Charlie,
It all depends on whether your a shooter or a collector. If you shoot a crap barrel will not give you a decent score, or perhaps reduce the vermin in your area. If your a collector, then you may not be quite so fussy. Personally I like firearms I can shoot accurately. If a rifle doesn't do that, then to me it's worthless. Purely my own opinion of course. A 'Parker Rifled' barrel is probably more accurate than the original rifle was, if the gunsmith who did the relining knew his job.

Harry

If all original and the bore is in poor shape a new barrel would be a better choice as one could then put the original back on at a latter date if need be for collect-ability.

J.Louis

My feeling is a gun with a worn out barrel is worth less than an equal gun with a properly installed liner. Of course a relined gun is worth less than an original with a nice bore, but the key is the original bore condition. I doubt anyone would pay more for a original gun with a sewer pipe bore vs. a relined gun.

I get this question often, because I am in the business of relining and replacing barrels.  There are a lot of so called collectors out there that can't tell if a gun has been rebuilt, if the rebuild is done properly. There are some shops that can replace all the original lettering on a new barrel and put the right type of blue on. Look at what Doug Turnbull does and he is not the only one. I have customers that are collectors that will send me a rifle with a pore barrel and want it to look like new, ether by making a new barrel or by relining. They all want the same thing, an old gun that looks like it has never been used.  I think it comes down to bragging rights, look what I got and you ain't got one or mine is better than yours. Some of these collectors will spend more on a piece of junk than they could ever hope to get out of it. I have also lost work because someone told a customer that he was destroying a valuable antique by having the barrel repaired. If the barrel is full of rust it is not a valuable antique to someone who wants to be able to shoot it. While there are a few collectors that will hang a rust covered gun on the wall I believe it is because they can't afford one in pristine condition. There even seems to be a difference if the gun was repaired 100 years ago or today, if it's an old repair it's still an antique but if the repair is done today it destroy all collector value. Who comes up with this stuff?

Right now I have 2 22rf pump guns i am going to reline because the bores are sewerpipes and they have extraction problems.  Rifle 1 is a 12C Remington that is going to get a terget grade liner. The other is a Savage 1903 getting a standard redmond liner. I think relining by a good gunsmith will increase the value of both of these rifles. Relining dosen't seem to affect value on Gun Broker. 
Tom

There are modern collectibles and old/antique collectible firearms. The key word is "Antique" If a firearm is an antique by most accepted definitions it is at least 100 years old. A firearm that is antique that has a barrel relining or repair that was done in the past i.e. 100+ years ago is still an antique. A firearm that is 100 years old or older and has been or is repaired in modern times ( namely less then 100 years ago} is by definition strictly speaking not a true antique or at a maxium a messed with antique  since it has been modified or repaired less then 100 years ago. Don't necessarily like are always agree, but I believe  this is the case. I'm not messing with an antique anything unless it is cheap and has no real collector value.

I don't understand that one either. I understand match chamber in a .22. As far as I am concerned TJ liners are as good as it gets.

Agree with John. "Match Grade" in anything shooting related is like the used car owned by a little old lady.

Advertising hype.

Boats

I repeat my original reply. If it is an extremely rare gun, leave it as is!! This brings up another question. Rare gun that has been altered back in the day. Restore to original are leave it as is? For example my Stevens Bisley model that had a Parker Hale liner installed and different target sights back in the '30's?? I am leaving it as it is.

slumlord44 wrote on May 30^th, 2012 at 9:17am:


Rare or not, if it's been altered long ago, then one needs to take everything into consideration before making a decision. We all know if it's altered by one of the great gunsmiths like Pope, Schoyen, Zischang, etc. that we better leave their work alone. But what about the old Winchester, Ballard, Rem., etc. that has another maker's barrel on it? Do we find a correct barrel to return to the gun, or do we leave the barrel on it that has been there for probably a many years as the original?
I've got 4 old singleshots that have various other maker's barrels on them. It was pretty common in the early days to either order a barrel from Win. or Marlin and install it on another brand. Both Stevens and Win. even installed their barrels at the factory on other brands.
I've left all mine as I found them, regardless of what it does to values. I think they're representative of the era and I like them for what they are.

Does a rifle that won't shoot accurately due to a bad bore deserve to be called a rifle?

I think your logic is fine. I have a Stevens Tip Up rifle that I picked up cheap at a gun show years ago. Whole gun was rough around the edges and the bore was a sewer pipe. Wood was decent and it locked up tight though. I had a local gunsmith put in a cheap Readman liner in it and it is now a functional gun that I have fun shooting. I also have a run of the mill Stevens 44 that I bought with another sewer pipe barrel. Had John Taylor put in a TJ liner with the correct bore and rifling for a .22 Mag and he chambered it .22 Mag. Lets me shoot .22 Mag and .22 WRF. Not original but a fun gun that I enjoy shooting. Making a run of the mill  gun that is basically not functional in to one that shoots well is a good thing. I also try to only fix what has to be fixed to make a gun serviceable. The less you do to change the originality the better you are. Was watching American Restoration the other day and a guy brought in an item and told him he wanted to keep the original patina. The idiot completely refinished it and the customer seemed to be happy with it. I would have NOT been happy with it.

Seems to me price take's care of the re-line or leave alone question.

Example I am looking at a nice external, nice mechanial, rough bore Marlin 1894 25/20  Shop is asking 695 I offered 500 and we may settle at 600.  Re-line is about 300 add some for two way shipping the rifle would land at my door ready to go at about 1000 dollars

1200 buys a real nice one that does not need any work.  If I was a collector 1200 unaltered is a better buy.  As a shooter and planing to campaign it heavily the re-lined rifle is the better way to go. Long as it does not cost too much finished & ready to go.   

Re-line a nice collector gun would be foolish. No matter what anybody says, rough bore, it's not a nice collector gun.

Boats

Spent yesterday morning wit the gunsmith. Both guns were left for relining with T J liners. I have a lot of confidence in this smith. I considered John Taylor but I do not like putting anything in the mail. Have had some terrible experiences with USPS. Smith knows what he is doing and has the facility to do it right. For some reason he favored the Savage over the Remington condition of both rifles is equal.Ill do a followup when I get them back.
Tom

The Brit's seemed to have a thing about relining Americian guns. The Parker Hale liners are about as good as it gets though. They converted a lot of .303 Enfields into .22 training rifles that way and they were extremely accurate.

Right now I have David Kaiser installing one of Mr. Taylor's .357 liners liners in a very rare miniature Snider. It was originally chambered for the British .380. In this particular case it was same as a 38 Colt long. The first 3"s at the chamber end had been "deactivated" with a plug. I suppose we could have rechambered it, but 2"s of free bore didn't appeal to me. Besides his reputation for making superb liners, I chose to use Mr Taylor's liner, because he could furnish one in the correct diameter to clean up the chamber, but still leave enough of the original barrel to encase it. It also has the correct twist for the .38 Colt.   
As far as I was concerned, the rifle was worthless if it could not be shot.

Well......... just went through this with John in the past couple of days and he does make the cut-rifled liners he uses. Due to the additional labor involved (turn down, bore, ream, rifle, etc.), is almost the same cost as a new barrel. If you want to save a special barrel and want cut-rifled, then that is the way to go. The liners from TJs are hammer forged and are also excellent liners.

Very nice. Like that removable magazine.

Slide-action .22rimfires are great. Had my brother's 1890 Win lined with a TJs liner (shorts, only) for his B-day last year and I have a 1906 that was factory rebarreled with a Model 62 barrel and refinished and we have great fun shooting them. Taking mine to our next CLA silhouette match to see how I can do.