Gunsmithing Question about fixing a pistol barrel crown at home.

[68bthp]

I was thinking I might want to shorten a barrel that hangs out an inch past the slide on my 9mm pistol. I would carefully and squarely cut off the excess barrel length with a dremel wheel. But the question is IF I COULD FIX THE CROWN WELL ENOUGH so it will still fire good groups. (??)

I've been a hobbiest for 40 years and build all kinds of detailed things by hand. I figured I could carefully file the burs off the rough cut edges of the barrel, and make the end of the barrel look very neat and 99% smooth first with a fine hobby file, and then finish it with grit paper. I intend to wrap some 400 grit- 600 grit paper around a wood dowell and smoothen the new crown edges and remove any remaining small imperfections on the barrel rifling grooves and lands. I would imagine that as long as I leave no burrs or pits in the surface, and the bullet jacket rides over a smooth surface, the accuracy should not be effected. (??)

Can anybody confirm that I should be able to maintain a decent firing crown in this way?

 

[kortik]

Muzzle crown must be square (or, technically speaking, concentric) to the bore to help with accuracy. Your method lacks using the bore as a datum for processing the end of the muzzle. As such, all you can hope for is making the end of the barrel look "neat and smooth". If you need accuracy, use piloted muzzle crowning cutter (Manson) or lathe.

 

[alpine44]

Precision rifle builders pay a lot of attention to the muzzle geometry. OTOH, people have used a hacksaw and a file to shorten a rifle barrel and did not see any accuracy degradation. There was a thread here recently.

Your risk is low as a pistol is not used as a tack driver anyway and the existing barrel is not what you want. I would say try it with what you have on hand first and leave the barrel a hair long. If it works, fine. If not, buy the piloted cutter. If that does not work, get a new, shorter barrel. In either case, please let us know what the result was.

 

[68bthp]

I found this youtube video soon after opening this thread. I think the method here will be sufficient for what I want to do, considering it's a carry pistol and not a target gun. Thanks gents for the encouraging input.



http://youtu.be/qoSI_O3Oc3w

 

[Pinecone]

The Brownell's instructions for relining a rimfire barrel tells you to do the crown the same way, with the brass round head screw.