I've got a couple of old rifles I wish to slug the barrels on. (A Savage 99 in 22HP and an old Hornet). How do I go about doing this?

Stu

Clean your barrel then push an oily patch through.
Find a piece of soft lead slightly larger than your bore, with a plastic or nylon mallet tap the lead in the muzzle untill it is flush, tap it a little farther with a suitable size wood dowel, then take a cleaning rod and carefully push it all the way down the bore untill it drops out the chamber end.

Then with a micrometer measure across the slug.

One source of suitable lead slugs is to buy a variety of lead fishing sinkers.

Brownells offers a type of metal that melts at a very low temperature, less than that of boiling water. I think it's called Cerrowax or something like that. You could use some of this in just the very end of the bore and avoid having to pound something all the way through your barrel.

Here it is: Cerrosafe Chamber Casting Alloy. Melts at 158-190 F. Cools in 30 minutes to exact chamber size. p/n is 080-027-050 for 1/2-lb size; cost is $11.59 (page 36, catalog #56). Go on-line to www.brownells.com and read more about it. It is primarily for determining the exact size of a chamber, but could be used for slugging a barrel if you gave it some thought as to how you'd do it.

[ 10-27-2003, 07:45: Message edited by: rootbeer ]

Since both guns you want to slug are 22's, try pulling a bullet from a 22LR and driving that through. If it is a little too small (most likely) you can upset it a little with a hammer, or use a 5/32" socket on the nose of it to upset it a little bit. Oil the bore a bit, craftsman said an oily patch, I've had good luck using a shot of WD 40 with the tube on the end also, just depends on what is closer to you on the bench.

Cheers guys, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Even have a suitable supply of fishing sinkers on hand. Thanks.

I was going to mention that I had some of the pointed sinkers for plastic worms and they work great, shaped like a spitzer bullet they start easy and are very soft. I didnt have to pound them down the bore, just get them started and push them thru with a cleaning rod.

Good luck and good shooting,

Eterry

OOPS, saw the topic and as I just slugged 2 barrels of my own recently wanted to reply....then noticed that the post was a month old.......oh well.....

good luck and good shooting,
eterry