Relining a 38-55

[Alex Johnson]

I've been considering the purchase of a Marlin lever action in 38-55. This nice old rifle is in excellent shape, but the bore is basically shot on it. I noticed that track of the wolf offers barrel liners for the 38-55, but my only experience is with 22 reliners. How much more work is it to do the bigger stuff. I used acraglass on the 22 liners, could this work on a 38-55 that is going to be used with black powder loads? What would be the best way to go about drilling out the bore? I've read Howe's gunsmithing manual in the areas of barrel relining and they use a rather complicated setup on the lathe with reamers and hollow tubes to carry oil for cooling, is this setup really necessary or could the whole operation be done by hand? Any ideas suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[George Stringer]

Alex, I've always done them the same way you would a .22. Use a piloted drill and then glass or solder the liner in. Brownells sells some drills for this but I don't know if they have one for the 38-55. I had my local machine shop take one long drill and grind it down to where I could use a removable pilot to do one job a few years ago. I made the brass pilot myself and I don't recall exactly but I think the whole thing was cheaper than buying one of the drills. The 13mm drill that Brownells sells would work with the 38-55 but I'd probably want a closer fitting pilot. I don't know that for a fact as I haven't used it. George