Rifle Barrel for Corner

Rifle because the bore is rifled - has grooves with a twist that imparts spin to the bullet. If there is no bore, perhaps the barrel was rejected during manufacturing before the bore was drilled out (I don't know if that is actually how they are made), then sold as scrap.

"Smooth bore" Sharps surface from time to time.?ÿ There's lots of theories but there is nothing definitive on the reason they have no rifling.?ÿ?ÿ

Here's one:

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/sharps-rifle-found-in-closet.137615/

That gives a whole new meaning to shoot the corner.?ÿ

There's the bore diameter, then there's rifling. This barrel just didn't have a bore to it. It doesn't seem like someone would go to the effort of spiking a plain barrel. In that photo above, the cylindrical length at the end of the barrel was there, which then tapered into the octagonal

profile. Just haven't seen a rifle barrel without a bore.

edit: thanks

I found a control point in Virginia many years ago that was a howitzer shell (open end down)

Ran across a corner not long ago that made me do a double take. It was one of your standard 5/8" rebars, capped with a spent red 12 gauge shotgun shell. The busted primer made a most satisfactory dimple and the brass rim seemed quite suitable for stamping with an LS#.?ÿ

A rifle barrel is a component of a rifle so there should be no surprise if a discarded incomplete part was available in somebody's scrap pile for use as a corner marker. I am surprised that the part you show has a sight attached but no bore as sights would have been the last addition in making a rifle.

Over the years I have found a plow share, a meat grinder, a double shotgun barrel (chamber up) in a tree hollow, various axles and several Chrysler torsion bars. I really like the torsion bars, my father set a few. When the bar broke it would leave a point making it easy to set and at about 4' length I never found one leaning, all were as plumb as the day they were set. The most unusual thing I saw my father set was a power take off shaft from used farm equipment, about 1.5" square with the universal knuckle up. I was always pleased to find surveyor's tee bars, a few with the button in place.

Paul in PA

@paden-cash

At the Pennsylvania Long Rifle Museum, jacobsburghistory.com?ÿwe have surplus Civil War muskets that were purchased by the Henrys, rebored or rebarreled and sold as mutipurpose smoothbores. Very affordable and useful for shot or buck and ball loads, so that a pioneer needed only one gun.

Paul in PA

After WWII John Brendla bought up a bunch of surplus machine gun barrels and used them as monuments on the west side of Fort Lauderdale. Cheap, durable, and you knew they were his.

Drill steel is octagonal.

Found in mining areas, looks like an octagonal rod driven like a rebar.?ÿ

@dave-karoly

I hear ya. I don't think we get a lot of mining in this part of Texas, we're all sand and clay. Maybe a borrow pit. Drill pipe and sucker rod mostly.

Found a good photo of a muzzle loader that looks very similar. Wish i could find it again.

Oddest monument I've accepted is a plow moldboard embedded in a dying black locust tree.?ÿ It was near the boundary between?ÿ two large agricultural parcels established from 1880 GLO patents by bifurcation (the East half of section 23) in 1910.?ÿ I surveyed up to 15,000' on the section lines N/S E/W to record established monuments and found the plowshare within 30' of line if one did a dependent resurvey.?ÿ I spoke with both landowners and they both said they've been plowing on the line between the locust tree and a prominent basalt cliff point to the north where there was a found record GLO monument roughly on line below for 50 years.?ÿ Spoke with one of the owner's granddads (97 years old!) who said yep, I remember when I was a kid we scrapped a plowshare by bolting it into the last tree on the south line (they'd planted them as windbreaks in 1910 but most died except this sentinel), had no clue as to where the true line was back then, but it was pretty close to north-south so they both honored it.?ÿ I took a formal deposition from him (RIP).

So when I filed my ROS I noted "Found horse drawn plowboard imbedded in black locust tree, no record, held as SW corner of W 1/2 of blah-blah by common report."

Now I suspect some may disagree.?ÿ I was confident my assessment will prevail if litigation commences (highly unlikely given the repose of the parties) if some jackleg lawyer & button pushing surveyor spout out about adverse possession, trespass, invalid monument, etc., in a future transaction.?ÿ Also, where did I claim the plowshare be to the hundreth??ÿ The center of the tree;?ÿ it's gonna die (or already has, that was back in 1975), scrap vandals will steal the metal, but that stump will be there for hundreds of years assuming the County doesn't widen the road (unlikely).?ÿ I rest my case and can sleep at night.?ÿ Yep, I honored a completely bogus monument not set by a land surveyor.

?ÿ

@mike-marks

Attaboy.?ÿ Sometimes things are better off left alone.

Had a client ask me today about a tiny corner of his 80-acre tract.?ÿ There is a rock fence that was probably erected in the 1870's, give or take a few years. that follows the north edge of a small creek for most of a half mile.?ÿ It is obvious the rock fence is not straight, particularly at this one corner.?ÿ The little triangle that's on the wrong side of the fence is surely no more than 0.2 acres and would not be accessible to livestock from my client's side unless they were to knock down the fence somewhere.?ÿ No one is going to do that and no one has since the days when the rock fence was finished.?ÿ I suggested he let sleeping dogs lie.?ÿ Especially as the rock fence wanders on both sides of the quarter section line and he probably is gaining more total area than he is losing in this one little corner.

BTW, I happen to have personal knowledge of this rock fence because I rented the adjoiner's pasture land back in 1985.

Second, BTW, across the road is a rock fence that was definitely built prior to 1870 because it appears in deeds that begin at that time separating a significant portion of a quarter section from the remainder.?ÿ Using a rock fence as a property line is extremely rare in Kansas deeds.