Just for my own knowledge does anyone offer this service in Australia and at what cost ??

PC I believe Sprinter Barrels in Sth Aust do re-bores, don't know the cost, they did advertise some time ago, may pay to give em a call....Les

I will check them out. I would like to bore a 458 barrel on a Ruger No1 out to .470 or even 500NE as the barrels seem pretty thick.

Keith Bridgeman at Sprinter used to offer reboring. It's now cheaper to get a new Sprinter barrel rather than rebore. For example a new 358 barrel profiled is $220, cheaper than a rebore and more likely to produce an accurate barrel.
Cheers...
Con

But what if you want to make use of the sights ie. integral island base ?? that sort of stuff can set you back a few bob....is it generally accepted that rebored barrels don't shoot well ??

Yep, retaining quarter ribs etc. [or fancy octagonal barrels] is the main reason to consider reboring these days. Accuracy can be chancy after a rebore apparently, but likely to be OK to hunting standards. Probably still worth giving Sprinter Arms [in Hahndorf, SA] a call though. They're the only mob I've ever heard of, as routinely doing rebores in Oz.

cr500, seems there are some limitations to boring out Ruger No. 1's - see this recent NitroExpress thread here on the subject!

Cheers,
Doug

Back in the good old days, when I was stationed at RAAF Base Edinburgh (Adelaide), I used to spend a great deal of time at Sprinter Arms and had dozens of gun projects put together as they used to do rebores for around $35 (when a new barrel was between $150 and $200) but John Bridgeman (who left the business to Keith when he passed away) eventually got sick of pests (like me) always getting rebores instead of buying new barrels so he eventually put the price up to the same as a new barrel - and I think that pricing regime stands to this day!

Sorry guys, it is partly my fault that rebores are no longer cheap.