I ran into a real old marlin lever rifle chambered in 38-55 this weekend,The octagon barrel had places up and down it that looked like someone a long time ago had beat it with a hammer?Is this a old bubby trick to get a rifle to shoot a little to the right or left after the sights have been drifted all the way?Ever see a rifle barrel like this?It was a new one on me!I guess this would make this rifle a leverright!Leave her right where she is?Anyway i was wondering what kind of senerrio would put hard hit/beat places on a old cowboy rifles barrel?How could i tell if the barrel is warpped?Possibley lay it on something hard and flat and measure or eyeball it for warppage?Anyway this is a new gunsmith adventure for me........Thanks in advance!
Posts: 3608 | Location: USA | Registered: 08 September 2004
i KNOW OF NO TRICK LIKE THAT?? Bet the inside is the same shape as the out side but opposite. if you run a tight fitin patch down the bore you will find that it is tight at those places.
Posts: 2134 | Location: Ohio | Registered: 26 June 2000
I watched a piece on Savage manufacture company years ago they had a man that would straighten the barrels after they had been machined. He would look down the inside of the barrel clamp it in a jig and bend it untill it was straight. I couldn’t tell what he was looking for but he had years of practice.
I once seen a guy at the shot gun range trying to adjust his shotgun so it would hit where he wanted it to. He had a clamp on vice and was bending the barrel with the clamp and pushing on the back of the stock. I personally thought he was some kind of nut case but maybe he knew something I didn’t.
Brownells sells dent remover tool but it is for shotguns. You will probably have to re-barrel the rifle to make it usable.
Swede
--------------------------------------------------------- NRA Life Member
actually bending a barrel isn't that uncommon. you should see what some of those old timers at colt did to things like pythons to "hand tune " them. Padded vises and 2x2's gallore
The old rifle was really in excellent condition.The bore looked just like brand new for a 100 year plus rifle.I just couldnt figure how a banged place could get on the octagun barrel like that ,but the more i thought about how it looked the more it reminded me of someone bubba smithing it out in the outback,miles from anyone,thinking just a little hammer whack would make her shoot to the right a little,or someone/jesse james? just wacked it real hard against a safe that wouldnt open on a stage coach or something while drunk/mad?Who knows what the old cowboy rifles could tell us if they could talk!i would like to get the old girl and try her out but was wondering if the barrel was bent and she shot way wide,then what? ,can the old rifles be rebarrelled?Is this expensive job?How hard a lick would it take to bend a octagon barrel?They look kinda stout and thick to me!!!Anyway thanks brothers for all the help!!You guys are the best!!! All the old warhorse rifles are interesting and makes one wonder what tales they could tell.I like them!!!!!
Posts: 3608 | Location: USA | Registered: 08 September 2004
I've seen photos of men at FN in Liege bending ("straightening", I think is the technical term) shotgun barrels in special fixtures. If I remember the idea is to get a perfect circle of a shadow in the bore. If it's at all eliptical there is a curve in the bore.
"Experience" is the only class you take where the exam comes before the lesson.
Posts: 11143 | Location: Texas, USA | Registered: 22 September 2003
With the advent of Lasers this process is a whole lot easier.
If you mount a chamber style laser bore sighter you will know pretty damned quick if you have a bent bore. You will either get no dot at all, or you will get a fuzzy dot with halo’s around it from the beam bouncing off the crooked bore.
Posts: 4574 | Location: Valencia, California | Registered: 16 March 2005
I watched a piece on Savage manufacture company years ago they had a man that would straighten the barrels after they had been machined. He would look down the inside of the barrel clamp it in a jig and bend it untill it was straight. I couldn’t tell what he was looking for but he had years of practice.
In one of Elmer Keith's books he writes about straightening rifle barrels during WWII. Apparently there is a way of looking through the bore at the rifling to determine whether a barrel is straight. He claims that he tried to train other men to do it but could only find one other fellow who had the knack. I certainly have no idea how to do it.
He also wrote that a barrel which had been straightened was absolute poison as far as accuracy went. Claimed that a barrel would walk its shots as it heated up and returned to its original position.
"How do you know this to be true?" -- Finn Aagaard
Posts: 103 | Location: Orange County, CA. | Registered: 17 February 2005
You look at a white wall under intense light. If the bbl. is bent the light thru the bbl will make a crooked shadow on the wall. The vice used looks akin to a ships wheel mounted horizontally. I have seen them do it many times in the Sako factory. The guy that did it had been to more than one rodeo! Much skill involved but works like a charm.
You can borrow money but you can not borrow time. Go hunting with your family.
Posts: 1529 | Location: Texas | Registered: 15 December 2003
A friend of mine appenticed as Gunsmith in Germany just after WW II and he ocasionally makes a barrel from scratch (just because he can I think). Anyhow he straightens them after the barrel is bored (before it is rifled) an just uses a lead hammer on the anvil between wooden blocks. He uses the bright light/shadow method to eyeball straightness. And his barrels shoot, the flintlocks they go onto will group well under 2" at 100 yards, and I have seen groups of around the inch mark so he must be doing something right.
Cheers
Posts: 605 | Location: Southland, New Zealand | Registered: 11 February 2005
Originally posted by blackbearhunter: The old rifle was really in excellent condition.The bore looked just like brand new for a 100 year plus rifle.I just couldnt figure how a banged place could get on the octagun barrel like that ,...Who knows what the old cowboy rifles could tell us if they could talk!...
Hey BBH, All the "straightening" the folks are talking about is normally done prior to Final Finishing and done with tools that tend not to leave distinct gouges in the Barrel Surface. Then Final Finishing eliminates any mars.
Probably just got the "impact print" during a fall of some sort. May have been dropped, may have had a horse roll on it, or your guess about beating on a safe is as good as any. And in fact, someone might have tried to straighten it "improperly" after it had left the factory as you originally thought. It is all pure speculation without knowing the person who had it when it happened.
Posts: 9920 | Location: Carolinas, USA | Registered: 22 April 2001
Straightening the barrel by the manufacturer produces a barrel that tends to move and change point of impact as the barrel heats and cools when firing.
There was an ad in Shotgun News awhile back selling “unused, original, 1903A3 Springfield barrels with all original markings“ (take that for whatever its worth) that had been bent at some point, but then had been restraightened at the arsenal. The ad said that they showed the marks (deep grooves) from the straightening process, but that the bores had been checked for straightness.
The ad didn’t say how they got bent in the first place.
Posts: 4574 | Location: Valencia, California | Registered: 16 March 2005
As to cause: Repetitive small taps can make a pretty large mark. I find in GI WWII bringbacks, that often there are marks where something just "worried" its way through the finish, or into the steel, on guns otherwise pristine or excellent.
Imagine a rifle placed into a vertical rifle scabbard along a buckboard or stage or wagon. After a thousand miles of vibration, a mark as you describe could appear where the top of the scabbard, wooden box, or other device was..
Saw it happen to my kids shotgun in a 4x4 gator in about an hour of offroading where the little rubber shotgun holder rubbed right through the bluing....
As to accuracy...it's a lever action Marlin, how accurate does it really need to be? Walking shots? Most paople can't shoot open sights offhand (the only real use for such a design) well enough to tell the differnce!
If you're that worried about it, I'll take it off your hands so you don't have to look at it and give it a good home!
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Posts: 1780 | Location: South Texas, U. S. A. | Registered: 22 January 2004
,can the old rifles be rebarrelled?Is this expensive job?How hard a lick would it take to bend a octagon barrel?They look kinda stout and thick to me!!!Anyway thanks brothers for all the help!!You guys are the best!!! 
