...and even if you did fit them to an old frame, you still have a mild steel frame. Some have said that heavy loads break frames, but 2piper's recent quote from Burrard mentions pressure as a cause. This follows my belief that pressure exerts the force of recoil and high pressure exerts more force than low pressure on the breachface. 'Seems obvious to me. Also, it seems like a bad idea to beat the heck out of a 100 yr old mild steel frame, even it equipped with new barrels, just out of convenience of not reloading. The material Ken and Steve are planning to use, 8620, is a great choice for this application. It will core harden to some degree and take the casehardening. If I'm reading my references correctly, this should result in a very hard case surface and a core hardness similar to modern 4000 series steel used in most modern guns.
So, if you are asking if it's a good idea to put new barrels on an old gun for the specific purpose of shooting modern pressure loads, my opinion is NO.
