revolver rifling damaged, need suggestion

[LAGS]

@ Revolver Ocelot.
I wish you luck in your endeavor, and hope you can rectify the problem.
If you can, ask around your area and get the opinion from someone that is most knowledgable and trustworth to other shooters.
You now have a list of options that have been sugested by the members, but let whomever you take it to Give THEIR own opinion before you suggest fixes.
They will be looking at what you actually have, and see if their opinions fall in line with the options you may have.
I am not saying Gunsmiths are dishonest.
But let them form their own Professional Opinion.
And don't be shy about getting a second opinion from someone else.

 

[nulook45]

Personaly if it were mine i would get another 3" barrel and take the gun to a competent gunsmith and have him swap out the barrel. cant cost more then 150 dollars not counting parts and your good to go . Second thing i would have to agree about is counterboreing the old barel just far enough to clean up the rifling if the damage is only 1/8th inch thats nothing and you wouldnt lose any velocity from a 1/8th inch loss . Good luck to you in whatever you decide

 

[mnrivrat]

The loss of not much more than a 1/8 inch of your rifling by counterboring seems to me to be not much to worry about. It's your gun and your money but I vote for having it counter bored and saving your $ for something important.

 

[CraigC]

The loss of not much more than a 1/8 inch of your rifling by counterboring seems to me to be not much to worry about. It's your gun and your money but I vote for having it counter bored and saving your $ for something important.

I agree, 1/8" is not going to make a measurable difference.

 

[LAGS]

If you only have to do an 1/8" counterbore, then the muzzle will look like it just has a rebated crown, and will look pretty cool.
But before we get the OP's hopes up, Let Him get a professionals opinion and survey the extent of the damage.
We are just Guessing at this point, and we would not want to get his hopes up as to the repairs needed.
But unless I could see the gun, I would have to advise that he not shoot the gun untill it is inspected properly.
Just because he has fired it after the damage, does not mean it is still truely Safe.
A bore restriction or rough spot could be causing a pressure spike and thus over stress the top strap of his gun.

 

[mavracer]

Doing a recessed target crown isn't going to lose enough velocity to notice, heck you could lose more velocity from manufacturing tolarances by switching barrels.

If you only have to do an 1/8" counterbore, then the muzzle will look like it just has a rebated crown, and will look pretty cool.

Yep

 

[Revolver Ocelot]

I just visited the gunsmith last night, he said he can fix it with little to no harm to the original accuracy. He says he will need to remove the barrel and pass it through his lathe to clean up some of the lands and redo the 45 degree muzzle crown back a little bit to remove the damage to the muzzle.

I have to say removing the barrel sounds a bit excessive to me but the guy comes highly recommended here in town (Fairbanks) so I will just have to assume he knows what he is talking about.

All together he says it'll set me back 70 bucks, I'll do a feeler gauge on the cylinder gap and hold onto my last target I shot with it and will compare the feeler gauge results and group when I get it back to see if everything is lined up where it needs to be.