Re-crowned a Pedersoli Flintlock

So while waiting on supplies to finish my load work up for my 32. My dad was having issues with accuracy with his flintlock. It used to be able to shoot 1” groups at 50yrds, however now he was having trouble keeping them in a 6-8” group. Torn and shredded patches were found along with a damaged crown. So I went ahead and polished the barrel and put a new crown on. These are before and after photos. I decided to put a 60 degree crown then smooth the edges of the lands and grooves just enough to take the sharp edges off. What do u think?

The crown can certainly ruin accuracy if damaged. Take it to the range to see if the repair worked and accuracy restored.

dave951 said:

The crown can certainly ruin accuracy if damaged. Take it to the range to see if the repair worked and accuracy restored.

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Plan on it next week, I still have a few other things he wants done to it yet. I’m still waiting on powder to show up aswell.

If you zoom in in the first pic you can see how bad the crown was. Plus it was flared out in a cone shape. He built this himself 20 years ago. He did a good job on it, just left the factory cut and crown. I think it looks a lot better now than it did. I just used my fixture with my starrett 196. Set up a dial indicator in front and behind the carriage for “0” stops. That way I could get 2 exact points from which to dial it in. I had to set the barrel back .080 to get rid of all the damage. Then I reached in at 60 degrees to finish it up.

@Leadriver, have you looked for erosion at the breech area? I've seen instances of a rifle that had superb accuracy suddenly loose it all. The borescope look at the breech area showed considerable erosion at the breech where the ball was normally located. The sudden gas cutting tore up the patches and ruined accuracy. The only solution was to cut the barrel to eliminate the erosion and rebreech and repin the stock. Of course, the barrel could have been relined or bored out to get to fresh metal. This particular original rifle had seen the sight moved forward twice and there was evidence that the barrel had been rebreeched once before. there was a long and successful career of over the log / Chunk Gun shooting with that rifle.

Grenadier1758 said:

@Leadriver, have you looked for erosion at the breech area? I've seen instances of a rifle that had superb accuracy suddenly loose it all. The borescope look at the breech area showed considerable erosion at the breech where the ball was normally located. The sudden gas cutting tore up the patches and ruined accuracy. The only solution was to cut the barrel to eliminate the erosion and rebreech and repin the stock. Of course, the barrel could have been relined or bored out to get to fresh metal. This particular original rifle had seen the sight moved forward twice and there was evidence that the barrel had been rebreeched once before. there was a long and successful career of over the log / Chunk Gun shooting with that rifle.

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Yes, the borescope did show considerable erosion in the breech area. Bore has pitting but worst is in the back 1/3rd of the barrel. The upper 2/3rds isn’t terrible but not great either. I know the rough spots was what was tearing patches. After polishing it not longer cuts tight fitting cleaning patches. I told him if it will hold good enough accuracy that next year he may want to have it re-bored or refreshed. I’m just trying to get him thru this year. Our muzzleloader season starts on Oct 15 so it’s too late to do anything drastic right now.

Good looking work, we await the target picture.

I had an unfinished crown on my Pedersoli Scout rifle which I bought as a kit. I just sanded it by hand with a sharpening stone then by sand paper and blued it. I haven't owned or had a chance to view one of their factory finished rifles. My kit rifle did need the crown finished. How did you get the barrel out of the stock? Mine has two pins and a tang bolt. I removed the 1/16 pins and the tang bolt. Barrel won't come out at all. I thought it was glued to the wood stock. I could be wrong though.

I had a very accurate .40 that after an accident lost that gilt edge precision. The breech was somewhat as you've described but just less severe damage. I sent the barrel to Bobby Hoyt to be bored out to .45 as it was a swamped but heavy. He did an incredible job and the accuracy was restored.

Leadriver said:

Yes, the borescope did show considerable erosion in the breech area. Bore has pitting but worst is in the back 1/3rd of the barrel. The upper 2/3rds isn’t terrible but not great either. I know the rough spots was what was tearing patches. After polishing it not longer cuts tight fitting cleaning patches. I told him if it will hold good enough accuracy that next year he may want to have it re-bored or refreshed. I’m just trying to get him thru this year. Our muzzleloader season starts on Oct 15 so it’s too late to do anything drastic right now.

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@Leadriver, a wad can be put between the powder and the ball to get the PRB above the breech erosion. That may also help restore accuracy.

Grenadier1758 said:

@Leadriver, a wad can be put between the powder and the ball to get the PRB above the breech erosion. That may also help restore accuracy.

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Yes that was gunna be my plan b. However I don’t think he will use them.

hanshi said:

I had a very accurate .40 that after an accident lost that gilt edge precision. The breech was somewhat as you've described but just less severe damage. I sent the barrel to Bobby Hoyt to be bored out to .45 as it was a swamped but heavy. He did an incredible job and the accuracy was restored.

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That’s who I told him about yesterday. I’ve seen a lot of people recommend him, and he isn’t terribly to far away from me.

Well got an update, went down to my dads house and recowning and polishing did help. He can keep 4 out of his 6 shots in 3” at 50yrds now they’re not covering a 2 foot target anymore. However, his patches appear to be still tearing or stretching. One blew a clean hole right thru the middle of it. He was also getting some vertical strining. 2 shots were touching dead bulleye and 2 others were about 1.5” lower touching. He called one pulled and the other went low and left, he said he thought it was him aswell. He is 60 and has trouble seeing the target. His setup is a .50 with .486 balls with .018 pillow ticking which is snug down the bore. Any opinions on the patches would be great. If you zoom in you can see a lot better.

The crown could use bit more smoothing or perhaps the patch lubricant is allowing too much gas blow by. Are the patches some older prelubricated patches that have deteroitated?

@Leadriver, that breech erosion mentioned earlier can also be a cause for the tearing of the patches. That should be addressed as you work to restore accuracy to your dad's rifle.

Grenadier1758 said:

@Leadriver, that breech erosion mentioned earlier can also be a cause for the tearing of the patches. That should be addressed as you work to restore accuracy to your dad's rifle.

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No the patches are dry .018 pillow ticking lubed and cut at the muzzle. I did polish his barrel, took my time and got 90% of the rust out but that left behind a lot of pits in the breech area. The barrel smoothed out. Bore scope showed pits and rough edges were rounded over and polished nicely. I don’t really think there is much left I can do. I used a more coarse steel wool then worked my way finer and finer till I used toothpaste for final polish. Toothpaste was just an experiment, didn’t seem to really help. I think the initial explosion of the charge is forcing the patch into the pits and just the friction is rubbing threw the patch on its way out. I also did indeed polish the crown more, that pic was taken straight after machining. I broke the edges and same for lands and grooves. I seated a ball and patch then pulled it back out and patch was not cut at all. It also loads easier than before.

I was wrong, his 4 shots measured 2”. The right one he called and the lower left I believe was the one I’m not sure. This was 50yrds.

I crown MLs in a lathe too. I use a sickle shaped tool. That allows me to put a rounded contour with no sharp edges on the lands with a gradual taper. The crown starts a few thousand over groove diameter and fades to a shallow angle that just clean up the lands. The whole thing is over about 0.100". I then thumb polish it to about 600 grit. Since my lathe does not run backwards I run scotchbrite on a stick back and forth to take of any possible wired edges on the lands. I do not funnel the barrel.

The OP's picture shows a crown that is at a flat angle, 11* ? . That is great for modern guns but will cut patches on a ML.

Scota@4570 said:

I crown MLs in a lathe too. I use a sickle shaped tool. That allows me to put a rounded contour with no sharp edges on the lands with a gradual taper. The crown starts a few thousand over groove diameter and fades to a shallow angle that just clean up the lands. The whole thing is over about 0.100". I then thumb polish it to about 600 grit. Since my lathe does not run backwards I run scotchbrite on a stick back and forth to take of any possible wired edges on the lands. I do not funnel the barrel.

The OP's picture shows a crown that is at a flat angle, 11* ? . That is great for modern guns but will cut patches on a ML.

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No, the angle is at 60 degrees. I then polished the lands and grooves. It’s smooth and doesn’t cut patches.