RFD...you ain't see a really bad liner job yet ..
What did you have to go through to get that liner out?
ok, you asked, get comfy, this will take a bit to tell the tale ...
a simple farmer's gun, nothing at all fancy. i received it in-the-white and stained and clear coated the stock. since i had to pull the barrel to do the finishing work, i also pulled the breech plug out and sure enuf, it wasn't anti-seize lubed as i had asked for. looking inside was what appeared to be a burr from drilling and tapping for the flush liner (which i asked to be a chambers white lightning but was a knock-off instead). i used a stone bit on a dremel to smooth down that "burr" but didn't get it flush. the gun shot just ok, however, and is very pleasing to hold and shoot, with a very crisp trigger.
running down a patched jag would always catch on that "burr". i decided to fix it once and for all, pulled the barrel and breech plug, and after careful examination i realized it wasn't a burr, it was the touch hole liner protruding into the chamber. a big no-no. i needed to pull the liner and file it down, but it's a flush liner with no slot and no hex key socket. i oil up the liner and attack it with an EZ-out ... the liner starts to move and ever so slightly raises up - good. then the EZ-out snaps off flush to the liner. cr@p. i really never liked or trusted EZ-outs and i just *knew* it was a mistake.
spoke to my barrel smith in PA, bobby hoyt, and he said i've got real problem due to the hardness of that busted screw - which i knew, but was hoping bobby could throw me a hail mary pass that i could catch. we talked over several possible remedies but all were guesses.
i decided to drill a pair of 3/32" holes on either side of the busted screw and drop in some cut 3/32" music wire and use the leverage of a clamped vise grips to wiggle the sucker out. didn't work. what next?
i put a 1" carbide wheel in the dremel and ran it against the side of a grinding wheel that dropped its diameter to 3/8". i used the wheel to cut a slot between the edges of the holes i had drilled, wedged in a screwdriver and twisted counter-clockwise with a bit of downward pressure to keep the blade in the slot. it worked. free at last. amen. of course the liner had zero lube of any kind on its thread. but what a huge hole, with a huge countersink that left few threads for a new liner to bite into. drats.
after the above drama, and it's relieving happy conclusion, i called up jim chambers and talked it over with him. the game plan was to first drill and tap for a 5/16x32 WL liner and see how she goes. if need be, i'd open that up to 3/8x32 and file down any of the liner past the flat. at this point, i'll take function over form any day.
... drilled open the original vent hole, which removed more than half the original countersink ...
... then i tapped the hole ... it looks reasonably deep on the front (facing the muzzle) and sides ...
... but less threads for the back because the "gunmaker" drilled into the breech plug and created a channel in it ...
... installing the vent liner - i can't get it in all the way, there's a whisker's space visible.
i guess that's ok and i'll just file it flush after cutting off the plug end ...
there's a bit of the liner into the barrel.
need to mark and file off or the breech plug would hit it when i screw it back in.
needed to file off about 1/16" so the liner would fit flush inside the barrel. drilled and tapped a piece of steel so that i could do the filing and then freshen the threads when the liner got backed out ...
screwed in the liner and breech plug, using nikal anti-seize lube for both ...
hacksawed off the nub ...
filed it flush ...
drilled the touch hole out to .062" and installed the barrel back to the stock ...
after all of the above, the smoothie was like the new gun it should have been from the get-go, with uber fast reliable ignition, for a happy ending to a story that started out not-so-good. proof is in the shootin' ....
