Straight and or Swamped

[ridjrunr]

There shure is alot of barrel talk lately. Mostly on small caliber stuff.
My question is,provided the wall thickness allows,can a straight barrel be swamped by hand,by draw filing?Now, I have not ever heard of how they swamped them long ago.( or in present day)
Has anyone here ever entertained such an idea or (gulp) tried??I may be way off base,but really am curious as to how the old method was done.Thanx for any input, ridjrunr

[R.M.]

Sure it can be done by hand. That's the way it was done back in the day, but, not many of us have enough ambition to do it these days. It would be a lot, and I do mean a lot of work.

[Wyoming Mike]

I would go with R. M. that would be a bunch of work.  If your time means anything to you getting a swamped barrel from any barrel maker, even at the higher price, would be more cost effective.

[Stryker]

If you subscibe to Muzzloader magazine, someone wrote an article (I think withing the last 3 years) on that very subject. He even built a jig. I don't recall the exact issue, but you can search their index of articles online.

[ridjrunr]

Thanx Strker, I'll see if I can find it online.

RM,It is true that it would be ALOT of work, but that most always goes along with many other aspects of building these guns in a trad. or historic manner.Current barrel material is also  harder than the old ones from what I understand,multiplying that "alot" factor!
Does anyone know if back in the day,they used a jig to swamp or was it truely freehand work.?Any documentation?

[Stryker]

Historically they forged a piece of iron around a mandrel. They would have beat a taper and flare (swamp) into the barrel during the process and then cleaned it up with the file. Sounds easy, but it took the average smith about a week to make a barrel and 2-3 days for a lock.