Sighting in a new(to me) rifle

[Kansas Jake]

It would be interesting to find a fairly long straight metal rod that is near bore size and at least a foot or more longer than the barrel. It could be placed in the barrel and then see how much the rod runs out from the line of the barrel.

Also, it seems to me that sights are never exactly parallel with the vertical plane of the bore, so placing the run out vertically would be compensated by sight adjustment in the same way we compensate for projectile drop. Some of the old sources I've seen for building a rifle suggest doing this if the barrel is not bored true.

 

[Rat]

This is true, and that is why POI changes vertically with range even with a "normal", or bored straight barrel. However, runout will increase that effect...by how much, I don't know. Maybe not much. ?? Maybe much. Sure would be simple just to fit another barrel, rather than re-breeching, filling dovetails, making new dovetails, just to find out it's like two inches high at 25 yards, and a foot low at 100, or whatever. I wonder what caliber it is, a new barrel would also allow a wide choice of calibers, if the caliber it is in is not the owner's "ideal". I wonder what a picture of this rifle would look like.

 

[Richard Konish]

Unless you really like the rifle any of the suggested repair or replacement may be cost prohibitive. Who made the rifle, what barrel length and caliber. It's hard to offer advice/suggestions without knowing a bit more about it.

 

[Britsmoothy]

Unless you really like the rifle any of the suggested repair or replacement may be cost prohibitive. Who made the rifle, what barrel length and caliber. It's hard to offer advice/suggestions without knowing a bit more about it.

My suggestion is not cost prohibitive.

 

[Rat]

What Brit sez is true, but I'm still thinking that a new barrel beats even the time spent experimenting with cutting a catty-wonkus crown. The theory does seem....sound....but still seems like putting lipstick on a pig, or the sow's ear purse, or three steps backwards and one step forward, or something like that. !!!