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Not exactly my favorite part......

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The Appalachian

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Good work.......Martin 9. I'm with you on not finishing the 3 bottom flats. I've Looked at 100's of original barrels , and can't remember one with the bottom 3 sides finished. Granted , hand made files were always not wasted on "finishing" unnecessary anything. We have as many tools as we wish to use now , but I think I elect to stay 18th century , and let the bottom 3 flats lay as they are. Never claimed to be a professional muzzleloader mechanic , and never want to be. More fun to just build good working rifles. :thumb: .............oldwood
 
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Good work.......Martin 9. I'm with you on not finishing the 3 bottom flats. I've Looked at 100's of original barrels , and can't remember one with the bottom 3 sides finished. Granted , hand made files were always not wasted on "finishing" unnecessary anything. We have as many tools as we wish to use now , but I think I elect to stay 18th century , and let the bottom 3 flats lay as they are. Never claimed to be a professional muzzleloader mechanic , and never want to be. More fun to just build good working rifles. :thumb: .............oldwood
oldwood, understanding how original barrels were forged, I'm going to bet very heavy odds that 18th century barrels didn't come to the bench with 21st century end mill swirls from one end of the barrel to the other on all 8 sides, like this Colerain barrel came to me. So, by graining the end millings out with a draw file or the 80 grit sandpaper like I'm doing, it gets it a little closer to the 18th century, wouldn't you say?

As far as claiming to be a professional, I'm far from it, but I do have my pride, and my barrels are finished all the way around because I'll put 8/8 effort into my work instead of 5/8. And you're absolutely right about the old ones not wanting to waste their files on what's not seen. That's likely the only reason too. I have a whole drawer full of spent files that would put an original builder in tears.

In the time it took martin9 to post his snide comment from the time of my original post I had 2 more flats done, so it's not a terrible job, not even too time consuming, just not my favorite part.
 
Well that's your business. In my opinion anything but a fully finished barrel is unprofessional, so I do all 8.
I do all eight, because 1) I do it before breaching so I don’t know what the top 5 will be, 2) my guns are pinned, so I don’t pull them very often, I think smooth leaves less spots for rust to develop, 3) I don’t want to cut corners
However, even on the finest guns in the old days what wasn’t exposed could be pretty rough
 

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