I remember a number of years ago, perhaps 50 or so, as a young lad I used to hang out in the gunshop of an old guy whom I believe must have been French or Belgian. He had a pretty good reputation as a gunsmith, and like many guys my age, I was facinated by the gunshop and all the equipment and gadgets and the way he used them in working on guns. Not sure why he allowed me to hang out, but he did. I recall going in one day to find him with a barrel from an autolaoder shotgun of some sort set up between centers in one of his lathes (he had two, as I remember.) He ran the tool holder down to where the bend in the barrel was, turned the lathe on at low speed, and marked the high spot with a piece of chalk held in the tool holder. Then, with the power off, he took a rawhide mallet and simply whopped the marked spot, wiped the chalk off, and repeated the process a few times until it ran pretty straight. I remember the proccedure very clearly, being surprised at how simple it was to straighten the barrel, and, as has been said, how simple it must have been to bend it in the first place. I wouldn't want to do that job on my lathe today for fear of dinging the bearings, but apparently he was not concerned about his at that time.
