doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Re-lining Alex Henry barrel

I have an alex henry in .450 3 1/4 bpe. bore is completely shot/very heavily pitted, What caliber do you think I should go for? I am thinking maybe a .45-70 carbine load.

That makes sense. The 45-70 is a great old classic that's easy to load for. And, brass is pretty easy to come by.

I would defiantly go with an English/metric caliber. Keeping as much to original as possible.

Just my 2�

I agree, re-chambering for a US calibre isn't really on old boy. It's not Cricket at all. Off the top of my head I can't recollect any Alex Henry being chambered for any US calibre round.

Harry

There are enough variations in 45 cal bullet diameters that I would be inclined to clean the existing barrel and lap it out with the idea of leaving it in original caliber.It might shoot with jacketed or linotype bullets, if so you save a lot, if not you are not out much more.
Mike

The ultra-traditional thing to do would be to preserve the Henry rifling, regardless of the cartridge selected . My AH is a .450 Boxer-Henry Long (basically the same case), but has a 7-sided polygonal bore. Maybe you could do something with a 577/450 Martini-Henry barrel, putting in some sort of liner to fill in the void left by the 577/450 chamber, then re-chambering for an appropriate (and easier to use) cartridge. IMHO, if you try bore conservation, it will be a "lead bullet only" rifle.

Unless, of course, some present-day barrel maker is willing to reproduce the rifling. Even then, Henry rifling and jacketed bullets are probably not compatible.

Thanks to all for the comments. Unfortunately saving the present bore is just not possible. It really is gone. I have been looking at chambering reamers and Pacific has the 450 3 1/4 for 138.00 so i will probably reline with one of the .450's from track of the wolf and try to be as traditional as possible.

Track of the Wolf's bbl liners are made by T.J. (Gateway?) Enterprises in KY.

I think they are a bit cheaper ($/inch) than Track's prices when you buy direct.
The last contact info I have for them:

TJ's Enterprises
3652 Neltner Rd,, Alexandria, KY 41001
859_-635-5560

They can probably help out determining if the bbl can even take a liner of that caliber,,breech and muzzle dimensions, ect.
Plus they may be able to help w/a bore/groove or twist not listed on TOTW site.

Good luck in your project,,certainly one worth putting the time and effort in.
(How about a re-bore/re-rifle to .500 x3" BPE)

Larry,
If your rifle has a barrel like waterman described above, it may not be as bad as you think,poly barrels sometimes look like they have no rifling left.You should at least shoot it to see what it will do.
Mike

Unfortunately there really is nothing left of the rifling. No one is more committed to maintaining the originality of these old rifles than I am, but it is what it is. I will look into the TJ's option. I doubt I would open this light weight of a rifle up to .500. The rifle may take it I'm not sure that I could.