Shooting way left?

[Flintandsteel]

Just bend the freaking barrel, and be done with it.

 

[54ball]

This is what some of the old time Pennsylvania Dutch and Appalachian gunsmiths did.

Remove the barrel from the rifle. “Unbrich” the barrel (remove breech plug).
Place the unbreeched barrel in a fast moving stream. The muzzle must face upstream.
The barrel is to remain in the stream fo 3 days and 3 nights.
This washes the devils (demons) out of the barrel.
It was very important that the muzzle faced up stream and not the breech. This washed the demons out. Placed breech upstream, new demons could be washed in..... not good.
After threes days the barrel was fetched from the stream. It was cleaned and a cross or X was stamped on the bottom flat behind the muzzle. The was usually under the front sight location. This mark would be hidden by the nose cap.
This was a “Hex” mark.
Hence......
Hex Barrel.
The hexagonal shaped was never used for a Muzzleloading barrel. Hex refers to the mark on the barrel not the shape of it.
To this day you’ll here hex or hexagonal referring to BP barrels.

It really worked. They probably bent or trued the barrel during this process. Also after 3 days the barrel would fill with silt mud or sand, when cleaned this helped remove any burs on the rifling.

Most importantly, it washed the demon out and the mark prevented it’s return.

You do not want the demon riding the ball.

 

[Sun City]

Best way to wash the demons out is to buy a decent rifle to begin with made by someone that knows what they're doing! There's lots of junk sold in this game!!

 

[54ball]

Best way to wash the demons out is to buy a decent rifle to begin with made by someone that knows what they're doing! There's lots of junk sold in this game!!

Sometimes rifle barrels have inherent flaws. Sometimes they just do not work right despite quality construction.
Everything can be done right and it’s still a stinker.
You see this in cars.... Lemons. Lemons are a real thing.
Sometimes that can be corrected, sometimes not.

So......
In this case.....
If it’s a straight barreled gun, I recommend replacing the barrel.
In the end this may be the cheapest and best option.
You can fart around, chase your tail and wind up spending a lot of money powder and time....all for naught.

 

[2 shots]

straightedge will not tell if the bore is true, but will eliminate a bent barrel as a problem. pull the plug and measure bore to the same flat on each end to check run out . sometimes it very obvious like many douglas barrels i have seen.

 

[reddogge]

Somewhere deep in the past, I read of unbreeching the barrel and running a tight string through the bore to check the straightness of the bore. It's been a long time ago though.

I did once buy a surplus SKS rifle with a bent barrel and I straightened it in the vise. It shot great after.