Preparing the Rice Barrel for my Kibler Kit

Today I'm sharing how I was taught to clean up the Rice Barrel that goes with my Kibler Southern Mountain Rifle. As of 2021, the Kibler kits use a Green Mountain Barrel and have the barrel lugs attached. This kit was made at the tail end of 2020. The Barrel is a 46" Swamped Rice Barrel, with a 1:48 twist and square bottom rifling.

It should be a good shooter! But first, it's time to clean up the barrel and get it ready to set into the stock. First we will draw file the barrel. This process uses a file to work the machined faces of the barrel until they are smooth. I was taught to keep my file at a diagonal to the face of the barrel, giving me a nice cross section of working surface for stable and efficient work. After a few strokes of the file, I'll knock it clean or clean it with a file card to prevent any unwanted scratches in the barrel. If you wish you can clean every side of the barrel, but I opted to only do a gentle file pass on the bottom faces to ensure a clean fit into the stock. The only exception being the muzzle, where I cleaned 1-2" of the bottom faces where they could be seen.

When the faces of the barrel are filed, I move onto installing the barrel lugs. As of 2021 these come installed for you. There are two ways to install these lugs, one is by adjusting the dovetail cut into the barrel, the other is by adjusting the lug itself. If you've never done this before, I recommend adjusting the lug itself first, it is much cheaper to replace than the barrel. I've done a few of these lately, so I'm moving ahead by adjusting the barrel. Using my dovetail file, I slowly open up the lug mortice. I cut with the file for 6-10 strokes, check for fit and repeat until the lug fits into the mortice. We want this to be tight and never move, so it's okay for it to be snug. Tap it into place and you are ready to clean up the edges of the lug so they match the barrel profile. Use a flat file for this and apply the same technique used when draw filing the barrel.

Filing can seem mundane, but it is one of the most important skills to practice when building a muzzleloader.

Next I set the barrel into the stock and clamp them together, it's time to mark the lugs for drilling. At this point I'm still pretty green with the kit, so I enlist some help marking these lugs.

Using an electric drill, slowly align the drill with the pin holes and let the drill bit drop in until it hits the lug. Drill slowly and mark the lugs. You can go ahead and drill through the lug now, but I was pretty timid and opted to take the lugs to the drill press for a perfect hole. As of 2021 Kibler includes a bushing jig to make drilling these holes super easy. You won't need to worry about this anymore!

I hope this helps you get some ideas on how to clean up your Kibler Kit barrel.