I spent several hours with Ray, the gentleman who made my rifle, today around the noon hour. He wanted to see my Uberti Walker Colt (and told me to feel free to leave it with him). He showed me the rifling jig and he said he made it based on the ones used by gunmakers in the mid-1700s. He found pictures and descriptions in books and used that as a guide to build his. He said that you are really filing each groove, not "cutting" it. You work on all six grooves at the same time: Make a pass on one groove, rotate barrel, make a pass on the second groove, and so on until you've made a pass on all six. Then, you raise the file (cutter) and repeat the process. He corrected me and said that it often took 300 passes per groove. He also said it would take him a couple of weeks to rifle a barrel - spare time, time spent adjusting the height of the file, and then quitting due to the monotony and returning later all contributed to the time it takes to rifle the barrel. Ray has several original rifles in various conditions including a very nice Jeager from the 1740s and a very very nice German wheel lock from the 1620s. Both have rifled barrels - interesting rifling: the grooves are rounded, not squared off.
Here is a webpage describing old rifling jigs, there are photos too (his jig is like the ones in the B&W photos):
http://korns.org/misc/rifling-jig.html
One difference in Ray's jig - instead of carving guide grooves into the wood cylinder, he made a raised spiral on the cylinder. He said that was easier for him to do with the tools that he had. Ray quit rifling his own barrels years ago when commercial ones became readily available. The commercial ones are period correct too: They are octagon and tapered but flare out at the end. They are also lighter than the ones Ray made. Ray also reused original barrels occasionally - most were shot out or rusty inside. He reamed them to a bigger caliber and rifled them. Many of his first guns also have reused original percussion locks or flintlocks scavenged from junk rifles.
He has a nice flintlock double barrel 12 ga. shotgun that I really like. The barrels and locks are commercially made but he made the stock and other parts. He has shot birds with it several times.
This was a fun few hours talking old muzzle loaders and seeing Ray's awesome collection. Ray is really talented and very knowledgeable about these guns.
