LACo Kerr Rifle Barrel Repro

[Pat in Virginia]

I expect to be talking with a barrel maker fairly soon. If you have any interest in such a barrel in .451 approx. as a drop in for a P53 Enfield RSAF, LACo, or Parker Hale stock let me know. When it comes to Italian made rifles other than perhaps the new Pedersoli's I'm not sure they observed the original barrel contour in the P53 pattern rifle. They may have, I just would not assume that they did.

I'm sure any barrel maker is going to be interested in how many such barrels he might expect to turn out in short order. My forecast was correct. The first barrel maker I have approached is not interested in taking the time to create the set-up for a onesy-twosy sale. I don't blame him a bit. So let me know if you are seriously interested in such a barrel.

I expect the barrels to be un-blued and with a P53 original pattern breechplug to original dimensions.

If you will send me a Personal Message with your email address it would be appreciated.


Pat in Virginia

PS - I've decided to make this a new thread as the first was about gathering information for a barrel spec. I'm working with someone who has an original Kerr rifle to help refine the barrel spec I have and provide guidance to a barrel maker.

This thread is about gathering preliminary interest information sufficient to get a repro barrel into limited production.

[Pat in Virginia]

I met with Bill Adams and Bobby Hoyt at the N-SSA national matches on Friday morning. Bobby has agreed to undertake the making of an Enfield profile barrel with Kerr rifling. He will first make a prototype barrel to make sure that it has the performance needed for such a barrel. The Kerr rifle was normally used as for target shooting at ranges up to 600 yards in England and was used as a sniper rifle by the CSA.

Copies of the barrel spec are available by normal email upon request.

The trickiest part of the project will be making a sine bar for controlling the twist rate of the rifling. It will require three sections pieced together: 1) for the initial straight section of the rifling; 2) one for the gain twist section to go from zero twist in the straight section to 1 in 2 in about 14 inches, and finally, 3) the 1 in 20 section for about 18 inches. The hardest part of this (and it isn’t too hard) will be the gain twist portion, but Bobby has done gain twist before and he knows how to create that portion of the sine bar in his own shop.

Once he has made and tested the prototype successfully he will know how to price the barrels.

Regarding the barrel crown, Bobby is willing to make a hemispherical crown for the barrel.

We did not discuss chamfering the rifling at the muzzle as per the Kerr. Personally, I have mixed feelings about doing that on my barrel unless it can be tested. If it doesn’t degrade accuracy it would be a nice feature, a built in bullet starter. My first concern, however, is accuracy. I don't see why this can't be an option for those who desire this Kerr feature for authenticity reasons. Specific details of how exactly the chamfering was done are not known at this time. However, we are working with people who own such barrels.

Regarding the front sight, Bobby is not a sight maker and will deliver the barrel in the bright (he doesn’t blue) with no sight work or with a 3/8 inch dovetail.

I will explore some options on getting sights made for those who may be interested in an authentic Kerr style front sight. Be aware that there were multiple versions. I'll provide a document illustrating some of these via email upon request.
Personally, I’ll want a variant made using a Lyman 17A globe front sight. I’ll provide a picture via email upon request of one on the non-Kerr barrel that currently resides in my Kerr stock. I had my gunsmith put that one together by cutting a Swedish Ljungman rifle front sight base to the contour of my barrel and welding a Lyman 17A globe to that base. If you go with a 3/8 dovetail the world of target front sights opens up to you. I’ll have to ponder my front sight decision for awhile.

Since my eyes are well aged, I will definitely put a windage adjustable rear sight on my Kerr repro barrel. I’ll provide a picture of the one that is currently on the barrel in my Kerr stock via email upon request. I made it myself with a Dremel tool for cutting it out, some hand files to finish shaping it and a hand drill to counter sink the screw head so that I could use the original tang screw unmodified. I pinned the front of the sight to the barrel to hold it in place. That required drilling a small hole in the tang. I may simply move this rear sight base adapter to the Kerr barrel and re-drill the small hole for the pin. What I would really like to have is an adapter that would require no modification to the rifle at all and which (I think) should work on any LACo, Enfield Arsenal, or English Parker Hale P53 as the existing screw holes (lock and tang) should all be at the same place on these rifles. As far as I am concerned something like a folded “H” would work: two countersunk screw holes in the ends of the H for the lock screws and one in the top for the tang screw. The cross bar of the "H" would be behind the back of the rear lock screw and near the top of the bar with the tang screw holding it in place. You might be able to use the current tang screw, but I think you would need longer lock screws than the originals. Once proper alignment is achieved one would drill and tap the adapter for the rear-sight-of-choice’s base.
This is just a rough notion, but if anyone wants to volunteer another design it would be appreciated.
Bobby has asked that I call him in 4 to 6 weeks to check on progress.

If you are not on my list of those seriously interested in acquiring a Kerr barrel repro and wish to be send me a personal message with your email address and I'll provide all of the pictures and documents mentioned above as well as the full version of the report I sent to them today and keep you updated as things progress.
That’s all for now, folks


Pat in Virginia

[dbar1918]

Pat in Virginia:

I am interested in obtaining a replica Kerr Rifle barrel in the original .451". All the Whitworth and "Volunteer" rifle replicas I've seen are actually .457" so folks can shoot some sort of .45-70 Government bullet. I would prefer to shoot a .442" paper patched bullet like my original 1862 Kerr.

There are a number of other differences between the standard Pattern 1853 London Armoury and Co. stock and furniture and the ones produced for the Kerr Patent Rifles. In addition, each Kerr is slightly different as they were finished in small lots and with variations to suit the customer. You had better find a very accomplished engraver to customize your iron nose cap, iron butt plate, brass ramrod tip, screws and escutcheons, serial number on top of the barrel, rear sight leaf, front sight windage adjustment lines, etc. Oh, yeah. The original checkering is different on the right side of the wrist from the left side.

Dave
Kerr Rifle #485 1862
david.stieghan@att.net

[Pat in Virginia]

Dave,

The Kerr repro barrel will be approx. .451. I say approx because it's very hard to hold to exactly .000 .

The early Parker Hale barrel for the Volunteer (Henry rifling) is about .451 as is the Whitworth. I say about because they didn't hold to .451 +- nothing either.

We are not trying to do an entire rifle, just the barrel: the type that would have been sold to the English "Volunteers" so that they could compete using their P-53 stocks with a .451 Kerr barrel at distances to 600 yards. We know that the Kerr Rifle had a longer tang and some dimensional differences of the barrel profile. The gentleman whom I think of as the project engineer also has an original Kerr rifle.

We are not doing the longer tang as very few people have an original Kerr rifle stock pre-Snider. The tang we are using is correct for a P-53. or a Snider-era Kerr. If you need a longer tang then the barrel maker can probably make the one we are using appropriate by welding it up. He's very good at "stretching" barrels back to original length so I think doing that for a tang would be duck soup for him.

I need to know your email address (send me a PM with that in it) so that I can send you more project information/status and whether you are going to need a nipple placement that is per the Kerr or a Parker Hale.

To send me a private message, click on my name at the top left of this post. That will get you to my profile where you can click on a button to send me a Private Message.

We are getting close to rifling the 1st barrel according to Bobby Hoyt who will be making them. They are bored and he is in the process of creating the sine bar to control the rifling machine so that it will cut the three twists in a Kerr barrel: none for about 3-4 inches, gain twist from 0-20, and then 20 inches per turn for the last half of the barrel.

Looking forward to hearing from you.


Pat