Bannerman Musket With Concrete in Barrel!

Lteel

Cadet
Joined
Aug 26, 2017
My husband is a retired collector of antique firearms. He primarily has Civil War carbines, although he does have a representation of other antique arms as well. He has a Springfield conversion (flint to percussion) that was a Bannerman special. Somewhere along the line, concrete or cement (?) was put into the barrel and he is trying to remove it. Sadly he has had a number of strokes and struggles to communicate and also to recall all of his gunsmithing skills. Does anyone have any ideas?
 
My husband is a retired collector of antique firearms. He primarily has Civil War carbines, although he does have a representation of other antique arms as well. He has a Springfield conversion (flint to percussion) that was a Bannerman special. Somewhere along the line, concrete or cement (?) was put into the barrel and he is trying to remove it. Sadly he has had a number of strokes and struggles to communicate and also to recall all of his gunsmithing skills. Does anyone have any ideas?

Very sorry to hear about your husband.....
A well known business that can give you ideas about fixing the barrel problem is WWW.lodgewood.com
They are very professional and do a lot with all kinds of difficult antique gun problems. They can give good advice, or they may be able to fix the problem themselves. I would definitely recommend their work.
 
I wouldn't give it much hope, but if the breech plug could be pulled he could take a masonry bit to the concrete. A bit extender would help too, but depending on how much concrete is in the barrel it would only do so much. Once he has a hole drilled into it he could pour a concrete dissolver into it and then pressure wash it out.
 
Concrete... good lord someone needed to have their head examined. I have seen a Rifle Musket with with the bottom 3" of the barrel filled with molten lead but concrete... UFFDA!!!!
 
Very sorry to hear about your husband.....
A well known business that can give you ideas about fixing the barrel problem is WWW.lodgewood.com
They are very professional and do a lot with all kinds of difficult antique gun problems. They can give good advice, or they may be able to fix the problem themselves. I would definitely recommend their work.

Thanks much for the referral! I will contact them this week. We also had planned on contacting Dixie to determine if they might be interested in purchasing some of his collection.
 
I wouldn't give it much hope, but if the breech plug could be pulled he could take a masonry bit to the concrete. A bit extender would help too, but depending on how much concrete is in the barrel it would only do so much. Once he has a hole drilled into it he could pour a concrete dissolver into it and then pressure wash it out.

I read him your response. He said that was indeed what he had been trying. I think he is trying to tell me that the concrete is underneath the nipple and back towards the stock about three inches -- if that makes sense. He has bought some product "Kano Penetrating Oil" but that didn't seem to help. From what he is trying to say, it seems as if he thinks that Bannerman was the ones who put the concrete in ... don't know if that makes sense or not.
 
I once bought an Civil War artillery shell that had been used with a number of others to line a collectors driveway and the base of the shell had been encased in concrete. I was fortunate that the concrete was somewhat rotten by being submerged under salt water during a hurricane's storm surge, but even at that it took several masonry bits and a great deal of patience to remove the concrete; I can't imagine trying to do this in a rifle barrel. As a side note, Bannerman used rifle barrels as concrete reinforcing rods when he built his castle in the Hudson River.
 
I once bought an Civil War artillery shell that had been used with a number of others to line a collectors driveway and the base of the shell had been encased in concrete. I was fortunate that the concrete was somewhat rotten by being submerged under salt water during a hurricane's storm surge, but even at that it took several masonry bits and a great deal of patience to remove the concrete; I can't imagine trying to do this in a rifle barrel. As a side note, Bannerman used rifle barrels as concrete reinforcing rods when he built his castle in the Hudson River.

I read about how Bannerman did that with the barrels! Looking at the old pictures of his store on Broadway (before he built the castle) is just amazing. I'm sure all of you collectors and enthusiasts would have LOVED to have gone shopping there!
 
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