Hello Robert,

  I install the Redman's liners in my shop on a regular basis. Easily done and will put those old rifles back in service. If you have access to a lathe the only other items you will need is a liner drill and a chambering reamer. If you purchase the liner from Brownell's they will provide a detailed set of installation instructions with it if you ask at the time of the order.

Good luck.
SSS

Quote:


"Luck" is not the critical ingredient in the successful barrel relining process.

Many of these bore relining jobs are performed by or for folks who are attempting to make a "silk purse out of a cow's ear" and they believe it can be done for a pittance.  Practically, they have no money to invest in the candidate rifle or they are content to shoot tin cans off the board fence at 25 feet.  Well, you get the picture. 

If one were to have a fairly worthy candidate rifle that has a marginal bore it would serve you well to take or send the entire rifle to a qualified and competent barrel maker who has the lathe equipment and reamers necessary to do the installation correctly, and ask that it be lined with a T.J.'s Enterprise Liner, not a Redman.

Why a T. J.'s liner you ask ?  Quality on top of quality I answer.  The instruction sheets that Brownell's hand out with the Redman brand of liner tells about how the week-end handman may install a barrel line using a Black & Decker 3/8" hand drill. Perhaps that process will accomondate some, but not if you are looking for perfection.

Top drawer in this world costs dollars, so be prepared to pay for quality.

C.M.M.

Quote:


...they are content to shoot tin cans off the board fence at 25 feet.
C.M.M. [/quote]

These are the folks who give glowing endorsements to whomever did the work for them.  A low-wall with 28", #2 brl, SST, deluxe checkered wood, that cost me a lot to buy, shot about 3/4" after the reline by a well-known gunsmith.  (That, after trying several brands match ammo.)  Should have kept the gun, & paid to have it re-re-lined, but was so disheartened I sold it.  Buyer was delighted with it, reported it most accurate .22 he'd ever shot.  I guess it's a blessing to be so easily satisfied.

I don't think there's a lot wrong with Redmans liners, they may not be the best, but they're "good enough", and capable of quite good accuracy.  Here's a picture of a liner that I made to go into my .45-90 rolling block, and typical groups with it and iron sights at 100 yds:

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Those groups were shot with Federal bulk pack ammo, and will consistently be under 1.5" at 100, and I have had a few as small as 5/8".  Typical 90th percentile group is less than 1.25".  This is not an fluke, I have had similar or better accuracy from several of these liners that I bought from Brownells.

I think the workmanship in installing the liner is critical to accuracy.  John Taylor, as mentioned, does an excellent job.  I like that he reams the bore to straighten it instead of just using a liner drill.   

Curt Hardcastle, who replied to you earlier is meticulous and I'm betting would have an excellent result if he did a reline for you.

The typical gunsmith reline, where a 16" long 8mm piloted drill is used and then a liner shoved in and soldered or epoxied is good for restoring a can shooter, but isn't the best path to target grade accuracy.  I've seen a lot of relines with a kink in the center, where drilling from both ends did not quite meet.  As a minimum, I think that the entire installation should be drilled from the chamber end, and that an extended drill long enough to do the job is essential.  I also think that it should be done on the lathe, with the barrel indicated in to the bore through the headstock.  Unfortunately, that takes a longer bed than some people have to make it work.  Like a previous poster stated, you pay for a better job, amazingly enough you usually get better accuracy.

For what it's worth, I think Beinke's break in thoughts are about right; 600 to 800 shots is what I've seen on new .22 barrels before they achieved best accuracy.  That's with Lilja and Douglas barrels, too, not liners.

dave

Will occasionally shoot our NRA smallbore prone match with my Weihrauch. I'm happy to break 540. The top shooters are unhappy if they don't break 590. In various discussions they are in a agreement that it takes ~500 rounds to properly break-in a new rimfire target barrel. On the upside, the barrel will last an almost infinite number of rounds. May have to set back a turn and rechamber very occasionally, but that's about it. Even the lowly LR cartridge will eventually erode the throat.

SSShooter wrote on Aug 23^rd, 2013 at 7:08pm:


Those folks, and you, are better shooters than I've ever dreamed of being.  However, I'm still not sure that they're talking about the same thing I'm talking about: if they're talking about differences in performance measured with a caliper at 100 m., they're definitely not.

If it's a "known fact" that this much shooting is necessary to improve substantially a rimfire brl, it rather amazes me that the MILLIONS of words on shooting I've read over the last 50 yrs in the Rifleman, the Rifle, Precision Shooting, a half-dozen other gun mags, & innumerable "classics" (Crossman, Whelen, Sharpe, Hatcher, Page, etc.) have failed to knock that fact into my head.  (And the heads of quite a number of very experienced shooters & gunsmiths I know.)  Of course, I haven't read everything by any means, & don't doubt I've missed many important reports, but it seems something as important as this would have been discussed many times in many places.

My Bienke ordeal, the full story of which would probably crash this website, occurred 15 yrs ago, & I'm dead sure he wasn't in communication with your group of .22 specialists.  Instead, I surmise he was generalizing (stupidly) from the well-known fact that high-power rifle barrels improve over 100s, or 1000s, of rounds, esp. with jacketed bullets.

Redsetter,

Do a google search and read some of the ideas of Bill Calfee.  He's arguably one of the very best rimfire benchrest gunsmiths.  He actually invented a tool to burnish the throat of the .22 lr chamber, so as to reduce the amount of breakin shots needed to achieve best accuracy.  

There's also some belief that burnishing the bore with fine steel wool will aid in that process, but I've not been able to convince myself to try it.

One other thing that I do is find a choked section of the barrel to end the barrel at.  Bill Calfee goes into that in detail, it's probably his signature work.  That can make an inconsistent inside diameter liner shine where otherwise it might be a mediocre one.

I've been slugging target grade barrels I have to find my next target project barrel.  I have yet to find one with a good, consistent bore and slight choke right where I want it.  I had a couple more contoured a few weeks ago, but have been too busy with other stuff to check them yet.  When I get one that has a choke that has EXACTLY the bore characteristics that I want, I'm going to have an acquaintance that is an olympic target rifle builder fit and chamber it for me and see how it compares to my current very good, but not perfect rifles.  I think it will be hard to tell at my skill level, but it will be nice to have a rifle that there is no doubt as to the quality/consistency, so any aberrations are me and the wind.

dave