Slugging bore on Henry

[Steve]

I'm ancient, but I never slugged a rifle bore yet. I would like to slug the bore on my Henry 45 Colt. I would appreciate some advise on the proper way to do this.

Thanks,
Steve

[daboone]

Here is the best resource I'm aware of: http://www.castpics.net/subsite2/HowTo/ ... 20Bore.pdf

When using cerrosafe I found getting the barrel warmed/heated up is necessary to get wrinkle free cast. I got cerrosafe from Rotometals. I've also used "pure" lead cast bullets press rolled between 2 iron plates to reduce an over sized bullet to a suitable size for pounding down the barrel with a brass rod. Before doing the pounding I also fill an appropriate case with lead and close the bolt chambering it to get decent chamber slugs. The case filled with lead acts as a plug when pounding the slug down the barrel. Oh a little lube eases the pounding effort.

[Ranch Dog]

I had a tutorial posted but don't know what I did with it or where it went.

I'm not big on using cerrosafe for the barrel groove and bore as it is a "living" alloy. You must make a time note at the time of the cast and apply the correction factors to your numbers as it does matter.

For slugging I prefer lead egg sinkers that have the hole down the longitudinal axis. This gives the crushed lead a place to go and will prevent the elasticity of the lead to spring back after the crush. Without relief, a solid object cannot give you a true reading.

I also prefer lead wire impressions for the chamber cast. Be very careful of using cerrosafe. It is easy to create a huge mess anytime you pour lead into a firearm. The bore/groove & chamber sample offered in the attached reference is a bad idea. More than likely you will get it too long to remove from the leveraction rifle. After having made several hundred impressions and more slugs and actually trying the "all in one" several times, I can tell you that this method will probably not end well.

I'm going to attach the images that were used in my "slugging tutorial" and will come back with some text later today.
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slugging 001.jpg

Lube the bore with a light oil.

slugging 002.jpg

Lube an appropriate sized egg sinker. The sinker should have a fishing line hole through its longitudinal axis. This hole will relieve some of the pressure the sinker is about to experience and will give a true dimension once out of the bore. Solid samples will bounce back and give you a false diameter. If you are going to use anything else other this this type of egg sinker, make sure it is pure lead (one of your Sn bullet is fine) but drill a hole through the length of it. Relief through lube grooves is not enough!

slugging 003.jpg

Start repeatedly tapping the sinker with a hammer. Keep the barrel vertical and the hammer strike flat against the muzzle. As the sinker flattens, you will see the features of the barrel appear. I lighten up the effort applied to the hammer as I see the crown appear. I will continue to lightly work the lead until I see the distinction between crown and bore.

slugging 004.jpg

At this point, I take an appropriate size object; usually a punch or a jacketed, flat base bullet, and tap it lightly to define the bore.

slugging 005.jpg

I'm looking for just a slight indention so even a steel punch can be used as there should be a good layer of lead between the tool and bore.

slugging 006.jpg

Once I'm confident that my effort is centered on the bore, I will continue to use a punch or jacketed bullet to get what is just about to become the slug further down the muzzle. At this point the punch should be wood or brass as the slug is about to separate from the remainder of the sinker.

slugging 007.jpg

Here you can see that my hardwood punch has pushed the sample low enough that I now have a slug which has left the "parent" material and has now formed a "donut" on the punch.

Years ago, I went to the hardware store and bought hardwood dowels from the smallest size offered to 1/2". I carefully cut several pieces and slightly beveled the edges. I end up with dowels that are 3", 6", 12", and the remainder which has severed me well over the years performing the slugging task on barrels from 22 to 50 caliber. I did try brass rods which work great when confined to lengths 12" or shorter. Any longer and they will bend and then bind in the barrel. If a hardwood dowel wears from use you probably are whacking the slug to hard but in that they cost next to nothing, replace them and go lighter next time. These dowels are kept strictly for slugging. I have other dowels that are used for making chamber impressions and they have a rimless pistol cartridge of appropriate size fitted on each end of the dowel to keep them from splitting due to the heavier hammer force used with that operation.

slugging 008.jpg

Here you can see the dowel pieces being used. I select a dowel that has no more than about 6" exposed. When the upper end of the dowel gets near the muzzle, it is pulled and the next longer dowel is sent down the barrel. I have had the lead from the slug flow back enough that it latches on to the lower end of the dowel. That piece of dowel will simply stay with the slug until it exits the breech end of the barrel. This is caused by not sending the slug far enough down the barrel prior to using the wood dowels. In other words, I started with the 3" dowel back at image #4 and just kept going. Separate the steps and tools when starting the slug and it won't happen.

slugging 009.jpg

Ahhh! A perfect, measurable slug! Handle your sample carefully. If you drop it on the floor, you will ruin it. Use a micrometer to measure both the groove (greater diameter) and the bore (smaller diameter). This slug will represent the smallest diameter encountered in your barrel. This is important to remember because you are now going to send another sample down the barrel to the point of forming the donut on your punch but shy of any front sight dovetailing or drilling.

This muzzle slug will be then be punched forward and out the muzzle from the breech end of the barrel. You can stack your dowels to accomplish this task if needed.

The muzzle slug provides the sample for the greatest diameter your barrel offers and whether the barrel has been damaged with roll stamping, dovetail cutting, or drilling. The difference between the two will determine what happens next but until they match, you do not have a cast bullet barrel.

1894S_barrel.jpg

Dovetailing crush on a very expensive, special order Marlin where you think they would pay a bit more attention to the detail. Actually, Marlin had a bad habit of doing just this over the years. Had they not, I would never had done done as much slugging as I have and refined my technique as I've just described. I have seen this damage on other firearms as well.

[62chevy]

Even with just the pictures you can see what is needed. Once RD adds the message it will be a wonderful how to.

[Maximumbob54]

I'm going to deviate here a bit. I've only a couple of times bothered to slug a bore. I've long since come to just load the fattest lead bullet that will chamber and give decent accuracy. I started this with trying to figure cast in a Beretta 92 9mm. I first started sizing at .001" over and leading was terrible!!! I tried all manner of lubes and alloy hardness and it was no use. I did some reading and found posts where most guys were shooting 9mm sized at .357" or even .358" so I tried both and poof problem solved. The only 9mm pistol I found I couldn't reliably chamber .358" sized bullets was a S&W M&Pc that would only work with .357" bullets. This lead to testing bullet seating for COAL with a few different bullet profiles and I found I could seat them out more than a bit that normal and they would feed from the mag and chamber. Another thought would be to look up how to do a "pound cast" to get a full view of the chamber to the bore. This info is best read at Castboolits. I've only done it for my Yugo M24/47 and it was enlightening to say the least.

[Steve]

Think I will be following the advice offered by Ranch Dog on this one. Thanks Fellows.

[Ranch Dog]

I update the pictures with explanations.

[Maximumbob54]

One last thought, if it's an odd number of grooves in the bore you can wrap a stiff foil around the slug and subtract the difference of the foil.

[poorman]

Sad that so many pictures have been lost