Coneing, I did it. Joe wood tool

Coned my 2 barrels,50cal, with joe woods conning tool. Only difference I can tell, is that it is a joy to load. Can't tell any difference in accuary.

Yep! Lot's easier and traditional too. :thumbsup:

What is that? What did he do? I am a newbie here and don't understand all the terms you guys use.

Coned means removing some of the rifleing at the muzzle by using a special cutter.
The cutter creates a cone in the bore that runs back an inch or more at a very slight angle.

This cone allows a patched ball to enter the bore with very little pressure. Usually just thumb pressure is required.

There have been tests that indicate that removing the rifleing at the muzzle by coneing decreases the accuracy of the gun however many people say they can see no real effect on accuracy after they've had their gun coned.

Several different makers sell the tool to cone a muzzle. The tools have slightly different designs but they all use a guide that fits closely in the bore to keep the cone concentric with the rifleing.

zonie

I have stated before and I will state it again, Coning is no different than a crowned muzzle as far as accuracy goes. Coning is just a slower angle of crown on the muzzle. It eliminates the hard sharp shoulder at the end of the rifling. The rifling stops concentrically with a crown or a cone. Coning is just as accurate, just a whole lot easier to load. Crowning and coning is only as accurate as the riflesmith that performed the job. The old master riflesmiths wouldn't have coned the muzzles if it hurt accuracy.

"...The old master riflesmiths wouldn't have coned the muzzles if it hurt accuracy."
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I have read numerous histories of the gunsmiths by Whisker and others. Many of these contain the lists of the hardware and tools which were found following the death of the gunsmith and I don't recall ever seeing anything that could be called a coning tool.
There were drills, taps, thread plates (dies) hammers, files, chisels ... but seldom a reamer let alone a coning reamer.

I wonder what happened to them?

zonie

I am only guessing mind you, but those lists you are reading are primarily made up by lawyers, who would not know a drill from a reamer if their life depended on it. I suspect, like countersinks, such tools were simply listed as something else, like a " drill ". I say this because I am a lawyer, and am used to trying to decipher probate records prepared by my fellow incompetents, who don't bother to consult with someone who knows guns when they run into these kinds of estates. Its taken years, but several attorneys who know me personally have called me any time they had to make up an inventory concerning property owned by a client or relative, that includes guns, or tools. What tools I don't know, I call a couple of retired machinists friends and they pretty much can tell me what I have just by my description over the phone. The other lawyers just shake their heads at what " I " know. In reality if I didn't know off hand the phone numbers of a lot of real experts, I would not know much of anything.

Don't forget the last issue of Muzzleloader where M. Baker talks about the guy that built his rifle. He coned it by hand with hand files. I'm constantly amazed what true craftsman are able to do with tools I "think" I know how to use.

My Gunsmiths manual by Stelle & Harrison first Addition 1883 shows a tool ( cone shapped Cutter) for beveling the muzzle end of a barrel after it has been cut and squared up.
The tool has 16 cutting teeth.

"The rose head tool has the cutting end a bout an inch diameter and nearly the same length,one half the length taken up by the pointed cutting end"

Hope this reassures those that believe the old gunsmiths did in fact cone the end of the barrels.
T B.

Howdy Zonie,
I dunno what happened to the tools. But when you look at the original longrifles of the 18th and 19th century including Hawken rifles, they are coned and then have filed in rifling for cosmetic reasons. The muzzle are definitely funneled/coned.
Maybe the lawyers didn't know what the heck they were lookin' at like Paul said. :hmm:
I have never seen a dinosaur but I have seen their tracks. I have never seen a 18th c. coning tool to my knowledge but I have seen the work at the muzzle of many many old time rifles and also the rifles by better contemporary builders who try to emulate the old masters work.

Desert Rat,
I am the maker of Mark Baker's new rifle Gideon. I use a method of coning that I have found in several original rifles and documented in the Jaeger rifle book that Jim Chambers offers. It requires only a small chainsaw file and a steady hand. That could be the reason people have a hard time finding a "coning tool" in inventories of old gun shops. The coning tool was just a file. You can see a few examples of my coning at the Contemporary Longrifle show in Lexington next week if you are interested. I will have Mark's rifle there.
Mike Miller

Mike,

Ya reckon that's a source for why folks like Don Getz call that a 'Hiney' treatment? Attacking the muzzle of a custom barrel with a chainsaw file would certainly make mine pucker. Maybe its just the fact that it looks kinda similar. Anyway, I'm warming up to trying this by starting out with recutting the rifling grooves in a lathe coned muzzle.

Seriously though, the pictures in that article made your cone look much shallower than what many others do. Care to comment on that for us? Haven't seen the Jaegerbuchen book yet, but it seems to me that later rifles say post 1800 might be coned somewhat deeper than the earlier guns. Is that your feeling as well? If so, why do you think that might be?

Thanks,

Sean

Welcome aboard Mike! From the pictures in the magazine you do great work. You hit my point on the head. The original builders may have done it by hand with tools that would not have been "specialty" tools.

The coning I have been doing to my rifles is only as deep into the bore as it needs to be to alow a shooter to thumb press the ball flush with the muzzle. This is usually about one and a half times the ball diameter. This is because this is as deep as I can visually match each groove depth. Much deeper and it would be pretty much guess work. Although my method seems to be mostly guess work and hap-hazard, I am able to cut the grooves to the same depth by increasing the original crown to the depth I desire the new grooves to be. By only going into the bore as deep as it takes to press the ball flush, I can see the end of the new groove and cut them all the same. My method is deeper than what you can see in most Jeager photos but not nearly as deep as spome of the later Kentucky's. I'm not sure why the later rifles seem to have a deeper ( into the bore) cone than the earlier ones. Most of the early rifles I have looked at have bores of at least 50 caliber and have a shallow cut and the later rifles are of smaller bore and have the deep cones. This could have been due to the angle the maker had available to him with the file. I have found it easier to file the shallow cone into a large bore. The angle or degree of the cut is different on each caliber I cut. This is because I don,t have enough room, as the bore gets smaller, to cut a shallow cone. Like I told Mark when he was asking me to describe how I do the coning, it is easier to show you how than to tell it. and showing is much quicker.
Mike

Hi to all
I am the lucky ownwer of 2 of Mikes rifles. Both have been coned. My first early virgina is a 54 cal which Mike coned and fancied the muzzle end.
Shoots a 50 cent pattern at 50 yards benched. My eyes are 59 years old but I feel thats great shooting. Off the bench the pattern opens up but that's me not the gun. My other gun was picked up in Friendship this past Spring. It is also coned with an even fancier muzzle end. Shoots good but I'm still working out the patch combo. It is also a 54 cal virgina style. The guy Mike built it for changed his mind. It is done in cherry and shoulders instantly to point of impact. Both of Mikes guns are works of art to me and the workmenship is bar none. Mike builds a great gun at a great price. I'm sure as time goes on you will all be paying more for one of his guns. Hopefully my Tulle I ordered from Mike will will be ready while I am still above ground. It will be PC except for the 42" barrel since my gun safe will not take anything longer. Yep in Canada all are guns must be in a gun safe.
By the way Mike Hi and I'll see you in Friendship this Fall. I really love your 2 guns. I fondle them both every few days. Works of art truly works of art.

Cmuchalek(Vaya Con Dios Amigos) Stay Well and Shoot Often

Mike,

That makes good sense. I appreciate your reply on the topic and enjoyed seeing the article.

Oh, and welcome to the board.

Sean

In reality if I didn't know off hand the phone numbers of a lot of real experts, I would not know much of anything.

Click to expand...

WOW Paul don't ever run for Mayor--- :rotf:

Where's a good place to buy the Joe Wood tool?

The kit is sold by Joe Woods of the Firelock Shop and you can reach him by email at "flintsteel at[url] cox.net[/url]", substituting an ampersand for the "at" and removing any spaces. FYI - writing it in the way I did prevents email/spam robots from obtaining his email address.

FWIW, here's a brief write-up of the process with pictures.
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Well ... I tried it on my Mowrey Plains rifle in 50cal and it didn't hurt the accuracy one bit. Now, I am NOT in this for benchrest type accuracy, as I use this rifle for speed shooting in the primitive biathlons, even though she weighs a svelte 11 pounds. With Swiss 3F, I can get up to 5 shots off without wiping the bore between shots (ambient weather dependent, warmer weather - less shots).

Offhand, she'll keep all 5 shots in a ragged hole @ 25 yards and will do the same from the bench @ 50 yards ... my practice course is keeping all in a 6" bull offhand @ 50 yards. Provided I follow through ... she'll keep them all in the black with ease ... it's just the nut behind the trigger that I sometimes have issues with (that "nut" is me ... BTW !)



I just LOVE the ability to thumb the PRB into the barrel from the loading block while running the primitive biathlons or Seneca-type shoots! To follow is a small pictorial of the process using the kit as sold by Joe Woods of the Firelock Shop. Here’s what you need to get started. The tool and instructions from Joe, and then some crocus cloth/paper specific for metal cutting and thin carpet tape to hold it onto the tool.



Here’s the tool. It’s an impressive piece of quality machining from bearing quality bronze. Note - each tool is made unique to a caliber.



Here’s the tool as “wrapped” with the paper. You can see that I coded each piece as I cut it from the sheets ”¦ marking the TOP, as it is wider to match the wider taper of the tool, plus the GRIT of the paper. I made a bunch up ahead of time.



Here’s a close-up of the completed barrel. Ouch ”¦ look at the scratches from cutting patches at the muzzle. I did a re-blue job of the muzzle shortly after this photo appeared on my PC screen! I thought it was interesting that a “lead” on one side of each of the lands showed up, but at least they all were symmetrical.



FWIW, an interesting side story, it turns out that Joe has THE original Allen & Thurber rifle that Bill Mowrey used to model the Ethan Allen replicas from. The story itself is a hoot ... but is much better told when Joe tells it!

Final results ... for me ... I lost no accuracy at all. Tight groups!

I tried that email and got an unable to deliver failure response. Are there any on-line stores that carry the tool, or do you have to order direct from him?