coning barrels the traditional way

I know how barrels are coned now and am aware of the tools offered for the purpose, but I wonder how it was done back in the early days? What did the tools look like then you reckon?

Files.

Tom. Your question assumes there were guns made in the early days with a coned barrel. To the best of my knowledge, the jury is still out on that issue.

If they did cone the barrels I'm sure they would have used a tapered reamer similar to the ones being sold now. The tool is fairly easy to make and to use.

Were there coned (or more correctly, relieved) barrels? Yes. Was it universal? No. How was it done? Most often with files.

How is a barrel coned uniformly with a file? I would think a reamer would be necessary followed by a taper lap to clean up the scratches.

Just a thought no evidence to back it. If I was a gun maker then and a client wanted a coned (relieved) bore why not make a oversized cherry such as used for a ball mould and ream the muzzle with that.

Mike Miller, a highly regarded muzzle loading rifle maker, cone the muzzles of his rifles with files. You retain the look of a rifled muzzle with the ease of loading that comes with a coned muzzle. Mike's rifles are very accurate. Mike made his decision from observing original rifles with coned muzzles.

Ok, but how is it done with a file ? Whats the technique and what is the file shape ?

M. De Land said:

How is a barrel coned uniformly with a file? I would think a reamer would be necessary followed by a taper lap to clean up the scratches.

Click to expand...

Here's a good description of different methods, as well as some period examples, on the American Longrifle Forum.

Opening up end of barrel channel to allow easier ball start

The original procedure may not be optimal today. They did what they could with what they had.

Any muzzle treatment must be concentric with the bore. IF it is cockeyed the rifle will not shoot where the barrel is pointed. I would never file or use any eyeball technique on the muzzle. I am an admitted accuracy nut.

To cut a cone concentric with the bore you need a piloted tool or a lathe. You need a lathe to make an accurate pilot. So why not use the lathe to cut the cone (crown)? Once you have the barrel mounted in the lathe dead straight you can make any crown you want.

I like to make the first part of the cone-crown about 3* off the bore. That continues for the length of the lands, about 0.100". I then use a sickle shaped tool to make a couple of cuts to ease the edge at increasing angles. My cone-crown is about 0.200" total length. The largest diameter is a little over groove diameter. IT loads easy and shoots straight. You do not need a long blunderbuss like funnel.

I always crown barrels in my lathe with a steady rest set up between centers but if I were to make a long muzzle cone of 1.5 -2 inches in length like some I have read were I would make a piloted half reamer and a brass lap of the same angle to clean it up.
Barrels are never bored perfectly straight so even if you set up between centers (which is the most accurate method) the crown will not be absolutely square to the bore axis but is as close as you can get it in a lathe and you will never be able to detect any difference.
A close fitting piloted reamer would be the most accurate method of cone cutting as it will track with the snake of the bore just as a floating chamber reamer fixture does when cutting cartridge chambers.

Even though gunsmiths may have coned the muzzles with hand files a couple of centuries ago, why would someone want to do that today?

More power to them if they want to use a hand file and a precise enough to guarantee a high degree of concentric displacement of the metal. More power to someone that has a lathe and can do that as well.

I'm not skilled enough with a hand file to cone a muzzle and I don't have a lathe.

I do have several of Joe Wood's coning tools. I've used them on four pistols and two rifles so far. If you take your time and follow his directions, it's easier than you think. It is also cheaper than buying a lathe or ruining a rifle barrel because you are ham-fisted with a file or don't know how much metal to remove.

Follow Joe's instructions and there isn't any guess work involved.

Here's the link to the discussions on this forum:

FOR SALE - Muzzle Coning Tool

Coneing, I did it. Joe wood tool

Enfield58 said:

Even though gunsmiths may have coned the muzzles with hand files a couple of centuries ago, why would someone want to do that today?

More power to them if they want to use a hand file and a precise enough to guarantee a high degree of concentric displacement of the metal. More power to someone that has a lathe and can do that as well.

I'm not skilled enough with a hand file to cone a muzzle and I don't have a lathe.

I do have several of Joe Wood's coning tools. I've used them on four pistols and two rifles so far. If you take your time and follow his directions, it's easier than you think. It is also cheaper than buying a lathe or ruining a rifle barrel because you are ham-fisted with a file or don't know how much metal to remove.

Follow Joe's instructions and there isn't any guess work involved.

Here's the link to the discussions on this forum:

FOR SALE - Muzzle Coning Tool

Coneing, I did it. Joe wood tool

Click to expand...

Why use files? Because it's a decorative touch.

To my way of thinking, the picture you show is really, "muzzle decoration". It isn't the coning we in modern times think of when we say "coning".

I've seen muzzle decoration on rifles but it usually only went into the barrel 1/8" to 1/4" at the most.

The "coning" I think of is made with a very slight taper and it usually removes almost all traces of the rifling grooves at the muzzle. In order to do this, it often extends 1 1/2" to 3" down the bore.
To produce this sort of deep, shallow angle cut, a tapered reamer is the best tool to use.

We are probably never going to know exactly what was the most common method of coning barrels but I think it was Wallace Gusler at Williamsburg who hypothesized barrels might have been coned by inserting a hardened and tapered mandrel into the muzzle of those soft iron barrels and giving them a solid whack with a large hammer. The iron, being about as malleable as lead would expand and the barrel would be coned. Try this with today’s steel barrels and you might never get the mandrel out!

Does anyone cone pistol barrels (aside from the above mention of one histyoric example)?
I recently coned my rifle, using Joe's great tool. Wonder now why I dithered so long before doing it. No effect on the gun's fine accuracy. I'm tempted to cone my KY style fl pistol. Same caliber, so i can use the same tool.Btw, I like JB67's decorative muzzle filing. I may talk myself into trying something similar, if not so dramatic. I fear I lack his skills.

I have long thought that rifle barrels would have their cone swedged in with a tapered mandrel... but finding out that Wallace Gusler thinks the same as me on something... that's kind of odd...

Zonie said:

To my way of thinking, the picture you show is really, "muzzle decoration". It isn't the coning we in modern times think of when we say "coning".

I've seen muzzle decoration on rifles but it usually only went into the barrel 1/8" to 1/4" at the most.

The "coning" I think of is made with a very slight taper and it usually removes almost all traces of the rifling grooves at the muzzle. In order to do this, it often extends 1 1/2" to 3" down the bore.
To produce this sort of deep, shallow angle cut, a tapered reamer is the best tool to use.

Click to expand...

I agree Zonie. That sort of decoration is often used in conjunction with coning so is often considered the same treatment. I have an Allen Martin Schimmel that he coned and decorated similarly. It’s a really nice touch.

Also Wallace Gustler, Hershel House, and others are of the opinion that a
large number of originals were ‘relieved’ when they were built. I tend to agree. Especially Southern guns.

"Barrels are never bored perfectly straight so even if you set up between centers (which is the most accurate method) the crown will not be absolutely square to the bore axis but is as close as you can get it in a lathe and you will never be able to detect any difference."

I don't understand how you would cut a crown with centers inserted in both ends of the barrel.

I use a tailstock spider to make the bore run true. I use a close fitting long arbor to get a couple of readings over a length to be sure the bore is centered and true.

A piloted reamer would also do just fine. It would tend to self enter.

It does not need to be dead nuts perfect.

I have long been of the thinking that a lot of hooraw is made of something that unless a feller is shooting a long bore riding bullet with paper patching and eeking out every bit of accuracy with a telescopic sight with enough magnification to see into the next county AND using powder that has better burn quality's AND swabs the barrel each and every time ... that to group a muzzle loading rifle with good ol quality black powder into 2 inch or so group at 50 to 75 yards is plenty accurate for the times we emulate here.

If we look historically at the ODG's ... I wonder if they as a group did much better then a 2 inch 75 yard groups.

However loading in a hurry WAS a concern ... hence a tapered plug sanding away a bit of rifling at the muzzle would enable an extra step to be dropped (such as short starting a patched round ball) and speeding up the proccess of "getting a ball huggin powder" would be a highly sought after treatment of ones rifled barrel. Especially if that same 2 inch 75 yard group is maintained.

Tis the why of my fondness for my 62 cal smoothy. Easy loading and fast when patching a 595 inch ball with .010 inch patching material lubed with a good lube. Dump powder in, followed by an easy thumb start of a pre-patched ball from a loading block and shoved home with the rammer held under the barrel and having the brass end of the same size as the wood rod to facilitate having that brass tip easilly incerted into the thimbles and stock so a smoothly pulling of the ram rod up and immediately shoving it into the barrel without needing to swap ends first ... followed by the same smooth method to return it under and through the thimbles under the barrel ... prime n shoot.