As I had mentioned in earlier posts, I had purchased a damaged .50 caliber Lyman Trade Rifle barrel. I knew it was damaged, but for what I paid, it was worth it I guess.
Inside the barrel was a nasty gouge about four inches down. When I first inspected it I really had my doubts whether it would shoot or not. And I still do, to be totally honest.
But after working so hard this morning I deserved to shoot today. And I saw that damaged barrel sitting there and figured.. what the heck. So I loaded that on a Lyman Trade Rifle, grabbed some powder, and then figured.. shoot some conicals and maybe it will knock ruff spots out before I have to lapp it. So I grabbed twenty of the 385 grain Hornady conicals I have around here.
I figured I don't know where it hits, or how bad that damage will effect it. So I set the target at 25 yards. And again guessed at the powder charge.. 60 grain of Goex 3f powder.
This is the first five shots
while I would have liked to see a little tighter group I really was not all that unhappy with that group. So I moved the target back to 50 yards.
At 50 yards I could hardly judge the bulls square and circle so I threw a dot up on it to give me an aiming point.
I fired two rounds and know where one of them hit, but am not too sure about the second one. I wanted to say it was that nice round hole next to the one outside the group, but if you look at the first picture, that could be camera angle making that difference.
So before I have a friend chop that barrel off past the gouge, I have not written the barrel off. We will keep trying it and see what happens next time out, with some roundball.
might be some hope yet
