That's why you need a piloted drill if you're going to open an existing bore. Either gonna have to make your own piloted drill with custom pilots too or you're looking at a lot of cash to buy one to your specs. Custom piloted drills from 36" long drill rod are actually really cheap and easy to make in straight flute format. I make them all the time and they're closer to true gun drills than twist drills. A harbor freight drill press, harbor freight cross slide vice and some cheap end mills and you can make your own straight flute drill. Use a center punch and make a jig to align and drill a pilot hole first. You can make a pilot from plain steel rod turned in your drill press and reduced and shaped with files. You can make bore and chamber reamers like this too.

Well that’s a bummer but making your own .50 cal flintlock pistol would still be awesome!

Bummer! But, you're still gonna get lemonade with the pistol build. 👍 Learning, as you go. ❤️⚒️👍😀

Impressive build Jared. Its all new to me. Glad to have caught it

Great project, it's too bad you had issues but you will persevere

Original forged barrels where “bored” not drilled. Drilling a forged barrel with modern drill bits ... for the most part dose not work as you have seen. They tend to make there own path. Where as boring bits will fallow the existing hole. Chris Laubach

very cool bro!

very Cool Jared

So, you can see in your fixture that part of the problem is your drill bit is not aligned with the work piece bore. The bit is very clearly being bent downward by the workpiece. In order to get this to work you are going to need some more precision in your fixturing. You are going to have to make sure that the bit and the existing bore are well-aligned with one another or you are going to end up with an oval bore or worse.

You're probably bummed out but I still think this is an awesome build. Can it be two pistols?

Still working my way through your series and loving it so much! I'd just like to say, if you watch Wallace gusslers documentary I believe its called colonial gunsmith, their drill bits they used were twisted left hand, but spun right hand. This created a more reamer style of cut that followed the bore without walking. The chips produced by this were more of a powder consistency than the drill shavings we know today, but it would could have saved the length you had with the original barrel by it not wondering off center of the bore. The downside would be having to clear the chips every 1/8 inch max, as the chips are fine and they don't follow the flute to clear themselves as well. My buddy and I made one of these drill bits and it went through an annealed rasp amazingly easily. That is the direction I will take with my pistol build. Btw, did I mention I'm loving your vids?!?! Subbed

Wouldn't it be better to get some marble rock of the appropriate size then shape the marble so that it is just right (perfectly) so that it would make a rifle barrel including the rifle bore when hot metal was poured into this mold??? A seemingly simple way to make this metal mold out of marble rock (of the appropriate size) would be to make a wooden replica of a rifle barrel and then have the marble perfectly fit the wooden replica barrel. Assuming that the marble was sanded down very very nicely, this would seem to be a perfect way to not only make one rifle barrel, but also it would enable hundreds of (smooth bore) rifle barrels to be made (until the marble mold breaks for some reason). A simple way to test it would be to put hot wax in the marble mold, then let it set until it cooled down, then pull it out to make sure that everything will go well when hot metal is poured into this mold. It stands to reason this would work better than some kind of clay (or sand) mold because with marble material as the mold material the hole could be inside the rifle barrel right from the start. If it is done right there wouldn't even have to be any file-ing or sanding on the inside to get the bore nice and smooth... if the marble mold was nice and smooth to begin with. We all know that marble can be made to be extremely smooth because of the marble counter tops that are smooth as silk to the touch, so it stands to reason that marble would be a great mold material with the primary drawback being that it would take quite a bit of skill to make a marble mold. But once that was done then barrels could be manufactured over and over again with the bore shape already set up inside the mold. One thought is that perhaps this method would only work well with higher caliber rifle barrels because the marble for the bore hole through the center of the barrel would have a difficult time with a .22 rifle bore because a marble barrel mold might break off for small bore rifles like for a .22 rifle. Another thought is you often see rock cores that have been drilled out sitting around on trails near mines and what not that are perfectly smooth cylinders. If that could be used to mold the barrel bore-hole, that would be a simple way to have a perfect mold for the inner part of the rifle barrel. Then all that would be needed to be done would be to make the outer portion, perhaps drilling it to put a big enough hole through the length. This method would be a significant amount of work to make the mold, but then after the marble rock mold (or molds) were created an unlimited number of rifle barrels could be created by this method. (Rifling, if desired, could be added later through special process). Marble has a higher melting point than metal so it stands to reason this method would work. Seeing some of the previous videos leading up to this video from this same KZfaq channel, and seeing how much arduous (and dangerous) work was being done, this is what popped into my mind. So I throw my two cents of completely un-expert opinion into the mix for what it's worth, which isn't much. I can jibber jabber with the best of them. But maybe by throwing an idea out there like that someone will pick up on it, and prove or disprove whether or not that idea makes a lick of sense of not. Honestly I have no clue what I just wrote, I'm just throwing my no good for nothing opinion out there. But if I was a Cro-Magnon man that's the first method I would try so I could manufacture tens of thousands of rifle barrels... and then after that take over the world with my new snazzy weapons (though I would have to invent gunpowder... but as the saying goes, one thing at a time). . . .

Dude! Sorry the drill jumped the tracks, brother! Been an amazing build thus far and can’t wait to see how you finish it up! Also, I had a thought the other day about this. Would it be useful to use a mandrel/rod in the barrel during the weld? That way it might keep the hole concentric so the bit has a smoother track ahead of it. At the very least, it might be helpful to smooth the fullers before the weld. I know NOTHING about gunsmithing so take that with a giant grain of salt. Thanks again for all of your great content, sir!

What kind of metal were the bits those old gunsmiths use made of? Was it just hardened steel? Or did they have better compounds back then?

First couldn't wait

Hi can I buy your riffle barel