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Coned muzzle!

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SAWMA:
Was reading in the new muzzleloader magazine about coning the muzzle of rifles. Don't really understand how it helps with the accuracy, can anyone help?  Thanks!

oomcurt:
The idea in back of coning is to make loading of conicals easier. As far as accuracy I don't believe it improves it. That is not to say it makes accuracy poorer, however, I had a renegade in .54 that was coned. I bought it used and its prior owner used it with conicals for hunting....from what he told me...accuracy with rb was not that great. I shot that gun for over a year in monthly shoots and I was not that impressed with its accuracy. Bottom line...I personally would not want another rifle with a coned muzzzle...but that is only my opinion...others may have great results with theirs.

vermontfreedom:
Well, I can't for the life of me find it using the search function, but I posted a question about coned versus crowned barrels about 1 year or two ago. Responses there, particularly from Captchee, were informative. I'll try to reiterate from memory what was there.

Coning refers to a long (several inches) section of the bore at the muzzle end that as the name implies, is coned out. The theory is that (1) the ball starts a whole lot easier and (2) becaus the bore isn't caliber diameter all the way to the muzzle, any rubbing on the lands and grooves by ramrods and ball starters won't wear on the rifling, degrading accuracy. After all "accuracy lives and dies at the muzzle" and if you have dings or burrs, or other damage to the rifling at the last point it contacts your  projectile, then accuracy is likely to suffer.

A crowned muzzle is just that very short-- an eighth of an inch or so at the muzzle to protect the rifling at that point. I believe in the value of this and we're starting to see it more often on production centerfire rifles, especially match/competition barrels and varmint guns, but increasingly on everyday rifles. My Rice barrel in .54 is crowned.

I believe someone said there is evidence for coning on historical rifles. I personally believe that the THEORY is sound and should lead to greater accuracy, but this could only be tested legitimately by shooting a bunch with an unconed barrel, quantifying group size, then coning it and repeating the measures.

halfdan:
I think it was the Fat Dutchman who made some statements about original rifles being coned. I think he said it was rather common.

Regards,

oomcurt:
I guess there are several ways to look at this coning. I highly doubt that coning makes it easier to load a roundball...crowning would be better and....you aren't removing inches from your barrel that would make its accuracy less effective, imo. As I said...I had that renegade with a coned muzzle...at the present time I have two other rifles...neither is coned. One is a Navy Arms Harper's Ferry in .58 cal and the other is a Pedersoli Kentucky. I have no problems in loading round balls in either. I don't think there is a "standard" as far as how long a cone should be...Vermont Freedom mentioned several inches...that renegade I had was coned about 2 or 2 and 1/2 inches at the most. If...coning is done correctly, the bullet (not round ball) will enter the rifling straight without cocking, with out the coning, from what I understand, the bullet tends to "cock" itself off center.

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