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New project, coning a barrel

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Eric Krewson:
As footnote; I decided to cone the two barrels a little deeper to put the ball at patch cutting depth, this was a mistake. I should have stuck to the directions that came with the tool which tell the user to stop coning when the ball is half way into the muzzle with a dry patch. Going deeper made my groups open up from 1" to almost 3" at 50 yards and required a long ball starter to get past the cone.

sleek:
If you cut a little off the barrel will that tighten the group back up? Or do you have room with the site up front getting too close to the end?

Eric Krewson:
I would have to cut 1/2" off the barrel, possibly an inch. On my Haines rifle this would amount to a lot of work, shortening the forearm, moving the nose cap and the ramrod pipes back.  As builder I could do this work but don't know if I want to, I could make the fix look like nothing had ever been done, fixing boo-boos is part of gun building, I made a lot early on so I have plenty of experience.

I over-crowned a GM barrel on a TC Hawken as well; this would be an easy fix to correct. In this case the barrel has never been a good shooter so I might not go to the trouble to cut the barrel off.

I have cut off a barrel before; I used a hack saw and a machinist's square and a variety of files, I made a special rig to re-crown the barrel that worked particularly well.

My crown cutting tool;

JW_Halverson:
I know two guys that lost accuracy with coning their barrels. Though he won't admit it, I am dang sure the one chucked the coning tool up in a drill and didnt counter-rotate the barrel as he worked it according to instructions.

Glad this turned out well for you.

sleek:
Is it better to rebarrel it then?

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