Just wondering: on an old rifle with rounded leading edge of the lands, can a cutter be made to recut this leading adge to a sharper angle? this would make the grooves wider, and the lands narrower, but could be an alternative to rebarreling.

Reason for asking is a combination rifle with attached rifle and shotgun tubes. Not really a candidate for rebarreling.

dumb question from me-

was the rifling purposely cut that way?

just curious; I wouldn't know worn rifling from good.

Some rifling designs intentionally use rounded edges. Nothing wrong with that as long as it shoots well.

Yes, that would work to improve the appearance of the rifling, though the rifle might or might not shoot any better.

One thing a person would have to be very careful about is making sure he had exactly the same twist rate in his rifling set-up when he did the cutting, otherwise I suspect one could end up with a "dog's breakfast".

For the same reason, I doubt it would be a very practical way to "freshen-up" button rifled barrels. Button-rifled barrels frequently have a susbsantial variation in twist from inch to inch, end-to-end, according to the reports I've seen from barrel-makers. Has to do with the homgeneity of the metal, inclusions, etc, causing the button to move more easily and less easily from place to place during the drawing or pushing of the rifling button through the bore.


With cut rifling, it is even possible to freshen the rifling with a lap. That was a commonly used method in old softer iron muzzle-loader barrels in the 19th century.

Another option is to get the barrel very slightly increased in both groove width AND depth. Harry Pope used to do a lot of that, resulting in a lot of 32.-40s becoming so-called .33-40s.