By: Steve Ostrem
Got a great old gun that you’d love to shoot if only the rifling
was in
better shape? I have an 1889 Marlin lever gun in .38-40 that
has seen
better days, to put it mildly. The bluing has turned to rust and
some
of the parts are missing, or need to be replaced. The worst
part however,
is the rifling, or what remains of it. The inside of the barrel
looks
like a piece of sewer pipe in which the pits form a spiral. To
grade it
at NRA "Poor" would be charitable to say the least. The
trouble is, it’s
a really neat gun, (Marlin’s first side-eject design), and I’d like
to
be able to shoot it and occasionally hit the target.
After years of letting this fine old piece of history sit idly in the
corner, I decided to re-line the barrel and make it shoot
again. Luckily
for me, this job has never been easier with the selection of
special liners
and drills for this purpose that we have today. We also have
a Barrel
Liner Instruction Book (#077-200-143) which is available
at no charge
and explains re-lining .22 barrels along with a short section
on installing
a centerfire liner. It describes using Force 44 solder or Acraglas®
(#081-003-002) to secure the liner in place and has a lot
of good
information from three different gunsmiths who share their
time-proven
methods.
The first thing I did was round up a 38-40 liner and the
proper piloted
drill. There are two drills available for the liners we carry, a
long
drill and a shorter version for those who want to add their
own extension.
I chose the long drill, as it was just long enough to do my
24-inch barrel
without adding an extension. (13 inches-not including the
pilot). The
liner measured about 25 inches long, which is just about
right. It’s good
to have a little excess to cut off at each end to be sure the
rifling
is clean and undamaged. Once you have the proper
chambering reamer, you
are almost set to go. There is still the matter of how to
secure the liner
in the barrel. Soldering is the traditional method, but using
Acraglas
is much easier and does not pose any danger to the existing
finish on
the gun as heating it with a torch might. Another advantage
to Acraglas
is that when mixed with black dye it becomes extremely hard
to see the
seam between the barrel and the liner. My barrel needed to
be refinished
anyway, so I thought I’d make this project really interesting
and use
the solder-in method.
| Drilling the barrel
can be done
in the lathe or with an electric hand drill, and a good job
can be
done with either method. Don’t bother with smaller _” and
3/8”drills.
They simply do not have the power to do this job. Also,
remember to
use a good cutting fluid such as Universal
Do-Drill™ (#083-007-016). This helps the drill cut
smoother and
much easier with less tendency to clog or hang up in the
hole. It
also helps the drill bit cut a nice round hole to the proper
size
resulting in a good liner-to-barrel fit. |
|
On this particular barrel, the
breech has an overhanging
hood that makes drilling difficult. Therefore, I decided it would
be better
to put it in a lathe and use a boring bar to start the hole at
the breech.
I found a piece of brass rod and turned it down until it just fit
what
remained of the rifling. This allowed me to run an indicator on
the rod,
and true up the barrel in the four-jaw chuck, thereby insuring
the hole
I was turning with the boring bar would be concentric with
the rifling.
It is also possible to make a bushing to fit the old chamber to
support
the pilot portion of the drill until there is metal all the way
around
to keep the drill on course at the beginning. In this case,
however, it
was simply quicker to open up the breech end for about the
first half-inch
with a boring bar to the major diameter of the drill, (.590”),
and then
continue on with the drill. This prevents the drill from making
an over-size
or egg-shaped hole, which would surely happen anywhere
the tool is not
cutting metal all the way around.
The muzzle presented no such
problem, of course,
but while drilling the front of the barrel the drill did break
through
the bottoms of the two dovetails for the front sight and the
magazine
tube stud. This doesn’t hurt anything and will be
invisible once
the gun is put back together. Just be careful when
withdrawing the drill
with the machine running as sometimes a chip will catch in
this opening
and try to pull the drill back in. Once the chips started building
up
in the barrel, it worked better to retract the drill about an inch
under
power and then turn the machine off to remove it completely.
With the
barrel turning at 90 rpm the drill cut very smoothly and evenly
as long
as I cleared the chips frequently and applied liberal amounts
cutting
oil. Then it was just a matter of going until the whole drill
disappeared
into the barrel, swapping ends, and doing it all over again
from the other
side until the holes met. Once you’re through, clean
out the chips
with a brush or swab on a cleaning rod and try sliding the
liner in place.
If it doesn’t go all the way into the barrel fairly easily
you need
to run the drill in again to remove any burrs or tight spots
that may
remain. Now is also a good time to sand the exterior surface
of the liner
to help it slide into the barrel and to provide a clean surface
for the
solder. When you are sure that the liner will slide into place
without
any problems it’s time to solder it in place.
I decided to tin the inside of the barrel first so that it could be
laid
aside while doing the liner without anything coming into
contact with
the soldered surface. With one end of the barrel clamped
horizontally
in the vise, the first step was to thoroughly clean the inside
with a
brush wrapped with patches soaked in TCE
(#083-060-032) Once that was done, a brush wrapped
in steel wool was
soaked with Comet
Flux #4 (#478-100-004), and run through the barrel to
completely coat
the interior. Then it was time to put the heat to it.
Using a standard propane torch, I began to heat the first six
inches or
so of the barrel until the Force-44™
Solder (#080-649-250) would flow when touched to the
inside. I then
fed more solder in until there was a pool of it in the resting in
the
bottom of the barrel. Using the cleaning rod with the steel
wool-wrapped
brush from the fluxing operation, I began to work the solder
farther into
the barrel and completely around the inside by moving the
brush back and
forth and rotating it at the same time. From time to time the
brush froze
in place where the metal was not quite hot enough, but it
came free easily
enough by applying a little more heat to that area. By slowly
moving the
heat father and farther along the barrel and adding more
solder as needed
I soon had the bore tinned past the halfway point. Then the
tinned end
was put in the vise and the operation was repeated on the
other end until
the entire length was coated. The barrel was then set aside
to make room
for the liner.
To tin the liner, I found a piece of brass rod and turned it
down until
it was a slip fit in the bore. I clamped the rod vertically in the
vise
and put the liner over it so it was standing straight up and
could be
rotated easily. I then gave it a good rubdown with a piece of
steel wool
saturated with Comet Flux. Starting at the top, the liner was
heated with
the torch until the solder would flow when touched to the
surface. Remember,
you want the hot metal to melt the solder, not the flame.
Otherwise the
solder will just ball up and fall off the part. Once there was a
good
bit of solder on the liner, I took the piece of steel wool with
the flux
in it and spread the solder around until it formed a thin,
smooth coating
on the metal. The solder went on quite easily as long as the
metal was
up to temperature. I did manage to stick my steel wool pad
to the liner
a couple of times, but with a little help from the torch it came
free
and I was able to continue on my way. I like to wear a new
set of clean,
white gloves for this operation so that I can turn the liner on
its mandrel
to get at the whole surface easily without getting burned and
without
contaminating my nice, freshly tinned part. I hardily
recommend wearing
gloves as well as eye protection when soldering and just the
eye protection
when drilling or operating a lathe. I used to be pretty
indifferent about
such precautions but after working in a couple of machine
shops over the
years I’ve seen some accidents that turned me into a
firm believer.
Anyway, the rest of the liner tinned beautifully and was now
ready to
be mated to the barrel.
Just to be different I took an old vise that I have mounted to
a piece
of board and put it on the floor with some weight on the
board to secure
it. I then put the mandrel used earlier for tinning the liner in
the jaws
so that I could stand the liner up on end as before. With this
method
you will need to plug the bore at the top to keep solder out.
(I used
a wad of tinfoil.) With the liner in place I lit the torch,
positioned
the barrel over the liner, and applied heat to both until the
barrel started
to slip over the liner. I figured that I’d make gravity
work for
me for once, and it seemed to work. By working the torch up
and down portions
of the barrel and liner and gradually increasing the amount of
area brought
up to temperature the barrel slowly began to move down
onto the liner.
With the liner resting on the mandrel, I was able to rotate it
to distribute
the heat evenly, (remember the gloves!) and make good
progress. A rawhide
mallet proved very useful to give the barrel a good rap from
time to time
to help things along. When there was only about a
1/2” of the liner
left below the barrel it was time to stop.
|
This is the time to
inspect the joint at the top and add solder if there are any gaps,
and then turn the barrel around and do the same to the other
end. Once I was satisfied with the solder job I put the hot barrel
up in the bench vise and ran a brush and patches through it to
remove any flux that may have wandered into the rifling. I had just
gotten rid of one rusty bore and didn’t want another! Then I sat
down to rest and to allow the newly assembled barrel and myself
to cool off. |
| After things
settled down a bit and the parts had cooled it was back to the
lathe to turn the liner back until it was flush on both ends and
recrown the barrel. Then came the fun part of trimming the breech
section with files until the liner was even with the original metal.
As you can tell from the picture, this took a little time. Then the
barrel was chambered and headspaced in the usual manner and it
was time to go to the range with my “new” rifle! |
|
The first trip to the range, I must
confess, was
quite a disappointment. It was at the end of the day and the
sun was low
in the west, but still very bright. The brass bead on the new
front sight
I’d installed was fuzzier than usual, (old eyes), and the gun
was printing
all over the paper. I went home wondering if I’d somehow
screwed up the
liner or if it was the open sights giving me problems or both.
That night
I checked the barrel carefully for any clues. The bore was still
bright
and shiny and everything was as it should have been. All I
could do was
try again.
Luckily, the next day the sky was overcast and the wind was
calm. I grabbed
the gun and my dwindling supply of ammo and headed back
to the range.
This time it was a different story. I could actually see the front
and
rear sights and keep them aligned on the bullseye as I
pressed the trigger.
The first two shots were low and to the right so I adjusted
the sights
accordingly and the next three formed a nice tight group just
to the right
of the center dot. This was more like it! One more little
correction for
windage and then it was time for some serious plinking. Any
dirt clod
within 100 yards was in serious trouble at this point, with
very few getting
away as long as I remembered to allow for the
38-40’s parabolic
trajectory. This is a very pleasant round to shoot with the low
noise
and recoil that it generates, and I happily blazed away until
the ammo
ran out and left me with no choice but to reluctantly pack
everything
up and head home with my “new” rifle. Of
course, now that
the gun is beautiful on the inside, the outside is going to
need a complete
makeover. I’ll let you know how that turns out.
Early on I had considered simply
rebarreling the
old Marlin with a brand new tube made of modern steel. This
would mean
losing the original markings on the barrel, which I really did
not want
to do. It would also mean turning a blank into an octagonal
shape, cutting
square threads for the breach, and cutting three dovetails in
the barrel.
That’s a lot of work! Besides, re-lining the barrel is the only
way to
restore accuracy and still preserve the gun to it’s original
form, particularly
for many of the older designs for which there are no original
replacement
barrels available. This holds true in the case of the rimfires as
well.
Brownells currently offers liners and drills for the .22 and .17
rimfires,
and for the .25-20, .32-20, .38-40, and .44-40 in the
centerfires, along
with the necessary reamers and headspace gauges to go
with them. Those
fine old guns with bad bores no longer have to be regulated
to “wall hanger”
status, and can be made to shoot again and give many more
years of service
for successive generations. |