Bad Barrel?

[Ed Gallop]

I obtained an old Zouave 58 cal that I hesitate to shoot. When cleaning the barrel I noticed that there is an obvious gap at the base of the barrel. It was so loose that the patch balled up and jammed the rod. I barely got the rod out. I should have had the barrel examined before buying it. Can someone tell me if this indicates a bad barrel? Ed.

 

[Phillip Allen]

likely been left loaded for a long time and it has rusted ahead of the breech plug

 

[dstorm1911]

The barrel can be repaired if its the chamber, I did one on an old Enfield replica for a friend as it was a favorite of his, he was recalled to active service for Desert shield/Storm and at the moment the news arrived he was target shooting in his back yard, he became so distracted he walked into the house and just put the enfield away.... loaded, well a few weeks later his wife just put the old rifle on the rack over their fireplace, due to injuries it was 6 years before he got that rifle down off that rack, he had long forgotten it was loaded when put away and intended to just pop a musket cap to clear the flash hole well it went BOOM.... insert t.v memory flash back effect here... he went to run a cleaning patch down it and got bad news at the bottom, the chamber was jugged.... he asked me for ideas as he really didn't want to rebarrel it, what I came up with was to cut out the chamber I then threaded the barrel and made a sleeve just like making a internal choke tube for a shotgun except this one was installed with red loctite then the plug threads were recut, he's been useing that rifle at least twice aweek ever since without any problems in fact I reminded him a couple months ago and he had completally forgotten about it being repaired!

If ya have a smith ya trust in your area remove the plug and have him inspect it with the intention of fitting a new "chamber" into it, I have since done a couple more without even threading them just sweated the sleeve into place both have worked out fine.

 

[arcticap]

Not necessarily IMO. Do you think that the gap is dangerous or just bad enough to affect accuracy?
The large bores don't produce as much pressure, just look at how thin some of the smoothbore barrels are.
As far as affecting accuracy, it would depend on the depth (or height) of the gap relative to the height of a powder charge and loaded patched round ball (or other projectile).
If it's only loose where the powder charge would normally be and doesn't encompass the entire patched round ball area once it's rammed, it might not produce too much gas cutting or patch burn.
And even if it does, there might be loading components that can be used to help minimize some of the problem. For instance, the area of the gap can be filled in with a whole or partial fiber shotgun cushion wad of the appropriate diameter (24 gauge measures .579), some oversized wool shotgun wads (bore buttons), some homemade overpowder cards or a number of other filler materials that are either traditional or non-traditional (tow or wasps nest or a combination of similar items comes to mind, i.e-cotton, newspaper, etc...).
You might consider shooting it with some light to very moderate loads before you decide whether the accuracy of the barrel has been ruined.
Then you'll have a better idea if rebarreling it or other work is something that you need to consider having done or not.
Let us know how it works out.

 

[Ed Gallop]

I do not know exactly where or how large the bad section is but feel if I use about 3 cotton balls it should keep the ball out of it. Excellent advise. Maybe later I will either find another barrel or have this one repaired. I found one on Ebay (Googled) that sold over 2 months ago for less than $90.00. Sure wish I had known then what I know now. Thanks for your time. You are a bunch of good straight shooters here. Ed.