On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 16:24:19 GMT, "Michael S"
wrote:

I have pre-drilled piece of drill rod. w/ a .250" bore, all it needs is a
nice clean hole in it. As the one that is there is badly lobed. It's more
about playing around w/ what I have. The P&T mills are shut down in our
area, so between fire season and no place to ship wood, I need something to
hide in the shop with
what I would really like is a pedersoli frontier carbine in .32, but
$600 is a lot to spend on zero income....

mike


In short a LOT of work.

If you are just interested in building a black powder rifle you can
purchase rifled barrels with a twist suitable for either round ball or
bullets from most of the larger barrel makers. Douglas, for example
stocks 36 inch twist 44 and 50 cal barrels.

Have a look at
http://www.riflebarrels.com/articles...fle_barrel.htm
for more details.




.
Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)


You really aren't talking about "drilling" a hole then, you are
talking about reaming, or enlarging, an existing hole.

Assuming that your drill rod is not hardened then you can do that with
a series of single edge reamers or by making a deep hole drill and
boring it to nearly finished bore diameter and then reaming. But, you
still have the problem of how to get the cuttings out. The problem
that all deep holes have. That is the real problem.

You might try making a single lip drill from drill rod and use a round
oil tube and hope that the cuttings wash out the further end of the
hole.

Generally barrel drilling is done at high rotational speeds and very
fine feeds to give the finest chips possible so that they do wash out
easily and the drill/reamer is fairly long for its diameter with very
little clearance - to keep the hole as straight as possible.

However, if you expect this thing to shoot at all accurately you still
have the problem of rifling the barrel after you get the hole to size.
You can make a smooth bore but it won't be accurate at all. I once
made a double barrel derringer with smooth bores and "across a card
table" it shot good groups but try it at 25 yards and you were lucky
to hit the paper.


Bruce in Bangkok
(brucepaigeATgmailDOTcom)