picked up another auto-5 at the market hall show. was my ideal configuration - light 12, round knob, 25.5" plain, IC. totally devoid of finish and had been treated inconsiderately but was mostly unhurt and original. front bead had been reshaped into a very tiny rifle type blade and there was a sheet metal rear sight taped to the receiver which is why i didn't notice more when looking it over. in the parking garage i ripped off the rear sight, shouldered the gun and pointed it at a light bulb. very obvious the bbl was bent to the left, what turned out to be abt 1/8". all the way home i tried to concoct what i could use for straightening it, thinking mostly of hydraulic jacks.
just for grins i got 3 of my rifle barrel vise oak blocks that fit fairly well. put one at the muzzle, another under the bbl behind the magazine tube ring, and the 3rd over the bend. got my biggest c-clamp and pulled it down to my workbench till it had noticeably moved. the first try took out half of it. the next try got it so close it looked straight, a straight edge placed on the barrel extension and front bead showed the space between the matting to lie right under it and checking each side with a straight edge and feeler gage stack showed the same (within reason) space on each side so i called it straight and quit.
what amazed me is how easy it was. it took longer to get the petrified tape residue off the receiver than to correct the barre. i got curious and ran the #'s and for the barrel and the support spacing i used it only required a little over 300# of force to bend it back.
the scary thing here is the implication of just how easy it is for a barrel to get bent in the first place. a reasonable sized grown man, slipping, falling into a tree or the ground or whatever would very easily do it. double guns would be a at least twice as stiff in the direction perpinducular to the plane of the barrels and a lot stiffer in the other direction but there's still the risk there.
roger
