The throat in my 32-40 is worn out to the point that there is no rifling for quite a ways. After taking a chamber casting, I had written off the barrel because I had to seat the bullet about .35" to get engraving on the base of the bullet. I planned to rebarrel it, but got a good deal on a 28-35 that I will be picking up next weekend once it gets out of CA jail. 

I have all the extras that go with the rifle, including the breech seater, and it is set at about .30 in front of the case. The reamer that was used has about .2" of freebore from what I understand.  This got me thinking that maybe I can throw the 32-40 bullet a ways down the chamber and be safe since the worn throat is essentially freebore.

At what point would you consider the bullet as an obstruction vs a projectile when seating the bullet that far in front of the case? I will be replacing the barrel eventually,  but plan to use it as an offhand rifle for now.

gunlaker wrote on Nov 30^th, 2025 at 5:57pm:


Thanks! I forgot I had Russ Webers method in Randy's book. .35" is my starting point,  but rifiling is still faint there, so may need to go deeper.  Make me more comfortable knowing there are deeper chambers than that