making a muzzle loader from an old shotgun barrel.

[willysjeep134]

Hi all. This is my first posr in this forum. For a while I have been milling around an idea in my head about how to get a barrel suitable for a flintlock shotgun.

My plan was to purchase a non-damascus steel 12 gauge barrel, ream the forcing cone out to chamber diameter, and silver solder a sleeve in the chamber and hone it so the bore is the same diameter back to the breech. I would make the insert short enough so that I could thread the breech end of the actual barrel long enough to accept a breech plug, and then polish the whole bore out to 11 gauge, to match the bore of a muzzle loader I already have. I would also cut the first few inches off the front of the barrel to get rid of the choke and polish the muzzle.

I owuld hopefully end up with about a 22 inch 11 gauge barrel made of nitro steel with a breech plug and tang. I have some nice heavy blach cherry in the shed that would make a nice stock, and Jed Starr has some pretty nice flintlocks in my price range.

With a little blacksmithing I could flare the muzzle and make an actual blunderbuss barrel out of my creation. This would not only be cool but also give the gun a more historically accurate look, if I were trying for an early 1730s era look.

So, does it sound like the barrel liner/breech plug idea has any merit? I figure that nitro steel should be strong enough to contain a black powder load, especially with a steel liner sleeve bumping the chamber diameter down to bore diameter.  Any thoughts?

[gunnut69]

I guess it would work..  I've seen modern shootgun barrels used to make muzzle loaders before, back in the days before barrels were readily available.  Today we have almost any barrel available that one's heart could desire.  Making this conversion possible but unneeded..  Flaring that muzzle may create come problems as the metal will thin as the diameter is increased.  Perhaps it can be bumped back but not being a real blacksmith I'm unsure.  Still I'd bet you'd be money ahead just buying a barrel to fit your needs or desires!

[willysjeep134]

Yeah, the flared muzzle idea probably won't happen. The biggest concern for me is the expense of a new barrel. I can get a shotgun barrel for about $15 from sources on line and various gun shows. I have a lathe and the proper equipment to make the conversion. along with my machineist father to supervise the project. For $15 I can justify trying it. Mabey I will leave the bore a true 12 gauge and just polish the sleeved chamber. That would save a lot of trouble too. A block of ordinance steel for the breech plug wouldn't set me back much either. If I were to spend a hundred on a new barrel I would be out quite a lot if this project was never finished. Basically, in my mind it seems like it would be a pretty straight forward process. I think