Underlug Staples

[Cory Joe Stewart]

I have been asking a few questions lately about underlugs and soldering and all of you have been very helpful. 

I noticed that many of the post here never or rarely mention underlug staples.  Those who sell them say they are easier and stronger than a dovetailed or soldered lug. 

What are the general opinions of underlug staples?

Coryjoe

[Don Getz]

Coryjoe.........I used cast staples for many years, probably installed a hundred or more.  I always liked them, they are
easier and quicker to install than a dovetailed hanger.   But......drilling the two holes in the barrel can be scary, requires
utmost care, real easy to screw up a good barrel.   In one sense they are better than a solid underlug since you already
have a slot for the pin.    A solid underlug requires more work in this area to elongate the hole.   It also requires care in
upsetting the metal around the underlug, it's also easy to dimple a thin barrel.   If I didn't have a milling machine to cut
dovetails, I would be using staples, no doubt about it................Don

[Acer Saccharum]

I think if you have plenty of wall thickness, they are fine. If it's questionable wall thickness, I'd use a dovetailed lug.

I can't stand drilling down toward the bore. Suppose I miscalculated and drill into the bore?

Tom

[Dphariss]

I have been asking a few questions lately about underlugs and soldering and all of you have been very helpful. 

I noticed that many of the post here never or rarely mention underlug staples.  Those who sell them say they are easier and stronger than a dovetailed or soldered lug. 

What are the general opinions of underlug staples?

Coryjoe

I make my own if I use them. Much better than dovetails.
As Don said drilling is critical and on thin barrels there is a risk of dimpling the bore if you get to deep.
So a shallow dovetail or solder is a better choice in thin barrels.
Dan

[fm tim]

Jim Turpin, in his video on percussion rifles, has an approach.
He starts out with a drill large enough in diameter to just accept the upset head of the staple.  He drills only as far as the end of the taper of the point of the bit.
He then takes a second drill of the same size and grinds off the point.  He effectively has a crude end mill.  He then drills only as far as the bottom of the original hole.  This ends up with a flat bottomed hole to accept the staple to be staked into place.
There remains the issue of the depth of the hole, so the staple heads can not be too big or the first step to the end of the point of the drill bit ends up too deep.
His video shows the process on straight barrels so he has no issue with swamp in the barrel.

[g rummell]

I've been using staples now for 30 years. Never had a problem with them and I save a few hours vs dovetailed lugs. Thumbs up in my book. 

[rich pierce]

I'm too chicken and don't build often.  So I hone my dovetailing skills on the underlugs before doing the sight dovetails by hand.

[flehto]

When staples {bent nails} were first used, the drill had a collar and the drill press stop was also used. A flat bottom drill "saved" some hole depth and the closely sized holes peened nicely around the staple "leg"....this first bbl was straight and the holes were drilled quickly. On the swamped bbls, the drill press stop had to be adjusted  for each pair of holes, so went to shallow dovetailed lugs which are installed as quickly as the staples, but w/o the possibility of destroying the bbl....Fred

[Lucky R A]

    Over the years I have seen more loose and missing staple underlugs on originals than I have ever seen with dovetails.  We must take into account that old barrels were quite soft and who knows the skill level of the apprentice that installed the staples, BUT on equal barrels with equal skill levels, more dovetail underlugs survived. For what it is worth!

[Curt Larsen]

I generally use barrel pins on mine, but if I decide to use wedges, I think I would use dovetailed ones that I can make myself using the methods in Taylor's tutorial.  Check it out, they are pretty simple to make.