Barrel I.D. finishing, or really exotic barrel maker?

[Naphtali]

I am building three muzzleloading rifles, and I have wasted nearly $6000 dollars over the last three years. I need help.

I want three barrels made for muzzleloading. Any bore diameter between .50- and .75-caliber, and lengths between 24 and 34 inches, is acceptable. It makes no difference to me how they are rifled: cut rifled, button rifled, cation eroded, hammer rifled, oval bored, or any other method. Rate of twist, depth of rifling, choke or taper boring, gain twist, and other stuff is barrel maker stuff. So let's not worry about it. Barrels are to be built-to order. This is where I run into trouble. Sounds like no sweat, right?

The difficult part is to have them made in ANY OF THE FOLLOWING options. One possibility includes exotic material from which to make barrel blanks. Other possibilities are to use standard barrel materials and do exotic things to the metal:

1. Barrels made from CC450 or 17-4PH steel. This is my best solution. It is also the least likely to be available, even as "I'll try it, but you have bought it regardless what happens."

2. Standard barrel materials, such as 4140, 4150, and 416BQ, that have IDs TiN'd by a metal finishing company. There are several formulations for titanium nitride. Whatever can be done is acceptable. This is where I hope one of you will offer me a solution.

3. Standard barrel materials, such as 4140, 4150, and 416BQ, that have IDs hard chrome plated. This is available from several mass manufacturers, but their barrels are not otherwise acceptable. I do not know of any plating company, or barrel maker, who offers industrial plating for IDs of custom-built barrels.

I need identification of people and businesses that can do the job. Please don't question my sanity. I want the best and am willing to pay -- that's reason enough!

To reach me directly:
tlancek@fastmail.fm

[fredj]

Would it be too much to ask, just what is the point ? or what are you looking to achieve ?  One of my best friends is Mike Rock who made
the best Sniper rifle barrels the Marine corps ever used and is well known for his Palma barrels etc, he is also a buckskinner and has been shooting BP for years has cut rifled Alex Henry barrels, Metford barrels etc.
The heart of any fine barrel is the particular bore profile for the intended purpose what you seem to be saying here is you want a Ferrari but the engine is totally irrelevant it can be a Briggs and Stratton lawn mower engine, or an super charged Allison V-16. The alloys used are also a function of the rifling technique being used and the intended purpose
are these rifles intended to be shot or just wall hangers ?
  I really do wonder if perhaps you've discontinued your thorazine or something :wink:  All kidding aside what is the point of all of this ?

[Naphtali]

fredj:

Always a pleasure. Let's address the most important question first. Thorazine suppositories seven times daily. The antipsychotic helps keep me grounded, doncha know. Saturn is beautiful this time of year.

Enough. Your metaphor is wrong -- not a Ferrari, a tractor. I shoot twice a week. Products of black powder combustion are, predominantly, salts and corrosive gases.
***************************
Potassium carbonate (K2CO3).
Potassium sulfate (K2SO4).
Potassium sulfide (K2S).
Potassium thiosulfate (K2S2O3).
Potassium thiocynate (KSCN).
Ammonium carbonate [(NH4)2CO3].
Carbon (C).
Sulfur (S).

Gases include:
Carbon dioxide (CO2).
Carbon monoxide (CO).
Methane (CH4).
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S).
Hydrogen (H2).
Nitrogen (N2).
***************************
The barrel ID is the heart of a muzzleloading rifle -- that is, if the rifle doesn't shoot accurate patterns (groups shoot to same point of impact from same point of aim) -- we have ourselves a short hiking staff or long ice axe.

So far, I think we still agree.

I admit it. I have a phobia concerning rust/corrosion. I further admit I tend to do a lousy job of cleaning during hunting seasons. We "cold camp for several weeks." It's very cold and usually snowing, drizzling, or thinking about it.

My intended result is an acceptably accurate rifle [barrel] that is inert to black powder cumbustion. That's it. I'll still swab every third shot. I'll still do the best I can maintaining it. But the mental thing about corrosion -- the equivalent of "the guilty man flees when no one pursues" -- disappears.

For most people this is irrelevant. I've had this nagging at me for more than twenty-five years. I don't seem to be able to eliminate the pobia. So let's eliminate the source.

And, lastly, doing exotic things to the barrel harms no one. So why not do them if I can?

So, can you point me toward a solution?

[fredj]

Naphtali- I believe much of the fear of BP corrosivity is based on poor quality BP a certain domestic manufacturer of said propellant that had
a virtual monopoly for many decades allegedly used (uses) fertilizer derived Kn03 which contains a number of impurities including NaN03
which is considerably more corrosive than pure Kn03 and very hygroscopic, higher quality BP's use a reagent grade Kn03 the resulting
BP is considerably less corrosive, the corrosion is a function of atmospheric moisture and below 30% reletive humidity takes a very long time to begin, ever brown a barrel ? when you're browning a barrel you
are deliberately rusting it, ideally at a fast a rate as possible, so every 12 to 24 hours the surface rust is carded (abraded off) eventually 8 to 12 cycles the rust is neutralized with baking soda and water the barrel is then coated with your oil of choice. yielding a beautiful and highly durable traditional protective finish. To begin the process you need to scrupulously degrease the barrel as even the oil imparted from the hands
will prevent the formation of rust, and the steel often needs to be first roughed up with 220 grit sand paper as it's damn difficult to get a highly polished surface to start rusting, traditionaly browning a barrel is best done when it's warm and humid, during the winter months (or in an arid environment) unless you
artificially induce humidity with a browning box or poly bag tent a barrel can sit there for weeks or even months until any rust happens and mind you the degreased barrel is coated with browning solution which is geometrically more corrosive than the worst BP residues imagineable, nitric acid, and all kinds of interesting salts specifically designed to corrode steel. What I'm trying to say in my entirely pedantic fashion is that during the winter
in the kind of Deer camp situations you mentioned you can pretty much leave your bore uncleaned for days with impunity, and even if some rust did start it would be of an innocuous surface variety and will be completely obviated by a couple of quick passes with a tight fitting patch
with a minute coating of JB Probst cleaning paste after cleaning. for the truly analy retentive a couple of wet patches of any solvent or even water
followed by a dry patch or two then an alcohol saturated patch to remove
the last miniscule remnants of residual moisture and an oily patch will provide a reletively bullet proof expediant cleaning that would make your barrel immune from rust for weeks, One of my good friends who has been shooting the same really ugly Douglass barreled Hawken in competition since the  70's and this is the technique he uses after shooting the rifle is then cased and thrown in the back of his truck this rifle
is stil extremely accurate after all these years and this rifle was being fed the aforementioned crap BP for the first 2 decades. What I'm trying to say here is that your fears of BP residue corrosion are largely unfounded.
with the most minimal PM (preventative maintenance) proceedures no corrosion occours. So I think you'd be far better off spending some of that
excess cash on beautifully accurate examples of the custom barrel makers art rifled specifically for the type of shooting, projectile and expected charge levels you'll be using of the alloy thats proven best for the rifling technique being employed.
using the basic technniques I outlined your Great Grandson could be
enjoying your rifle.
   With button rifling, hammer forging, and broaching; the steel alloy used and the stress relieving employed are absolutely critical to getting an acceptable result, so I think you're out of luck there, and if you're still bound and determined you're pretty much looking at cut rifling the accepted masters of this technique are Boots Obermeyer, Mike Rock,
and Krieger and all of them are somewhat egocentric individuals who are basically only going to make whatever they feel like making at the time and are all invariably months behind sometimes years behind in thier orders.
I can appreciate all the thought you've put into this, but I believe even if
you did mnange to get one of the aforementioned individuals to build what you want, it would largely be an extremely expensive waste of your time as well as thiers, the typical ordinance steels are all universaly rather soft which is necessitated by the tooling and techniques involved. Getting a rifle barrel drilled straight and reamed properly is more of an art than a science. Using a harder more brittle alloy would not only require an research grant and lots of time, and the result could prove too brittle to be truly safe. If your BP/rust phobia or neurosis is really firmly set Paxil can sometimes work wonders with OCD issues  :wink: or you could simply buy one of those Savage inlines specifically designed to use
smokeless as a propellant, I believe however smokeless stainless and all would still eventually experience damage unless cleaned on occaison.
Regards fredj

[Naphtali]

Let's not refer to in-lines, mule hammer, or underhammer locks. I'm a flintlock kind've a guy. Much of the fun is aesthetic.

I appreciate the time you have invested in my topic. Were the want/need/phobia -- whatever you want to call it -- were susceptible to logic, the topic wouldn't exist.

I must emphasize that I am no formal target shooter. Accuracy requirements are, by today's standard, nominal. My paper shooting limit at known distance is 150 meters. At elk, the limit is 100 meters. To hit with a .62-caliber round ball within an eight-inch diameter circle at 100 meters may allow more difficult-to-rifle material. So far, it ain't so.

[wallynut]

Maybe you should use smokeless powder in that thar smokepole :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:  :roll:

[johnt]

I agree with wallynut,
And it might be an advantage to use onna them brass tube things to put the smokeless powder an bullet in first.
Then ya could make a gun that the whole shebang goes in from the back of the gun,an maybe sum kinda lever system to make it easy to load another real quick!??
Or for 2k each year,you shoot the gun,an send it to me.I'll clean it and send it back.I guarentee you'll get it clean and properly sighted just after each deer season.

[bubba]

In my 2 cents worth I would say get rid of the thorazine suppositories and get on Zoloft 200 mg every morning. It is a better and preferred treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder. Plus you can swallow them rahter than the other alternative,  Just my professional opinion

[Naphtali]

Is bubba the only one of us with a grasp on reality?

The less I say about those of you who mentioned using smokeless powder for muzzleloading, I think the more polite this thread will remain.

The purposes for muzzleloading include: fun; reduction of advantage, tradition. Muzzleloading shooters that use smokeless powder, primer ignition, telescopic sights, and so on, defeat the purposes for which modern muzzleloading hunting seasons exist. They are plain and simple rule beaters.

Let's not digress. I'm trying to get work done on IDs of barrels.