i have a winchester 67a with a pitted bore that shoots poorly and was wondering if i could turn it into a smooth bore for rat shot.it would be great if i could do the work myself and if so how would one go about it? thanks.

Had this done several years ago by gunsmith Clyde Moore then of D&D Gunsmithing in Troy Michigan. Can't tell you how he did it. At that time I was into shooting winged insects and it was fun sport, 25' was about max, 12-17 feet ideal. This was when we could buy a box of shot loads for under $4 per 50. Got out of the sport when ammo prices tripled.

If you decide not to DIY, check with John (ToomanyTools) Farner. I talked to him about the same thing, he has the set up to do it.

thankyou for the information.

.

There is no replacement for buying the proper reamers. But I do know of one individual (NOT ME!) who for years has cut a brass rod that just fits the bore about 6 inches long and threaded on the end to accept a cleaning rod shaft on his Unimat lathe. He then drives a wood plug into the chamber so it won't be cut, screws the lap to a cleaning rod shaft and applies 320# valve grinding compound to the lap and goes at the bore with a power drill. After he pretty much cleans out the rifling he cuts a new lap to the new bore size and goes at it again to polish it up with some fine 500# grit. I have seen several that he has done and I have to admit that they look as smooth and uniform as any that I have cut with Danjon or home made reamers.

This is definitely NOT the way it is supposed to be done. So govern yourself accordingly and I never brought this up !

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Brousseau:
i have a winchester 67a with a pitted bore that shoots poorly and was wondering if i could turn it into a smooth bore for rat shot.it would be great if i could do the work myself and if so how would one go about it? thanks.

If it was me I would install a barrel liner in it and use it to sharpen my off hand running target skills. I spent many a day at the local land fill (dump then) shooting rats when I was growing up with a 67A rifle, I still have it some lots of years later.

Hey here is a silly question....
Why not just shoot shot through it as it is and not worry about the rifling?
Seems like a lot of work to remove rifling that will have little to no effect on shot flying out the end of the bore....

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:
Hey here is a silly question....
Why not just shoot shot through it as it is and not worry about the rifling?
Seems like a lot of work to remove rifling that will have little to no effect on shot flying out the end of the bore....

It's not a silly question at all. There is a reason for making it a smooth bore. If you shoot a shot charge down a rifled bore it comes out as a unit moving forward and spinning. The instant the charge leaves the bore the centrifugal force will tear the pattern apart. At ten feet the pattern will be the size of shoe box which means a sparrow or mouse will likely be untouched. With a smooth bore the pattern will be more to the size of a match box. Some people will say that something that is only good for shooting match boxes at 15 feet or less is sort of redundant. They are probably right but those little shot cartridges were designed for shooting rats, bats, sparrows and starlings in garages and attics without doing any damage to the structure. For that, they actually work quite well.

ADD NOTE: At about 15 feet those little #12 pellets will go half way through a sparrow and kill the snot out of it. At 25 feet they will barely make it through corrugated cardboard.

Smoothbore is the way to go. As S-C said, rifling tears up the shot and you don't have much to work with to start with.

About 15 years ago I spent a winter patterning rimfire shotshells in my garage through various guns. I tried every shotshell loading I could find and settled upon 15 feet to do the comparisons. A heavy duty cardboard box lined with some carpet squares backed by a piece of plywood contained everything.

By far the best ammunition was some older yellow box Winchester of the 1970's that were crimped. My Dad had bought several boxes of these during a chipmunk seige in his garage. They were more powerful than any current production offerings and could even make some loose autoloaders cycle.

The worst were the CCI capsule loads. Besides being pricey they were weak and patterned poorly.

Also tried some 'rat loads' that featured #10 shot but those weren't as good as the traditional #12 for the winged insect shooting we were doing.

It was fun summer shooting when it was $3 a box but when it went to 10 bucks (even more now) we shot up the cartons we had on hand and then phased out.

Like speerchucker said, at 8-12 feet those little shot cartridges will do a number on sparrows, toads, chipmunks, and such.

I've done several for UNM birdologists. After I did the first two they came back for more so I guess it works for them; they use them for collecting samples. Had a retired UNM birdologist have me make inserts for 16 gauge single shot shotgun so he can shoot .22 Mag shotshells whilst collecting in South America. Birdologists are interesting folks.

thank you all for the information.

quote:

Originally posted by Toomany Tools:
I've done several for UNM birdologists. After I did the first two they came back for more so I guess it works for them; they use them for collecting samples. Had a retired UNM birdologist have me make inserts for 16 gauge single shot shotgun so he can shoot .22 Mag shotshells whilst collecting in South America. Birdologists are interesting folks.

Parkies and critter squinters of all types, shapes and forms are strange animals. Most are best observed at a distance as they tend to have a lot of hare brained ideas that get folk into trouble !

There was a write up in Rifle magazine about 25 years ago on this subject. The short answer is the a choked smooth-bore 22 shot no better than a rifled one.

I've never heard of anyone actually trying to choke one. There is a mighty big difference between a smooth bore and a rifled bore though !

Okay I'd like mine to be a smoothbore and a full choke...

Marlin at one time made a Garden Gun. It was a smooth bore 22mag. Just for shooting shotshells. Look around, there are still some out there......

Andy B

quote:

Originally posted by Snellstrom:
Okay I'd like mine to be a smoothbore and a full choke...

You're easy to please. My customers would ask for choke tubes.

Look up routledge smooth bore. It is the "choke" version.