Joe

I had Dave Chicoine do the work, as part of a design experiment I was working
on. The 1899's can be good guns for that kind of work, because there is no
extractor lug to worry about, therefore, it almost a natural to cut the barrel
from the breech end, and then rethread it. This picture was my initial
experiment :



The problem here is that I started from a 6 1/2" barrel that was buldged
about 1/3 of the way down. The most we could salvage was 3 1/2 inches, but
becuase of the somewhat linear taper of the barrel, it was a bit too small
on its OD, right up near the face of the frame. You can see a big gap between
the extractor rod, and the bottom of the barrel. My plan was to fill that in
with a flat piece extending down from the bottom of the barrel, but it was just
too much. It never would have looked right. It would have salvaged the forged
front sight, but it just wasn't big enough, OD-wise.

So, for the two guns, we elected to cut from the muzzle end, and remount the
front sight. The barrel taper is close, but its still a tad too large at
the muzzle - maybe .030 or .040 too large. The overall appearance, at 3 1/2",
is still very nice.

The right way to do this, for 1899 barrels, is to start with one that is not
more than 1/2" longer from what you want. For a 3 1/2", a 4" barrel would be
ideal. The taper would be perfect, and the only thing that would not be right
would be the roll markings. With those two guns, the target was originally
5 ", and the fixed was 6 1/2". The target had already been refinished once, so
refinishing the barrel again was OK. The fixed had very little finish left anyway,
so it was a good gun to work with.

John -

I don't know how to price refinished 1899's ! I probably have close to $1000
in each one, which only makes sense if you want custom 1899's . My original idea
was to title the project: "What Could Have Been" , based on what the factory
did with registered magnums. Ie, allow any barrel length. Well, with 1899's, it
would have been trivial for them to have offered that !

Later, Mike Priwer