doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Stevens Favorite question(s)

Bonny, many centerfire rifles ARE quite safe to reline to the original or another, smaller, caliber. It was a common practice back in the heyday of single shot rifles and still fairly common. It is the best way to restore a classic rifle with a shot-out or abused bore to close to original.

What ones are unsafe? I'm not sure of this but my general rule of (arthritic) thumb is first of all no rimless calibers. I'm SURE there are exceptions, but remember we're talkin' "thumb" here. Beyond that, I'd go mainly with the barrel OD/ID issue: is there gonna be enough "meat" in the barrel to hold the pressure and leave an adequate outer "sleeve" for the liner to set in. Are you counting threaded hole and dovetail depth????

The "thinnest" I've got is a relined Win 1885 "Lowall" in .38-40 with a #1 weight barrel. But I've seen the same gun relined to .44-40.

I WOULD NOT try to reline a .30-40 back to .30-40, but have seen a .303 relined back to .303, which I would also not attempt. But have seen several .30-30s.

Probably the greatest advantage of relining is that it preserves external barrel markings and allows you to NOT have to recut the various dovetails and other external profiles all over again on a new barrel blank; also keeps the original barrel's fit to the receiver, so no rethreading and figuring out how to keep everything squared up with the old receiver. This is particularly helpful in restoring vintage lever action repeaters, which have a LOT of cuts on their barrels to duplicate.

I've never heard of a liner failing (perhaps some of the gunsmiths here have, tho.).

Most "quality" restorations include a new barrel of modern steel which includes the "precise fit" and contours/dimensions/muzzle cut/rifling twist etc.... and all the original markings recut to an exacting standard, based on the year of manufacture.......

They are so good that you cannot tell them from original, except by their flawless condition. Not cheap like a liner but they look fantastic as long as the rest of the gun is properly restored to the same standards as well.......

I've re-blued lots of guns for people that had liners and because of the alloy differences, the liners always show with a distinctive halo.......sorry this Winchester 1890 picture is not real good. This is a gun that I re-blued before I put it back together, but the picture was handy and shows the liner halo if you look close enough. Leave the muzzle in the white and they look even worse IMO.

Mike A,
Aside from the action,the main issue with the Favorite was holding the barrel on with a screw.
Mike

Yeah, it works fine with the little rimfires it was made for, but for anything warmer, it's a little rickety.

When you guys say you rechamber and convert these .32 RF guns for ".32 S&W" do you mean the original shorter round or the .32 S&W Long?

I could see the Long in a Marlin, but some of the European "Olympic" (autoloader) loads for it are fairly warm, maybe a little too hot for a Favorite? Even the commonly available Fiocchi wadcutters are hotter than normal US loads.

Yes Mike A., the .32 Smith and Wesson LONG....for the Marlins........Way, way to hot for a Stevens Favorite and I don't think anybody is converting Stevens Favorites to anything..........at least I sure wouldn't.......far to weak of an action and thumb screw barrel set up. As I said in an earlier post on this thread, I've rebuilt quite a few over the years, but they all stayed with the original caliber they were built for.....some with new Numrich barrels, but the same original caliber, usually .22 rimfire.

The factory .32 S&W loads are handgun loads, European and/or American. With handloads there is some good data usable in "rifles" rechambered to .32 S&W, which makes one hell of a good small game round in a rifle.....dead nuts accurate.