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After several range sessions spent hammering round balls down the barrel of my Pedersoli .72 double rifle, I decided to ask around about coning. Daryl posted a nice description of how to do it with my thumb, but I couldn't bring myself to do it that way on an almost new rifle. A buckskinner friend of mine told me about a man that makes a coning tool:
Muzzle Coning Tool Joe Wood 5311 Briar St. Amarillo, TX. 79109 (806) 352-3032 flintstell@cox.net

so I called the gentleman and asked him to make me one of his tools in .72 caliber. For $60, I received a beautifully machined brass tool designed to create a concentric symmetric barrel cone. Specific instruction were included as well. This tool is designed to be used with a thread tap handle (T-handle) which I bought at a local Lowe's hardware store for about $8. It took a couple of hours to do each barrel, but it isn't really hard at all. I did some of it while watching a TV show. The rifle is now MUCH easier to load, and appears to be more accurate as well, which I attribute to now being able to load a tighter ball/patch combo. And, range time is more fun as well. I will post some pix of targets when I shoot some; for now I can tell you that at 30 yards I can hit 4x4x4 blocks of wood reliably and at 20 I can hit a whitetail deer's heart ;-) Also have killed a few dangerous gallon paint cans at 75 yards, which makes for quite a show when they explode (they were old previously-frozen latex paint from some previous remodeling project).

This tool is available in most calibers from what I've seen. My friend coned his .54 and .50 rifles and pistol and loved it (tool was cheaper too, as Mr. Wood had to charge extra for the larger stock to make a .72 tool).

Doc, in Arkansas USA

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