Nice carbine Grizz. No doubt that one's earned its keep. Glad to hear you fellas are having good success with these large bores.
I took mine to the range yesterday to test fire it with some BP rounds I had loaded several years ago for anther rifle. It loaded, cycled and fired ok. But then I ran into a problem. Extraction was quite difficult. After getting the first shell out I looked at everything and ran a patch down the bore just to make sure everything was clear - it was. I fired another shot, same difficult extraction, so I stopped there. After I got home, I examined the fired cases and found the problem. The chamber is out of round and seems to have a corroded area or bulge at the 12 O’clock position, from the case mouth back about 1/2 inch.
No wonder it was hard to extract! Externally, there is no bulging of the barrel or any other visible signs of a problem. Shining a light inside, I can see some pitting in the chamber. But I can’t see the top of the chamber, so it’s hard to tell what caused the problem.
So that’s the bad news. The good news is I just talked to John Taylor at Taylor Machine, a well respected master at barrel work on old rifles. I described the situation to him and he’s pretty sure that he can reline the chamber. The bore is near excellent, with just a little scattered pitting, so I really don’t want to reline the whole thing, when just the chamber is the problem. As you can imagine, it’s a little disappointing. But I don’t blame the seller. I bought it from a well respected dealer in antique arms as a 120 year old antique. Without firing it, they would not have known. I really like the carbine otherwise, so I will proceed with getting it repaired and enjoy it for many years to come. Life is too short to get upset over the small things in life. So I’ll pack it off to John Taylor next week and wait patiently (well, sort of) for him work his magic. While he has it, he’s going to repair the worn cartridge support on the bolt face and go over the action and make sure everything else is in good shape. It will be worth the wait.