Bent another smoothie barrel ...

I once worked in a machine shop where we straightened pieces of 1 inch thick steel that was hardened to about 60 Rockwell. we used 50 ton presses and pieces of steel to set them up, no jigs. By eye we could get them to with in .002 of an inch of being dead straight.

I made up a number of' in the whites' for a firm. One buyer bought one knowing I had been involved. He was at Friendship and kept asking me to make it shoot to his desire to look strieght along the barrel . He had Willis Boitnot put a tall front sight on it but this only made it worse ( The customer is allways right, even when he isn't !) . He followed me about , I kept saying I could bend the barrel at a bench but not here . I was talking to Jerry Flynn ? from Florida I seem to recall . Up comes the musket man, I repeat . Then Jerry says to me "You don't under stand he wants it now ! " He takes the gun sticks in a tree fork on the Primitive,"Excuse me Sir" reeves on it and hands it back & the now happy camper departs . I later learn it put a kink at the point of bend but he didn't seem to care . I only knew because we later became friends Rudyard

As a novice, this thread amazes me. Having read about putting barrels between trees in old days, I also took it as a bit of folklore. I'm impressed by the knowledge set here. I have too much to learn.

You all remind me of an oddball French model 1754 I had one time. If you looked down the barrel, both barrel and stock curved maybe 3 inches to the left. No idea why but always joked it was for shooting around corners. Sorry for the unrelated aside.

Don Getz told us years ago..... "Ya gotta bend 'em straight."

I was told that at the factory they can look down a barrel that has been cleaned to a bright shine and see a perfect halo. If the halo isn't perfectly round they start bending the barrel until it is? The least deviation in a barrels straightness will distort the halo and is easily detected.

LME said:

I was told that at the factory they can look down a barrel that has been cleaned to a bright shine and see a perfect halo. If the halo isn't perfectly round they start bending the barrel until it is? The least deviation in a barrels straightness will distort the halo and is easily detected.

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As far as I know savage used to straighten every barrel by hand, one of the reasons they shot so good. Don't know if they still do it tho.

I have read that you can use a big bow arrangement, with a string pulled tight running through the bore to see if it touches the side the whole length. If it doesn't, it's bent, and you then work it till it's straight and the string lays against the sides of the bore all the way.

Most factories use the light-through-halo method ... and good eyes!

My bet is that most reproduction of muzzleloaders factories don't do any bore straightening! And once the plug goes in.....hence the occasional bending operation is required!

Do people bend shotgun barrels ?

GregLaRoche said:

Do people bend shotgun barrels ?

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I have. So yes. Not read of aliens or spirit creatures doing it.....yet.

GregLaRoche said:

Do people bend shotgun barrels ?

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I'd venture that more shotgun barrels are bent (modified) after leaving the factory than rifle barrels... my gunsmith friend always has 1 or 2 that need bending. He converted an old auto brake bending tool mounted on a stand to tweak barrels... works great I'm told

GregLaRoche said:

Do people bend shotgun barrels ?

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95+% of barrels bent in my shop were modern shotgun barrels. *0% of those were trap guns.

nhmoose said:

95+% of barrels bent in my shop were modern shotgun barrels. *0% of those were trap guns.

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ACK that is supposed to be 85% + of those were trap guns