My old Browning Superposed B25 was originally marked as Full and Half with the bores measuring 0.685" and 0 .705" .
Sounds like its in the ballpark then. Looks like its had about 1/2 inch off the barrels too, apparently the baikal way is the barrel is produced and then cut to length for different choke restrictions. Mine are measuring 28 inch, should be 28.5, but they come silly tight chokes.
Would my cylinder not be .719, as that would be no constriction, and then 20 under for half and 30 under for 3/4?
Doesnt seem to kick too bad, it feels a bit of a heavy lump compared to my other two though so that probably helps. And I only put 24g loads through it today (I only tend to shoot 21or 24)
To be honest it's a bit of s minefield with bore and choke diameters, I know Baikals can be on the tighter side normally advertised as full and 3/4 or 1/2.
It was 30 quid. If it made it out the 3 years til the lead ban, i'd just chop 3/8 off and that would take it to 1/2 & 1/4 apparently.
The bores are of course parallel internally except at the choke cone part, with the last 2 inches being the choke area.the cone is about half an inch usually with about 1.5 inches a tighter parallel,removing 1/2 an inch will do nothing to alter the choke,as I see it it’s either remove all and have true cylinders or as it is now.
From what ive read up multiple times on baikal, barrels were manufactured and then cut to length as per the choke needed. Every 10mm off is a full notch is listed on one post, and choke sizes per length on another.
I personally have never heard of this unique Baikal method,if this is the case the choke must be manufactured with a cone at the muzzle and no parallel section beyond it as is normal. If yours has been altered I assume the bead sight has been refitted further back? Baikals were fairly unique in having chrome lines bores and needed especially hard tools to ream out in the usual way. Being such a basic cheap gun I doubt many would bother touching them.
Like i say, im just going by other posts, seems to be quite common to chop them down as required.
The bores do have (or certainly did) a tough chrome coating. Back in the 80s I used to do a lot of choke modifications as many found that their chokes were too tight. Most could be reamed and then honed but the Baikal chrome could not be touched with a HSS reamer and the only way to do these was to grind away the chrome and then proceed as normal. Customers were told in advance what would have to be done but I never heard of the chrome lifting after modification. The ultimate was to pattern the guns with the customers cartridge of choice but this was a time consuming and expensive process so most just had the chokes opened to the nominal size.
Measure the ID at the muzzle.
I measured the i.d in the very first post.
It looks like the gun is choked 3/4 & full.
If the bore is .719 it’s 19 thou,(1/2 choke) and 33 thou(tight 3/4 choke).
