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February 26, 2018
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Arthur Pirkle in his Volume 2 ; model 1886 & 1892 book p158 & p160 refers to barrels sometimes developing a ring under the front sight .
Have owners of 1892’s observed this as well ?
What would be the likely cause ? Sweating the front sight on ?
November 19, 2006
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I have the vague memory of reading about that in Art’s book. I checked it again this morning. He doesn’t specify if this occurred with barrels that had a dovetail cut for the front sight, or those barrels equipped with a non-dovetailed sight.
I do recall hearing of examples where some snow would get in the end of a bore and if fired, a ring would develop about where you describe.
February 26, 2018
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Thanks Steve004 .
That would make sense . An obstruction as the cause . You’d expect this observation ( ring under the front sight ) then to be more geographical to a degree ( environments that experience snow ) . Obviously over time , some of those rifles may have been into climates without snow yet still bare the ring from being fired when once obstructed by snow .
Arthur Pirkle ( if I’m correct ) only references this in his comments towards 1892 barrels & not other models ; by way of explanation why some barrels may have been shortened in the hope to correct a loss of accuracy .
Seems peculiar if limited to 1892 barrels .
Your right Steve004 ; dovetailed or sweated the front sight on – you’d expect to see a correlation between the ring developing under the front sight & the method used to install the front sight if that was the cause . ( ie manufacturing )
I get it , that other types of obstructions could have similar results .
Which lead to a brief thought , regards possible unreliable or handloaded ammunition back then ( maybe regards black powder & it’s storage ?) . A projectile not exiting the barrel & a subsequent shot being fired being the cause of the ring .
However , as 32-20 & 44-40 were common to other rifles ; you’d expect to observe the same incidences in other rifles of the time as well .
Thanks for your thoughts Steve004 
