Post by twomoons on Apr 6, 2007 18:14:36 GMT -5
Britchin’ A Rifle
If you fellow can bear with a long one I’m doing Jim’s rifle barrel and I thought I would pass on this info the way I got it. This is how a rife was breeched in the olden days and the method I am using is a no power tool method. Here goes…
First off when you get the barrel and the breech together you need to check the threads. Most bbl makers don’t thread to the bottom of the hole and most plugs are threaded to a nominal size. I usually clean up the threads with my taps and dies so that the plug screws in to just about the bottom with hand pressure. If the barrel isn’t tapped to the bottom of the hole and I don’t want to run my plug tap in I taper the plug threads on the last two threads.
The old timers wanted a thread length of caliber or a little over for rifles from 40 on up. I try for right around ½” or so on all my guns, but I have done 40’s a little shorter. I like a 75% thread at least and I want really good threads on the smaller bores as they build up the most pressure.
Once everything screws together right I cut the barrel to the final dimension and square it. I use a small barrel square I got from Bill Large by way of Greg Roberts. As soon as the breech end of the barrel is square I use a depth gauge made from an old drill bit and a brass collar to measure the hole depth. You don’t need this to within a thou. as you are fitting parts and when it fits it fits.
Then I take the breech plug and set it square in the vise and start filing until it is just shy of being an exact fit for the gauge I used for the barrel. You want to allow for final fitting and for compression of the metal in the final fit. Now you smear some inlettng black (made from soot and Vaseline or bear grease) on the face of the breech plug and the back of the barrel and screw them together with an 10” cresent wrench. If you need more than this to do the job the job isn’t right. Screw the plug into the barrel until it bottoms out, if you did it right it should be about 15 degrees from coming up on a flat. Unscrew it and look at the face of the plug. You should see a rubbed ring where the face of the plug bottomed against the barrel. If the ring is not all around the face of the plug file where it is high and try again. When you have a full ring and the plug is say 5-8 degrees from coming full on the flat you are home. If you touch the back barrel with the end of the plug before the face hits the inside bottom you just need to file a little off the back of the barrel and shoot for the next flat. In the old days barrels were not drilled perfect on center so you marked the low flat and that was always either the top or bottom flat. I use to prefer that it be the bottom flat as then I could use a lower front sight. Now days barrels are within .001 or less and it doesn’t make much difference which flat you use.
Now here comes the real secret to doing the job not only right but better yet. The plug fits you have it home and it seals and comes to the back of the barrel flush. So… you pull it all apart and polish the HE## out of the face of the plug. You want that pup shinier than a nickel on a goat’s A$$. What this does is keeps the fouling from sticking to the breech face. If you use a good solvent or flush the barrel right when you clean it the crud drops off the breech. You can hold the barrel up to the light and the reflection will let you look down the bore. You have a built in bore light and when you clean you don’t have to use a breech face brush or a scraper, ever! I worked on a rifle I built for Bounce last year and when I pulled the plug to re barrel it the plug was still shiny even though the rifle was shot out.
There she be… I am sending the photo’s of the process to Jim along with the barrel but if anyone wants the whole shebang let me know and I will send them copies.
Two Moons
