I've told this story may times before. When I was a kid (1950s) we had an old Trapdoor Springfield 45-70. We shot .410 shells through it all the time. I mean everyday, we must have shot hundreds of boxes, since that was all my Grandpa would let us have. We carried a stick to shove down the barrel to knock the empties out since they would not extract.
Then in the mid 60s we decided we wanted to go Deer Hunting. We spent a long time brushing and brushing the bore, but we did not seem to be getting anywhere. Looked like a smooth bore, but my Grandpa assured my Dad there was rifling in the old gun. My dad took it and an old Japanese 7.7 we had used to play army with in the 50s. Tied them in a small tree, loaded one round into each and tied a strings to the triggers. Dad backed around the corner of the barn and pulled the string. Both guns fired and held togeather, so he did it again. After the second round he deemed them safe for us kids to use for hunting with the actual ammo for the guns. When we looked through those barrels they looked new to us, no longer smooth and dirty looking, but nice sharp rifling. I'm sure they were pitted, but back then I did not know what that meant, they looked good to me.
