MrTipUp wrote on Oct 11^th, 2025 at 3:14pm:


I agree.  If you want the parts to stay together, you have to find a like minded individual to sell the rifle to, and then make it cheap enough that he will buy it.

No-one in their right mind ever restores one of these reworked + extra trashed out parts included rifles back to the "original" trashed out state.  The rifle reworked will almost universally be worth more than the poor condition original, unless it's reworked to an undesirable caliber.   

In this particular case, the original with a decent 25 rimfire bore will be worth more than a 38 special relined one, so if an orphan barrel and a centerfire breechblock was found, lined to 38 special, and used to replace the original barrel, someone in the future might thread back in the 25 caliber barrel to enhance the rifle value, and then sell of the lined 38 special barrel cheap.

On the other hand, if the donor barrel was lined to .25-20, then the rifle would be worth as much or more than the .25 rf one, because it's a desirable caliber, so only someone wanting to complete a collection with an obsolete caliber would restore it to the original .25 rf barrel.  As more and more of these are converted to other calibers, it may get to the point that the .25 rf original is desirable as the sole remaining example of it's caliber.

I'm definitely not in the purist camp.  I'm in the "rework them to a reasonable and desirable caliber, don't rebarrel to something that is marginally safe, just because you can" faction.   

I'm dealing with a couple high end highwalls right now, that the last owner had made in two very undesirable calibers, just because he could.  Their value is easily $1000 low just because of the calibers.  Pretty much low by the amount it will take to rebarrel them to something conventional.

As of 15 minutes ago when the mail dropped off a package, I have the same problem.  I received a high wall with #3 barrel, in 40-70 SS.  Picked it up for the price of a beat up low wall, but the bore is sharp and nearly clean, the action is crisp and clean with case turned silver, wood is decent with usual dings and dents.  No major problems. Only thing is it's missing the sights, and I have those if I want to put it back to original.

To me, the rifle was a cheap action.  The barrel would sell nicely on ebay.  So would the stocks, if I decide to restock the action, which I normally do.  By the time I sell the stocks and barrel, would have nearly a free action.

Is this the right thing to do?  An original 40-70SS barrel has a slow twist, so worthless for anything I want to do with it.  A custom rifle I build on the action would be worth what I'll have in the action, the parts, and maybe even a bit of the labor.  So, I'm not losing value, and would have a useful rifle instead of a marginal collectible, taking up space in the safe.

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if the barrel is clean may be get a CF block and make up 25-10 Halstead