I have an H grade Lefever with a cracked barrel looking somewhat like Drew pictured. I bought it as a parts gun many years ago. The crack is 14 inches up from the breech. It is about a 7 lb gun with 30" barrels so walls are not extra thin, haven't actually measured them. The appearance when I got it was that it had been struck against a sharp object & dented in & possibly cracked from the impact. It appeared to then have been subsequently fired. One side of the crack was still inward into the bore but the other side had been lifted outward leaving a substantial gap between the two. I placed an expanding dent plug under it & raised the dented in portion & hammered down that which was sprung out. The two edges of the crack meshed back together to the extent it took very careful examination to even see the crack was there. In this condition I taped up the cracked stock & carried it out & placed it in the old Firestone proof chamber. With a string attached to the trigger & from behind a good sized tree I proceeded to fire off several regular factory 3-1 1/8 oz loads. With no apparent change in it I then proceeded to fire several more factory 3 3/4-1 oz "High Brass" loads. Still nothing. I then fired a few handloads containing approximately a 3 DE charge of "Unique" powder under 1 3/8 oz shot. Through all of this the crack did not open back up at all nor was there even a smudge of powder visible on the outside. This all occurred more than 30 years ago. I still have the old Lefever, have never needed a part from it, & can presently only locate the crack because I know where to look, & really need the assistance of a magnifying glass to be certain of its location. The tree was cut & sold about 7 years ago & I have no idea what became of the old tire I used. I have never, incidentally fired this gun from my shoulder, just because I know that its pre-cracked.
Last edited by 2-piper; 12/30/13 09:07 AM. Reason: Added Unique
