.44-77 and paper patch?

[Kurt]

Cap, I think their light is about a #3 or #3.5 Just over 1" at the breach and around .900"at the muzzle.
I don't want to go over .004" I had one that came at almost .006" deep and it would shoot a great pattern.
I have a special order barrel with .003" groove and I really like it for PP as well a Douglas with shallow grooves @ .0034".
The originals were shallow grooved that made me order one.

[Distant Thunder]

Before this I have use only Badger barrels on my centerfire rifles. My .22 was actually my first GM barrel and it shoots better than any .22 I've ever owned. I pretty happy with it.
This is my 1st centerfire Green Mountain barrel, but I have good things about them from many different people in the past.

Now that I'm going to use one there are a lot of people concerned about the quality of GM barrels.
I will inspect it and report what I find. I only hope it is useable!

I will measure the bore and groove diameters. I'll also check the bore to the octagon for concentricity as there seems to be some concern about that. I can't imagine that the octagon wouldn't be cut to the bore. Every Badger barrel I ever used came to me with the octagon cut before it threaded and fit to the action. Everything was worked to the bore and they all shoot very well and none are visibly off center!

My .22 GM barrel was round when I got it and I cut the octagon before it went to the gunsmith so that one I know was pretty close to concentric. How close is close enough?

If the rifling was too deep, over .004", couldn't the bore be lapped to reduce the difference between the bore and groove diameters? I'd hate to have to do that, but it seems it could be done if it is a small amount to be lapped out, .001" or less. Lapping too much could make it difficult to maintain concentricity.

I would think that button rifled barrels would be very uniform and concentric. As would be broached barrels like Badger's. Single point cut rifling would be the one that would have the most potential issues. Any thoughts on that?

Either way I sure hope this barrel checks out pretty decent, I'd hate to see my project crash and burn before it even gets going!

[Don McDowell]

Dan Zimmerman puts them on his Hepburns, CSA went to using them when Badger went tits up. Numerous gun smiths use them to build/rebuild rifles. And there's no shortage of folks winning or in the top finishers at all manner of matches with GM barreled rifles.. Will there be a bad barrel now and again? you bet, but as with most things we hear about the bad one more than the good ones...

[Distant Thunder]

I would not have gone with a GM barrel were it not for their reputation even though they offered the ROT I wanted.
I would guess that I have lost more matches to people shooting GM barrels than any other brand, maybe even all others combined.

I'll check it out and report. If there's a problem I'll send it back and go with a Shiloh 19 twist I guess, which would make it a mid range and silhouette rifle only. No sense worrying about it until I check out the barrel.

[Don McDowell]

If you keep the bullet length to 1.3/450-460 grains the Shiloh 19 twist will work well at 1000.
This GM barrel I have on the 44-90 shoots quite well with patched. I have shot a very few greasers I had loaded for the other 44 and it shot them well, and with a bit of load tweaking would do as good as the patched, but shooting greasers just doesn't interest me much unless it's something that due to what ever reason has to be done.

[Kurt]

The only experiences I have had with GM barrels is their M/L barrels and several needed a lot of lapping before they shot. I know some shooters that use the GM barrel and they are shooting for them but again some dont.
I see where GM is honing the bores but I don't know if they air test them yet for bore consistency.
Jim I went through the deep groove once and I could never get it to shoot less than 8-10" at 200 no mater what powder/bullet or load I fed it. I called the barrel maker and he said sent it back and I will replace it or refund the money. I took the second barrel and it was off a little but it shoots quite well. I called the barrel maker if he still had the barrel I sent back and he said yes but like you said it's way off for .438/446. I asked if I could buy it to see if I can make it work and if not I will get it rebored for a .50-70. I said I will do some lap work on it to shallow up the grooves. We agreed on a price and I got it back. I turned some brass slugs 5" long and started lapping with 80 grid till the lap fell through and I increased the diameter and went back at it. This took most of the winter before I polished it with 600 grid clover and ended up with a over sized bore of .4393" but it started showing progress. The barrel ended up down the road and now is a .50. A .45 wouldn't clean the bore out.

[Nuclearcricket]

Some posts back someone had asked about the weight of a #1 GM barrel. I have one in 44 that is 34" long. It is a #1 heavy. On my bathroom scales it goes about 7 pounds give or take. I had a 3 1/2 taper 44 barrel put on a Pedrosoli Roller action, one of their pistol grip models and with the factory wood and sights it only goes about 10 1/2 pounds. I do wish I had gone with a #4 instead but was afraid of it being too heavy. Oh well its still a nice and nice looking rifle.
Sam

[Distant Thunder]

I finally had some time to inspect this barrel this evening, here's what I found.

This is billed as a "SHARPS44 32" .44 Cal #1 Sharps Profile". I don't know if that is the same as a #1 Heavy.

As received it is 34.25" long and weighs 8.1 LBS. on my UPS scale. It is already octagoned with a round stub on the breech end and the finish is quite good. Very little polishing will be needed.

A .4358" gage pin slides through easily and evenly, but a .4368" pin will only just start in on both ends. I figure the bore to be .4365 +0/-.0003".

I slugged the barrel pushing the slug in several inches from the muzzle end. The groove diameter measures .4455". That would give about .0045-,0046" groove depth. So I would say the bore is tight, but I don't think it's excessively so.

The bore is centered on the barrel within .001- .002" total. I checked it with a gage pin in the bore and a depth mic so I have to give it a bit of range. It would be way too much work to set it up and check it with an indicator. It's damn close so I don't see splitting thousandths here.

I also weighed the action, 3.2 LBS and the wood, 1.75 LBS. Figuring the barrel weighs an average of .2365 LBS per inch it would weigh 7.1 LBS @ 30" and 7.568 LBS at 32".

So, 3.75 + 1.75 + 7.1 = 12.6 LBS! It does not look like it will make iron sight weight for BPCRS even at 30", but would make it for scope. I don't want to shoot silhouette with iron sights anyway really and if I get the urge there's always the .40-65!

All of this makes me pretty determined to go with 30". I'd like to keep the rifle at no more than 13 LBS with iron sights. And it will fit better in the safe at 30"!

I think I can send this barrel to Shiloh and get back a good shooting PP rifle. It might be better if the bore was a thousandth or two bigger, but I don't think it's enough to make it a scrapper!

[Distant Thunder]

Sam,

I'm not sure where the difference in your barrel and mine lies. I think I got all the numbers correct. At 34" this barrel weighs at least 8 LBS and it looks to be just a bit more. Shipping weight according to UPS was 8.9 LBS with all the packaging. It doesn't look real heavy, not like my Hepburn barrel! That one has a bunch of gravity in it! Sure makes it nice to shoot prone though!

I'll put it on the scale again when I get it back and ready for shootin'.

I'm one step closer to having a .44-77!!!

[Nuclearcricket]

There is a very good chance that the difference is in the scales. Ask any woman just how trustworthy a bathroom scale is and they will tell you right quick that they lie, they lie, they lie.\
I don't have access to Gage pins but do have an inside mic. My barrels are really close to .438/.446. One thing I did do was to turn a brass plug to .431 and wrap it with SC 55 paper and push that through the bores. my finished barrel was nice, smooth and very consistent. My unfitted barrel does have a snug spot in it. Not to the point of feeling tight, but you can feel the resistance change slightly. so I am thinking maybe a change of .0001 or so. I don't know the age of the unfinished barrel I picked it up second hand. I figure the snug spot will not take much to lap out The finish on the unfitted barrel is batter than what the other was. It took a lot of work to get all the marks out of the other barrel but I did that and it came out good for the most part. It just took me a while is all.
Sam