guess...lol
Just purchased a 358 winchester BLR for lead hunting... seems the buying bug is back in my blood after 15 years of raising kids and no buying, just shooting.

Thanks again

Allen

[bsaride]

I spent months (off and on) removing fouling and leading from a 100 yr old rifle (grooves
were full of lead for 1/3 of the barrel). You need to alternate copper and lead removal and
keep at it. What I would suggest is to use something along the lines of the Lewis Lead Removal
system (basically a rubber insert with copper screen patch) if heavy leading is present.

[hemiallen]

Lead may be what I am seeing w/ my old eyes. I see what looks like dust in the grooves. I can take a wood centered Q-tip and try and rub the dust and nothing happens, and even a 243 brush doesn't remove it.

I soaked it in hoppe's in a gun cradle last night and just pushed a fresh patch down the tube, pretty green.... I used a loose patch w/ minimal resistance to apply hoppes ( cut off some from a correct size patch) and fairly tight for removal. If it is sim ilar to my 25-06 ruger I recleaned last month, this could take several days.... and the ruger looked clean sans copper streaks at the muzzle , but at least on it I could see copper slivers in a shiny bore.

Thank you again

Allen

[MikeB]

I checked into relining for my 25-35 carbine. It has a bore that is worse than what you describe. The deal breaker for me is that there is no source for liners with the correct 1 in 8" rifling twist. The fastest twist is 1 in 10". The Greenhill equation says that this will barely stabilize 117gr. bullets at a typical carbine velocity. I didn't want to go to the effort and expense of re-lining, only to possibly end up with a rifle that wouldn't be able to shoot factory ammo. If you plan to shoot real hot 117gr. handloads in a rifle-length barrel then the slower rifling may work OK for you. If you want to shoot handloads with light bullets then it might even be better than the original twist.

I would guess that your rifle will shoot well enough after you clean the bore. It sounds like you have enough rifling left for jacket bullets. And there is never any expectation that a 25-35 will shoot lead bullets.

Twist calculator:
http://kwk.us/twist.html

Mike

[hemiallen]

Thank you very much for a timely reply. I have determined the bore, even though rifling can be seen is very pitted, at least at the muzzle. I may drive 30 miles tomorrow to buy a box of 117 gn remington ammo I located and shoot it in the back yard range I have, or just save the $40 for the ammo and wait and see what the seller has still in his vault next week. It still has a lot of copper coming out on the hoppes patches.

The seller believes he has a full octagon lever gun, but the carbines he has that I saw were not very good compared to this one. He does have a nice 55 in 30-30 but I really want a crescent/ octagon for the look. I would like to shoot the 85 grainers, as I never expect to hunt with it.

I'll probably buy a box as I could always sell the extra's if the next gun isn't a 25-35.

Thank you
Allen

[Malamute]

I would suggest a stronger copper solvent than Hoppes. Hoppes is fine for general cleaning, but it doesnt cut serious copper fouling very well compared to other solvents. I worked for days with Hoppes and Shooters Choice on a rifle, and it still wasnt coming clean. My gunsmith suggested "Montana X-treme copper killer" followed by Remington 40-x bore cleaner. It made a HUGE difference in removing the copper.

[Old Time Hunter]

Sweet's 7.62...seems to work for me.

[jnyork]

+1 for the Sweets. You need to get all that old copper out of there. Get a .25 caliber NYLON brush to apply it with, get lots of it in there and let is set for 15 minutes or so. You may have to work on it for a day or so.

I have a saddle ring 25-35 carbine that looks like it spent its life lying in the bed of someones pickup, which it very well may have. The bore looks like the inside of a tailpipe, you can see rifling and that's about it. I put a Lyman tang sight on it and went out to shoot it. Using the 60 grain Hornady flatpoints, the first 5 shots in 1 3/8 " at 80 yards, which is as good as I can see.

I host a couple of guys from Kali for prairie dogs every summer, they bring out all their fancy varmint rifles and such, I shoot the 25-35 until I run out of ammo, any PD within about 125 yards is meat in the pan!! Drives the Kali boys wild!!

Get the bore cleaned out and shoot it a little, I think you will be surprized.