MAKING 22 RF LINERS

In this chapter I will show you how to make 22 RF liners, for relining shot out 22's. I first came up with the
process in 1958, and at that time, no one made any liners, except an outfit in England. I sold over 5000
liners in the first 6 months. At that time, I realized there was a need for a low price liner to take care of
the thousands of 22 barrels that were shot or rusted out. I set about trying to come up with a suitable
method to mass-produce a liner that would be fast to make. Give the desirable interior finish without any
mechanical reaming, and a material and method that would give a superior rifled finish.

LINER TUBING

I spent quite a bit of time experimenting with various methods of manufacturing, tried many different
types of steels. Right off, I ran into one big problem with the liners. The interior finish was very bad. It
seems the manufacture was unable to hold good I.D. finish or size on the tube. Most often, the tubing
had chatter marks inside the tube, as well as uneven bore. Some of the tubing ran as much as .015
oversize in the bore (In places). They were supposed to be .187 on the I.D., but I found that some ran so
large that a .219 button would fall through the bore.

I just about gave up on the idea. I even tried to ream the bore to remove the roughness, and did get a
very smooth and shiny bore. When I rifled it all of the chatter marks reappeared. The inside looked like a
washboard. I had been in contact with various tubing makers across the country, and had several
samples of tubing to try. One was from Superior Tubing. When I wiped the grease from the bore, it was
like a mirror. Boy, these people had their act together. I cut off a small piece, lubricated it, and rifled it. It
was a prefect barrel. Size was perfect, finish was perfect, and was what I was looking for.

If you get tubing, you must specify that you want tubing from Superior Tubing. I know of no other
manufacture that has their quality. When you order you need 5/16 x .187, plus or minus .003. You should
also specify that the tubing should be free from interior chatter.

The process I will describe here will give you a very high-grade liner as long as you use good tubing. In
addition, this process works great for making larger calibers. I have turned out several muzzle-loading
barrels using this process. The only difference in making muzzle-loading barrels is that you need a
longer stroke on the rifling machine. You can buy just about any size tubing that you need. With button
reaming, you will be able to size most slightly undersize tubing to the correct size the first pass.