oopsss!

[yip]

i inlayed my barrel ( swamped) and layed out the r/r groove but its not under the center of the barrel its off a scant 1/16" hope i didn't screw it up, struggling with this darn M.S. and working from a chair,  is there any hope?

[Clark Badgett]

There is rarely anything hand made that is absolutely perfect.

[B.Habermehl]

It likely means you will need to mill your ramrod channel from the barrel channel. Then glue in a 5/32 to 3/16 thick web of wood to form the bottom of your barrel channel. If it’s ofset at a angle. If the whole ramrod groove is offset it’s less of a problem as you can still drill your ramrod hole, depending on to which side your offset. With a little care and a bit of gentle bending you can “steer” the drill sometimes. I watched Fred Miller do this a couple times

[ScottH]

Is it off so much that the hole will come through the outside of the finished stock?

[Not English]

Yip, if it's off favoring the lock side, you may have problems if it crowds the lock. If it favors the side plate, it probably won't matter too much. I have layed out ramrod channels at an angle from the center muzzle line to the side plate that were off 1/16" t the end. The idea was to give the ramrod some room on a very slender rifle. Chances are you will be the only one that knows other people following this thread.

[yip]

 fellas it favor the left side(right handed) the side plate side, i'll know better tomorrow when i start slabbing off wood. i hope all will be ok, wish me luck!

[Bob McBride]

Just tell everyone it’s ramrod offset that was designed by a French gunmaker to counterbalance the castoff...

[TonyM]

I'm building a jaeger style rifle(28" x 50cal bbl) right now. Have all parts in and stock shaping done except the front of the lock panel on the sideplate side(left). Planning to have no nose cap with a slight swell at the muzzle. I have a jig to do bbl channels and rr groove. Looked at it right down the tube 2 nights ago and saw the groove is 1/16" off on the sideplate side. How that happened I do not know. Let's just say I've done this well over 100 times. Guess there's a first for everything.
So just build it, shoot it and enjoy it.
Tony Maples

[mikeyfirelock]

I doubt anyone would notice.  Actually, you could probably leave an extra 16th thickness on that side and I doubt anyone would notice.   You could always remove that extra wood later if you want.

[Dave B]

This is not a big deal as others have pointed out. I have seen several originals that had small deviations from the center line and not symmetrical in how they shaped out the fore stock at the entry pipe. if your still in square form you can shift the off set hole back to center by remarking for the stock center line rough shaping the fore end area and in let your entry pipe into the desired position. just dropping the pipe so the metal is dropping into the ramrod channel off set so one side of the pipe lays in the channel the other must be inlet in to the edge you are drifting toward.  Use a gouge to clean up the lip of material  to expose the rod pipe in the front or use a scraper to remove the material further down the side of the ramrod channel. Now you have the pipe installed having clamped it in place use a ramrod drill  to run back through to fore stock to clean out the material blocking the offset pipes new ram rod position. This will have a blessing in that the ram rod will have a little bind in the channel so you never have to worry about it being loose and falling out of the rifle in the woods

[jerrywh]

This photo is of a Nicolas Noel Boutet pistol. At the time he was considered the best gunmaker in the world by many.  Look closely.

[yip]

thanks guys, thanks for the re-enforcement but its driven me crazy. don't know how i could have done that, everyone i built before came out nice . started slabbing off wood today i'm gonna try to forget it and throw this together  came to far to turn around now.

[Not English]

Yip, go for it! Jerry's photo shows exactly what I was talking about.

[Bob McBride]

thanks guys, thanks for the re-enforcement but its driven me crazy. don't know how i could have done that, everyone i built before came out nice . started slabbing off wood today i'm gonna try to forget it and throw this together  came to far to turn around now.

Don't throw it together Yip. Take even more time. If you can make it a special rifle, that little blip will just add character.....

[Dave B]

To add to Jerry's shot is one of a restoration project that shows they did the ramrod off set on purpose.

If you run a dowel into the ramrod hole you can see by the remnant rod grove that they have about a 15 degree angle to the hole, off set to the side plate side. I had a guy tell me about how he liked to off set his ramrod hole so the rod passed the breach of the rifle in between the side plate and the front trigger extension. This was so if you dry balled you had a couple inches of rod to get a hold of to pull the ball. I have done this on most all my builds so when you drop the rod in the empty bore you have an inch and a half sticking out of the muzzle.

[yip]

fellas thanks for the replies, i think i'm going though with it. i'm building a Shimmel and don't think it'll be a problem,nothing pretty, plain maple, no curl, it has no entry thimble, no muzzle cap and no butt plate. did some slabbing of wood and looks good so far. wish me luck!

[Dphariss]

This photo is of a Nicolas Noel Boutet pistol. At the time he was considered the best gunmaker in the world by many.  Look closely.

z

It may be angled to clear the mainspring inlet. I have done this in the past for this reason. Light weight barrels make for little room for parts.

Dan