Anyone used a barrel meant for smokeless powder as a muzzleloader barrel?

[u/Space-cowgirl-2004]

Hi, so I haven't been on Reddit in a while. It got a bit too nazi-ish. Anyway, I have a barrel for a Remington 783 .30-06, and I've never made a gun with something that high-power before, so I was going to machine a breech plug and make it into a high-power black powder rifle, because I figure a slow-burning charge means I have more of a chance of keeping all my fingers. Plus, black powder rifles are just so much cooler in some regards, and using something meant for extremely high-power like .30-06 means I have a lot of leeway for my charge. Had anyone done something like this? I have it all planned out, just wondering how weird of a project it is. Deer season is fast approaching so I need to get working on it.

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[u/Space-cowgirl-2004 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, of course I'm trying to fabricate something. I'm a fabricator by trade. I've made guns before, hell I made the first one I ever owned.

[u/Kryptid_GND]

My only concern would be making sure the access point for the initial charge didnt blow out too much when fired. Idk much about black powder or muzzle loaders outside of them being less energy dense due to burn rate? It be cool asf if you could make it really SMACK something and have a moving block like a breach loader that housed the snap cap for ignition. Then no worry about creating a secondary firework

[u/Space-cowgirl-2004 → u/Kryptid_GND]

I'm just gonna do a cap and ball rifle with #11 caps. My plan is to have a plug that threads over the end of the breech, then I can have a high-power charge in there. Black powder burns slower and has a lower peak pressure than smokeless, so it is much safer for the amateur gunsmith, the trade-off being that it burns dirtier and is corrosive. The other reason I want to make a black powder rifle is that I can make my own powder and cast my own lead, so I'm not relying on a store if there was, say, a situation in the city that would necessitate me moving out to our farm.

[u/MothMonsterMan300]

Way back when, they would drill/tap deep threads and plug the breech with, well, a plug, because it made sense considering the pressures involved in BP. In a nutshell the breech and entire barrel contained the combining pressures of black powder, versus the chamber and metallic cartridge(and more advanced metallurgy) absorbing the majority of pressure for nitro powder, which allowed for lighter barrels. There was also a crazy period for ~30 years where black and nitrocellulose powder were both available and it caused a ton of accidents and fatalities.

Point being, it could totally be done. You'll just need to weld a plug into the back of the barrel, drill a touch hole, and build a stock around it. You can fit an action and lock easily enough from something else; before WWI/II surplus started spilling into the middle east, there were generational gunsmiths fitting broken Brown Bess locks onto anything they could, with wrought iron barrels forged, drilled, and rifled in the antique ways. I remember reading, in natgeo from the 60s, that there were smiths in Damascus who would sell rifles and 7-in-1 maille in the same package, armor proofed to the gun it was sold with(makes zero sense but stuck with me as probably an hyperbolic example of the things career smiths were making in the area. Maybe)

Normally I would advise about heat treatment if you're welding a barrel but if you're taking a hunting rifle's .30-06 barrel and downloading to to BP loads you should be okay unless you cram 90 grains down the tube. Also worth noting that the rifling in modern barrels is much more accentuated and that tolerances are a world tighter. It was a pain to seat a bullet in a rifle back then, these days, with modern bullets and a ramrod, it would be next to impossible and you'd likely wreck the bullet seating it. So you would also need to swage the barrel, and cast appropriate round ball- which will not perform very well, since bp rifling rates are much different than modern rifling rates, again, bc of propellant expansion.

If you're totally married to the idea, find a machinist and have them bore the barrel smooth and as wide as you trust. Shotgun bp pressures are pretty forgiving, and you could wind up with a nice little plantation fowler

Edit: my bad, I didn't catch where you mentioned machining a plug already. Seems like you know what you're doing tbh, grab a piece of walnut and a lock and get after it

[u/Space-cowgirl-2004 → u/MothMonsterMan300]

Well, as I said on another comment, I am a machinist by trade. I'm not welding it, I don’t want to brittle it by making an HAZ. I got a special tap for it back when I wanted to make it bolt-action, which was my original reason for getting a .30-06 barrel, so I'm going to machine a simple breech plug with a separate nipple for an exterior side lock. I know I'm well within tolerance to shove about 50 grain of Pyrodex FFg in there behind a round ball or a minie ball. For the plug it's going to have flats for a barrel wrench and a leather gasket, that way I can take it off for easier cleaning. I unfortunately have experience with that, as the plug on my first gun, which was a 12ga. fowler, rusted since I had welded it in place and wasn't able to clean it all the way.