To Cone, or Not to Cone, That is the Question

[tenngun]

:wink: I will argue all day that starters were known and used. However I hit two road blocks:1)Pre 1830 references are scant and in Europe, 2)multi references to loading without a starter are recorded.
Coning seems to be done and well referenced but not very common. As I wrestled with this great moral issue of our times I hit on the perfect solution. Get you a gun that doesn't have all them groves cut in it. :haha:

 

[BrownBear]

Please tell me what bore size, size ball, and patching that is so easy to load and is so accurate?

I use a 0.530" ball and 0.017" patching in my .54 cal. and it is fairly accurate. I don't use a short starter (just choke up on the last few inches of my rammer after thumb starting the ball).

I do have a little 1-1/2" stub starter I use to push patched balls out of pre-prepared ball block. But sometimes I don't use it. It's attached to a block with a leather thong and I have other ball blocks with none.

Same here all around, except I've dispensed with the short starter on blocks, too.

It would be interesting for someone to "survey" my rifles regarding coning. You can tell which ones get lots of hunting. They're all coned. Those without cones just haven't made the hunting grade yet, I guess. But with lots of field use I find real advantages for coning. My tastes, my rifles and my hunts.

 

[George]

Coning seems to be done and well referenced but not very common.

I'd like some of those references for my files if you have them.

Spence

 

[Maven]

Spence, Are these some of the files you're looking for? http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/223037/

 

[Black Hand]

Coning seems to be done and well referenced but not very common.

I'd like some of those references for my files if you have them.

Spence

As would I...

 

[George]

Spence, Are these some of the files you're looking for?

No, tenngun said coning was well documented, that's what i was looking for, in primary sources.

Spence

 

[tenngun]

The only guns for sure I have seen in it was on matched cased pistols. The first reference I read on these pistols called it false rifeling. That the gun was made to look smooth but be rifled on inside to give a cheat to early pistol competition or dueling. I don’t buy that and think it a loading aid as pistols are a pia to load.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

coning may be fine for minute of deer. But in match shooting, you won't see coned barrels in serious competition. Further, if you have a choked bore rifle, coning removed the choke. That would be just dumb. Pay for a choked bore and remove the thing that helps accuracy.

For all those who say it doesn't affect accuracy, I would want to see ten light bench 100 yard targets before and ten afterward. Now a POS gun that only shoots a four inch group at 100 is likely not to be affected. I guarantee a gun that shoots MOA accuracy will not do it after coning. And for people aiming to hit a 6 inch vital area of a whitetail at 100 yds, it really does not matter. TO THEM and only them, the accuracy is indeed the same.

 

[Eterry]

I've never owned a coned barrel, but i used my 45 for years without a starter. I was 14, no one told me the ramrod could break and hurt me. I replaced it several times, using dowel rods sanded down to fit. They'd last about a year, I'd feel or notice it crack, and start on a new one.
Was i shooting competition? No. But the dozens of small critters i shot didn't know that. I depended on my mom to get my patching... it was lighter than pillow tick and a yard last a while. No one told me i had to read my patches like a book. I usually hit what i aimed at.

I think 200 years ago a guy hunting knew a slightly looser patched ball was much easier to load and would hit the vials, cause most shooting even now is under 100 yards. Those that shot competition knew the ball needed a tight patch to cut out the X and used what was needed to accomplish that.
Life was sure simple back then.

 

[Rifleman1776]

FWIW, the late Marshall Hooker had a rifle he claimed once belonged to Daniel Boone. I never saw him shoot the rifle but I did get to hold it and have a picture of that event with Marshall. The bore was very much coned. Hooker claimed the coning did not detract from accuracy. He made replicas of the rifle to sell. (sadly not very good workmanship) They were coned. Personally, I just couldn't bring myself to cone one of my rifles. :shake:

 

[rdstrain49]

I was an armorer for more years than I care to remember. My considered opinion is that some rifles may have been "coned" as a way of compensating for uneven muzzle wear due to the ramrod, and restoring some of the resultant lost accuracy and likely had nothing to do with ease of loading. I suspect this was an intermediate step, used before cutting the barrel back and re-crowning.

I suspect that ball patch combinations used back in the day were no where near a tight as some try to make them today. My TVM shoots just over an inch at 100 yards and I can start the ball with my thumb or the flat of my patch knife. But like other opinions on the subject, they are just that.

 

[SAJones]

Pretty much agree: I coned my Getz .54 based on earlier discussions, but found no change in accuracy & still used the short starter. It did make it difficult to cut a patch flush with the muzzle as I often pulled the ball out & sent off somewhere in the gravel.
Did repair a barrel by coning; an old .45 TC that I managed to bulge by short starting. Cut off at the bulge & coned the remaining damage out. Made a dandy short barrel brush rifle.

 

[Smokey Plainsman]

I see.

Seems many say even when coned they still use a starter... one then begins to wonder why cone to begin with...

 

[Tom Compton]

I don’t recall anyone saying accuracy was improved by coning. I guess if using precut patches it might be ok but I cut at the muzzle so no coning for me.

 

[MSW]

i believe that the general consensus is that if you're hunting the elusive X-ring, coning might not be the way to go. i have never seen or even heard of, for instance, a chunk gun with a coned barrel.

So, if you want to cloverleaf at a zillion meters, it's probably not a good idea. (My go-to accuracy guy, Dutch Schoultz, recommends against it, if i remember correctly- get his method; money well spent, but i digress...)

Since i no longer have the eyesight or the time to hunt X-rings, i am happy with 'informal targets' (i.e. plinking) and as long as the soda can bounces and i can keep it in the black, i'd call it a good day at the range.

I have used Joe Woods' tool on several rifles, and didn't have the problem with the wet/dry sandpaper tearing off, though i did have to replace the paper more often than i'd expected on the first barrel. I recently purchased one of Ed Hamburgs multi calibre tools, and i haven't used it yet. It's possible for me to thumb- start all my coned barrels, and i haven't had trouble cutting the patch at the muzzle, but i keep my patch knife super sharp: dull knives are a venal sin.

good luck with your project, and

Make Good Smoke

 

[Dr5x]

I have neverseen a reason to cone a rifle barrel.
I believe the main reason for doing it was because you were copying someone you admired.
Whatever floats your canoe.

Dytch

 

[Claude Mathis]

I have neverseen a reason to cone a rifle barrel.

I coned my flintlock rifle. It's much easy to push the ball below the end of the barrel, using just my thumb, than it was prior to coning. That's reason enough for me. :wink:

 

[Cruzatte]

I have neverseen a reason to cone a rifle barrel.

I coned my flintlock rifle. It's much easy to push the ball below the end of the barrel, using just my thumb, than it was prior to coning. That's reason enough for me. :wink:

I faced the same situation, Claude. So I coned the barrel of my rifle, using Joe Wood's coning tool. I've never regretted it.

 

[Claude Mathis]

I have neverseen a reason to cone a rifle barrel.

I coned my flintlock rifle. It's much easy to push the ball below the end of the barrel, using just my thumb, than it was prior to coning. That's reason enough for me. :wink:

I faced the same situation, Claude. So I coned the barrel of my rifle, using Joe Wood's coning tool. I've never regretted it.

Yep, I used the same tool. :thumbsup:

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

T’was said many years ago, but I forget the source ...

”To CONE a barrel is to HUNT with it, else leave it be ... “

I cone only my hunting guns and achieve outstanding accuracy, with easy loading and without need of a short starter. I’d say we beat this topic to death ... again!