AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Gun Building => Topic started by: chuck-ia on September 15, 2025, 11:51:48 PM
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Drilled a ram rod hole today, was fine left to right, (or right under the center of barrel) but somewhat of a deep web, about 3/8" I guess would be fine for lock placement and drilling front lock screw. I think I will move on and not worry about it. Making somewhat of a trade gun, so not so much of a super thin gun, barrel is a rice (supposedly) 1" oct. for 12" then round, 62 smooth bore. Plan on using a chambers col. virginia lock, (big lock). Can you guys foresee any problems I might run into? thanks, chuck
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You’ll need a tall trigger blade. Might have to solder a piece atop the as-is single trigger.
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Is it practical to inlet the barrel a touch deeper and reduce the thickness of the web?
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Is it practical to inlet the barrel a touch deeper and reduce the thickness of the web?
Been there, done that, got the diploma. It works.
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thanks dan, that is an option. chuck
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On the bad pre-carve I have listed her many times I had to do both, drop the barrel and add metal to the trigger bar, I went as deeply as I could with the trigger plate until I started breaking into the ramrod hole.
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I've done a few builds from a blank (not many) where I drilled the ramrod hole first after the stock profile was cut. Then I was able to offset the barrel 1/8 to leave more wood in the lock and trigger area. Inletting following the known measurement from my pilot hole made a very solid wrist in a skinny gun. Sounds goofy but there's a lot of ways to do it by hand.
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I've done a few builds from a blank (not many) where I drilled the ramrod hole first after the stock profile was cut. Then I was able to offset the barrel 1/8 to leave more wood in the lock and trigger area. Inletting following the known measurement from my pilot hole made a very solid wrist in a skinny gun. Sounds goofy but there's a lot of ways to do it by hand.
I agree. On a really skinny gun, it can help to change up the order of procedure. Most people inlet the barrel and then drill the hole. But provided a person is confident enough in inletting a barrel, it works well to drill the rod hole and then inlet the barrel in relation to the rod hole. And then layout the buttstock afterward.
Another option is to inlet the barrel first, then drill the rod hole undersized, and then scrape it to final size, moving it up down, right left as needed. I like that technique if using a tapered ramrod. I also have a long, tapered reamer that I made for making a tapered rod hole. If the initial undersized hole ends up where I want it and the position doesn't need to be adjusted, then the rod groove can be brought to full size and the rod hole enlarged to a tapered shaped with the reamer. I like having a tapered hole, as it leaves a slightly thicker web at the breech, even though the rest of the hole is full size. Once you get your head around doing it this way it's not hard.
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Regarding the problem the OP is having here, if the web along the rod groove is already a minimum acceptable thickness, then deepening the barrel mortise may or may not work well. If you only deepen it at the breech, then you will have a fulcrum/see-saw hump around the entry pipe. Normally, if deepening a barrel mortise, the whole mortise has to be deepened, either all to the same depth, or at least a long wedge has to be removed from the breech to the muzzle, so as to avoid creating a fulcrum. In some situations the forestock may be flexible enough to work with a slight fulcrum, but getting a barrel seated with a fulcrum in there is not easy. Much easier if there is none.
Another question to consider is whether you are working with a slab or with a precarve. If a slab, and if you haven't yet cut the buttstock profile, then you have more wiggle room. You can drop the barrel deeper and then when the barrel is in place, you then draw the buttstock onto the slab in relation to the barrel. (I don't draw in my final "cut here" lines until the barrel and rod hole are both situated.)
If you are working with a precarve, then you don't have (or may not have) a lot of wiggle room. If you drop the barrel deeper at the breech, it will slightly change your drop at the butt and bring the cheek piece up higher. So, before cutting, it might be helpful to draw it all out on a big piece of butcher paper, just to see what the effect would be.
So, in situations where it won't work to deepen the barrel mortise, another option is to plug the hole with a dowel rod, then redrill. Of course, if you put a dowel in there try to match density if you can. If the plug has a different density than the wood of the stock, then you may have trouble getting the drill to go where you want. The drill may try to avoid the dowel, or it may try to follow the dowel, depending on density.
An option I have heard described, but haven't tried myself, is to make a dowel plug with a deep groove cut down one side. When it is all glued in place that groove will serve as a pilot for where you want the second drilling to go. Before gluing the dowel in place, fill the groove with something soft that won't allow glue to run in there--something like a strip of closed cell packing material. That be soft enough to still let the groove serve as a pilot hole, while being dense enough to keep the glue from running into the groove when you glue the whole thing in place. (Cutting a groove in a dowel rod may itself be a bit of a challenge. I can think of several ways to do it, but I think the safest would be with a Dremel tool. Again, I haven't tried this. Just heard about it. So I'm sorry that I'm lacking details. Maybe someone on here has done this and can comment on their experience?)
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eric, could you explain trigger bar? I will make a simple single trigger. this is a blank I am working on. thanks, chuck
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Hi,
Is it 3/8" thick under the muzzle or under the breech of the barrel? You will have a hard time making the gun look authentic with that thickness. You will end up with a "throat" of wood under the forward part of the lock where there should be very little depth as you can see in the photos below.
(https://i.ibb.co/SXCLsTNw/Kibler-gun-lock-view.jpg) (https://ibb.co/995M8XnH)
(https://i.ibb.co/N6cL2F88/Heylin-fowler-lock-mortice-view.jpg) (https://ibb.co/C5RnKwkk)
I fixed a problem similar to your very recently. I have a Caywood 12 gauge English fowler that I turned into a British officer's fusil. The web of wood under the barrel was 1/4" and the rod and pipes were 7/16" diameter. That gave the gun an awful clumsy and bloated look to the forearm and forestock. I removed the pipes and cut the ramrod groove deeper. The I cut a section off the ramrod and used it to plug the existing ramrod hole. I glued it in place and drilled a 3/8" diameter ramrod hole. That allowed me to correct the fat bellied forearm and give the gun the correct profile. Cast pipes for a 3/8" rod filled the existing ramrod groove nicely. Plugging a ramrod hole is easy just sand the plug until it fits easily in the hole so the added glue doesn't bind it preventing it being seated all the way down the hole. You also have to make sure there is enough wood below the plug so you don't break into it when shaving wood off the bottom of the stock. You just need a shell of original stock wood not much. I'll be posting photos of this project in a few days.
dave
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Another option is to plug the existing hole as described by whetrock and smart dog and then slot the bottom of the barrel channel to put the groove exactly where you want it. Fill the slot in the bottom of the barrel channel with a glued in patch and you should be good to go. Just one more way to skin that cat.
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I think part of the deep web is caused by an oversized drill, it is an oversized drill I got from track of the wolf years ago. I think for now I will think about it a bit, maybe take wood off the sides and bottom before I continue. If the weather cools off a bit do some squirrel hunting with the 36. thanks for the suggestions. chuck
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Drilled a ram rod hole today, was fine left to right, (or right under the center of barrel) but somewhat of a deep web, about 3/8" I guess would be fine for lock placement and drilling front lock screw. I think I will move on and not worry about it. Making somewhat of a trade gun, so not so much of a super thin gun, barrel is a rice (supposedly) 1" oct. for 12" then round, 62 smooth bore. Plan on using a chambers col. virginia lock, (big lock). Can you guys foresee any problems I might run into? thanks, chuck
I would drill the RR hole 1/64 oversize & go on. Makes it allot easier to get the RR in & out
and allot easier at the Entrypipe. If it ends up a tad thick, so be it. Wonder how many not
so perfect ones were left out in the falling down barns ? Remember we only have a very few
of the Millions of originals built to look at. PC/HC means that is how it was done, not that it
was the best way.