New Bresien barrel

[Gunlaker]

Hi,

I have just found an unused Bresien barrel in .38 cal, with false muzzle, and starter. It's not a particularly heavy barrel, being approximately the same dimensions as a Winchester #4, but a bit larger on the muzzle end. It's a 1-16 twist, and the original owner told me it was built for shooting grease grooved bullets. He'd bought this setup a long time ago and never got around to using it. Now it has become my project.

I have little knowledge of muzzle loaders, being primarily a cartridge guy. I'm not certain what I will do with the barrel yet as I have a lot of learning to do first. A muzzleloader for shooting 200/220 yards benchrest and offhand would appealing to me.

I do have one question though. Would it be entirely foolish to use this barrel for building a breech-muzzle loader? I do not know what type of steel it's made of...

thanks very much,

Chris.

[Gunlaker]

I should add to my question about using the barrel for a breech muzzleloader.. I only shoot black powder and have no interest in smokeless.

Chris.

[rhbrink]

I vote to make it a muzzleloader. There were muzzleloading Schuetzen rifles you know?

RB

[Slugun45]

You made no mention of a false muzzle. Without it I would go with a black powder cartridge set up. There are several of them out there and Ken made a really good barrel.

[Plastikosmd]

i would use it as intended, muzzle loading, making use of the false muzzle. I would probably make it an underhammer and mimic one of breisen's triggerguard/spring combo for simplicity. I think i have a pic of one of his...
i will look

[Kenny Wasserburger]

It can go both ways but make use of that false muzzle you can muzzle load a cartridge rifle also----the bullet anyways.

Quite a few of the Great Creedmoor shooters did it.

KW
THe lunger

[Gunlaker]

Plastikosmd I do like the underhammer design. A friend has one. I'll have to look at it closely at the next shoot. Are there sources for action parts out there, or are these generally one-off custom pieces? Some time back I'd run across some images you'd posted elsewhere that I believe showed a slug gun with an underhammer sealed ignition. That certainly sounds interesting.

Today I'm off to talk about muzzleloaders with a friend to get more background.

Chris.

[Kenl]

Chris I know it's been awhile since you posted this and I was curious as what you decided to do with the barrel you have?

[Gunlaker]

Ken I still haven't decided. I sometimes move pretty slowly :-)

Chris.

[Kermit1945]

Ken I still haven't decided. I sometimes move pretty slowly :-)

Chris.

One of my favorite quotes is from Mae West:
"Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly."