Hallowell's Definition:
Sleeved bbls - An economical method of bringing new life to a damaged pair of barrels, regardless of their original method of jointing. The ribs are removed. The barrels are cut off 3" - 4" from the breech end and discarded. The bores of the remaining breech-end are reamed out oversize. New tubes are fitted down into the original breech section and filed down to fit flush. The original ribs are then replaced.
Sleeving is considerably less expensive than building a completely new set of barrels. Much of the time required to build a set of barrels is concentrated in the fitting of the breech end to the receiver; this work is salvaged through sleeving. Sleeving can be recognized by a pair of circumferential lines around the barrels a few inches from the breech; the more invisible, the finer the job. A sleeved gun should always be identified as such amongst the proof marks, and if done in England must be properly reproofed...
have sold quite a few sleeved guns over the past 30 plus years of hobby gun dealing...
yet to hear a complaint by an actual owner of a sleeved gun...
sleeving has been practiced primarily by the english gun trade for well over 50 years now...if it was not a reliable process, they would not do it...what sleeving does do, is add new life to unsafe guns, by providing them with new safe usable barrels...
care to post your experience with sleeved guns here?
experience only please...
Last edited by ed good; 01/14/20 07:08 PM.
