Replacement Barrel - where to find one

So I recently acquired this:



It's a Jukar from Spain, in fairly rough shape. The lock was so dirty it wouldn't hold full cock, and the barrel is either double/triple charged (or possibly has about 5/6 balls in it). Stripped it, and it will be fine after some cleaning and minor adjusting of the lock. However I'm not sure the barrel is worth messing with. The clean out screw on the drum is frozen, and the drum is frozen. The nipple came out okay, which was honestly a surprise.

The bore is has a significant amount of rust, and I imagine there will be pitting if I clean it out. At this point I'm thinking I'll just get a replacement barrel. Does anyone have any suggestions on where to go for a full barrel (breech plug, drum, etc)?

Thanks!

Ah thanks for all the links, I'm going to see if I can get in on a couple of those auctions if for nothing else having some spare parts on hand. If I don't have any success pulling the ball (I had to order a smaller puller than I had on hand, should be here tomorrow), I'll probably just drill it. Faster and easier than having to thread a fitting to match the nipple hole for air chuck or grease gun.

Alright ball pulled. It appears as though the previous owner dry balled it, attempted to shoot it out, and attempted to shoot it out a second time. However the second time they filled the barrel from the charge hole forward with black powder, about 3" worth. Needless to say that would have been a bit more than a double charge! I'm not sure if common sense prevailed, or what, but they decided to leave it rather than fire it again. It took a bit to get all the old powder out, and it's now sitting in evaporust to see how it looks rust free.

I may still get one of those other parts guns, just to have another barrel (or heck even another pistol!)

Well took it out today. It cleaned up reasonably well (the barrel is currently in the white), but the bore is ROUGH. As in a I could feel the patches catching when I seated the ball. I didn't shoot for accuracy, but it was certainly paper plate accurate at 7 yds. A fun project for the moment.

Jackrabbit1957 said:

My suggestion would be to wrap some steel wool around a smaller caliber bronze brush and work it up and down to smooth out the rifling. As long as the crown is not damaged the bore can be pitted and still be reasonably accurate.

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The crown appears to be in reasonable shape, so I am contemplating something similar to this or Steel Horse Riders suggestion. I am also considering making a slightly undersized lead lap, and seeing if I can knock down the worst of the pitting. The latter is probably more effort than it's worth.

As a long term option, I could have the barrel relined in .58 which would match my main long rifle. This would save me on having to get another mold (I don't have a .440), but I imagine it would cost more than I paid for the pistol (less than $50).

For the moment I have the stock to strip and restain, and the lock to smooth out, so the barrel can be rough a while longer.

Ratshooter said:

You don't knock down pitting. Its already knocked down into the metal. Try a smaller jag with some Scotch Brite wrapped around it and try to remove the rust. Then maybe some one or two ought steel wool. But nothing on a spinning shaft. That will ruin whatever rifling is left. If nothing else you could make a slotted steel dowel with emory cloth around it and remove all the rifling and turn it into a smooth bore. Lots of old guns were smooth bores.

And those are not expensive guns. They can be found cheap in gunstores and pawn shops. At least they used to be found there. A couple of pawn shops around me will not buy BP guns anymore because they said they almost can't give them away.

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Some of the larger patches of rust, have actually bridged from one land to the other, leaving a high spot in the groove that is rust. That's what I was referring to lapping out.

The slot on the clean out screw was completely waller'ed out. I welded it up proud and then cut a new slot, got the old screw out. The combination of heat from the welding and actually being able to put torque on the screw got it right out. I replaced that with a stainless steel screw.

I disassembled the lock, and in general it's not a bad lock. There were a few rough patches that took a file, but the majority took just a cratex bit on the dremel for polishing. The old sear has seen some wear, and is a bit chipped at the tip of the half cock notch. The notch itself is plenty deep, but the it produces a bit of stutter when cocking the pistol. I debated welding the tip of the notch up, but I had already put everything up from working on the clean out screw. I just dressed it up a bit to cut down on the stutter, and I'll leave that project for another day.

The barrel is still in the white, and the sights are tenuously holding in their dovetails. Tightening the dovetail, and getting the sights aligned is probably next. A good friend of mine does cerakote, and I think that's how I'll do the barrel. This will probably be hard service woods gun for finishing off wounded animals, plinking, etc. Not anything that requires gilt edge accuracy (than again if it has it after I get the sights aligned, who knows?

So I took the pistol out yesterday to set the sights, and found that the rear sight had at some point fallen off! I was able to locate it this morning, but that didn't really help too much yesterday. Trying to be as consistent as possible with just a front post (so sort of like shooting a bead sight on a shotgun), I was able to produce a group just a hair bigger than fist sized at 7 yds. Normally that would be fine, but we're not talking rapid fire from concealment. This was slow fire, two handed. So possibly I was just having a horrible time without the rear sight.

The good news, is that after about 15 rounds through it with a pretty tight fit with the patch, things are smoothing out some. There is less "snaginess" to the barrel. I'm going to firmly affix the rear sight, and see about sighting in and groups over the weekend.

Surprisingly with the rear sight firmly attached, it's a pretty good shooter! I forgot to take pictures of the target, but it put down a respectable 3" group at 15 yards off handed, which isn't too bad for not doing any load workup at all. I just need to figure out what to do with the barrel finish (still debating rust blue vs cerakote). Overall a very lucky and happy find!