Second build from plank

[somehippy]

Building a halfstock .58 smoothbore.  Thought I'd post some pics to show you fellas what i got so far.  I put lock too far ahead worried about the vent liner hitting the breech plug, and somehow too high up (rookie mistake), that caused mainspring interferance requiring me to make a bolster shim (hopefully doesn't make my lock panels to wide and funny looking), and having nowhere for a lock bolt.  So the lock will screw in from the lock side to the standing breech leaving the off side bare.  This was my first contoured barrel (not straight) to inlet, was quite the battle... on the plus side my ramrod hole went perfect, didn't invade the barrel channel.  Having made the mistake of placing my lock too high I am not sure how to contour the breech area.  I realise my comb needs to be straighened out some, I left it tall after in letting the butt plate.  I hit a bad knot on one side of the barrel channel so that's how they wound up tapering down so low towards the front of the barrel.  Anyhow here's what I got, feel free to set me straight lol.






I made my bolster shim with a tab sticking up alongside the frizzen to eliminate fiddling with a shim for the frizzen. Got the idea from a thread on here.

[oldtravler61]

  Somehippy well looks similar to my first...An one question have you inletted for your trigger yet...if not...you might have some wood left under your lock mortice to remove yet so you might be able to slim it up some...maybe smarting an other's with more experience will chime in...I'm still in the learning curve also...

[somehippy]

Ya havent done trigger or guard yet, had intentions of forging em but its too darn cold so I'm waiting for them to come in.  There's defiantly some meat under the lock to go away...

[rich pierce]

I’d have notched the barrel or ground the mainspring. But you are inventive.

[Chowmi]

I’d have notched the barrel or ground the mainspring. But you are inventive.

^^^Me too.

If you haven't permanently attached the shim on the bolster, you could still file away some from the top leaf of the mainspring.  I did that on a Davis early colonial lock, and it works just fine. 

You would have to do more inletting on the lock, but that should be no big deal. 

Norm

[somehippy]

Thanks for the replies, trouble is the lower arm of the mainspring  not just the top leaf. I beveled the edges of both slightly. I considered rounding the bottom flat of the barrel butbdidnt want to take meat from thebthreaded breech area. I plan to file the shim as much as I can to slim it up. 

[ddoyle]

I would guess you can remove a signifigant amount of material from the barrel to make room for the spring.

I wonder how that barrel would look if you filed some taper into the oct section/ added tapered flats to the top? 

[somehippy]

I'm having trouble envisioning what you mean.  Like how flats are filed into the breech end of round barrels for the lock? 

[rich pierce]

Ddoyle can answer but I think 2 different ideas are proposed.  One to fix the mainspring/barrel dilemma and another independent cosmetic suggestion.

If you’re wondering how to notch the barrel an angle grinder will do it or even a standard grinder if you have an un-shielded wheel.  Measure the notch to keep it under .100” and you should be fine, safety-wise.

But obviously your call, and you’ve already invested in another solution.

[somehippy]

I reread and get what he meant now, silly me.  In regards to that, my lock is so high that tapering that area downwards pretty much runs me out of lock panel.  But it can be tapered more so than it is for sure. 

I'm tempted to notch the barrel, just leery of doing so around the breech threads.  It would be nice to get by without the shim though, I finally got a chance to see a couple originals today and see just how slim they got them.  Nearly 2" wide lock panels for a 1" barrel looks kinda funny...

[ddoyle]

Some hippy, sorry about mudding the waters with talk of the taper. It looked to me like the octagon section was not tapered and I was wondering if the top flats could be given some sort of treatment for aesthetics and to make the sight picture nicer.

Looks like you are going to end up with a nice little Grouse wacker,

 

[bob in the woods]

I may be totally wrong here, or maybe it's the photos, but to me it looks like that breach is sitting high, and the barrel is inlet too low . I'm thinking I'd raise the barrel, [ glue in a shim ]  and leave the lock alone.

[somehippy]

Ddoyle, I got what you meant after rereading your post.  I've tapered the area more, but I can't get it to fade with the flats of the barrel cause my lock is to high up.  It certainly looks better now.

Bob, the standing breech is pretty much as cast so there's a fair bit of meat there that makes it looked higher.

I got to work on it a bit more today, tapered the area behind the breech and did some other shaping.  Noticed the left side lock panel had more meat than it needed making it look wider.  Since addressing that the rear most part of the lock panels is about 1 13/16".  It's not much but its better than 2".

Thanks for the replies

[Daryl]

I do like the tang - this is an A. Verner version of the same type of notched tang.

[Waksupi]

I grind clearance on a barrel with mainspring interference. I prefer bolsters to be properly fit.

[Eric Krewson]

I ground the main spring way down on my first two builds so they would stay out of the barrel channel, later for performance sake I went back to the original stout springs. On my Beck I filed a barrel flat 1/16" deep for about 1" to accommodate the spring, very minor. On my fowler with D weight barrel my fears were unjustified, I never got into the barrel channel with the new spring.

[flinchrocket]

 Somehippy, I wonder if you could taper the bolster, make it thinner towards the back, that would pull the front of the mainspring away from the barrel and get rid of some lock panel width at the same time.

[somehippy]

Got er done!  Had to hide a boo boo with a brass plate, but she turned out not too bad i think, finally got the hang of soldering!  I was to chicken to checker it or start engraving, so shes just a plain lil shotgun.  Steel wooled back from flat black and stained with vineger/rust.

[Leroyvdh]

Looks good.. Bring it down on April 8th. First shoot of the season. Looking forward to see it in person.