BO BO TIME!

[yip]

  cut my r/r groove yesterday and today i tried to square and broke thur the barrel channel. now what do i do?  the entry is 12" from the breech, little afraid to drill the hole because it's swamped barrel.  in order to achieve a slim rife ( Bucks County)guess i made it a little to narrow 5/32" at muzzle and 1/6" at breech,

[heinz]

You can route the hole back the rest of the way to the breech from the breakout in the barrel channel.     Then you can glue in a thin piece of sheet metal to cover the opening or just leave it alone.  If you are tapering your ramrod you can route a slightly smaller channel and with a tapered ramrod the channel can have a little bend in it with no problems.

[Not English]

Yip, Heinz has good advice. The other option is to finish drilling the ramrod hole with the barrel installed. Remove the barrel and coat the bottom flats with whatever you care to use as a release agent. Reinstall the barrel and glue up a dowel to insert in the ramrod hole. I like either tinted epoxy or Titebond III. Make sure you have a square surface to start your ramrod drill at the front of the hole. Shim up the ramrod drill as needed to redrill your hole. Do not try to follow the barrel profile if it's swamped. Drill a straight hole. I would suggest at least the same dimensions as used at the muzzle for the breach. If you're building a flinter, it's a good idea to take into account the shank diameter of your front lock screw and leave at least that much clearance. Do not worry about keeping it slim at that point. There are many other ways to keep the forestock looking slim without affecting the strength of the forestock.

Dave

[flehto]

Most of my BCs have a web thickness at the breech of 1/16" or slightly less and a web thickness at the muzzle of 5/32". The 1/16 dia music wire pin requires a different bbl lug  and a #6-32 front lock bolt requires a shallow groove in the bbl to accommodate the 1/16 or slightly less web thickness at the breech. By the way..... many Lehighs have a 1/16" or less thick web at the breech. Thin webs require   very accurate layouts and drilling because there isn't any leeway.

Both web thicknesses result in both the lower and upper forestock's bottom lines  having a taper towards the muzzle.....a slenderizing effect.

In fact, seeing how slender the BCs are, my  last Lancaster had the same webs and has the same tapers toward the muzzle......Fred


I guess I'm just enamored w/ slender LRs.....having not built any early LRs.



















fred

[yip]

  fellas: i drilled the r/r hole the other day, i drilled feeler holes to watch where the drill is heading, the first 8" looked good but the last 4" i can' see it either it went low or right or left

[Clear Spring Armory]

I know it doesn't help you now, but it may be worth considering for your next one...there is a YouTube video by Josh Wrightsman I watched recently where he shows how to drill the RR hole first and then inlet the barrel so you don't have to worry about the bit wandering. Seems pretty logical to me and I think I'll try it on the next one. Kinda wish I didnt have 3 already started with the barrels inlet. It'll be 5 years before I get to try it, lol

[davec2]

Yip,

I've only had this happen once.  After about 5 inches, I could tell by the way the drill was binding in the hole that the drill was following the grain and would have gone off in the wrong direction.  As others have noted, I routed out the rest of the rod hole from inside the barrel channel.  But in so doing, I felt like I had weakened the stock in that area.  So to beef it back up, I installed a piece of 0.015" thick wall brass hobby tubing in the routed out groove, filled the whole area with AcraGlass epoxy, put the appropriate separator on the barrel and installed it.  When done I had a perfectly centered, brass lined ram rod hole and the stock was stronger than it would have been if the hole had gone straight to begin with.  Not a period correct repair.....but then, as JerryWH used to say, "If Beck had had AcraGlass he would have used it !"   

[Not English]

Dave, that's a great idea. I've got a pre-carved fusil stock that has the ramrod hole routed out. It's been sitting along the wall in my shop for 20 years. I just haven't been able to get myself to touch it. It's just wrong, but the price was right!

Dave