Barrel inlet - How to know it's fit enough?

[Eric Smith]

I have been inletting a swamped barrel. I have it inlet to about the right depth + 1/32 to a 1/16. When I apply hand pressure to the muzzle or the breech it remains firm, but when I tap the muzzle with a rawhide mallet the breech will stand up just a little. Is that common? It "sounds" snug from breech to muzzle when I tap it with a malllet. I get that solid sound, if you know what I mean. I don't want to over inlet and find out latter I made a mistake.
  The breech end  fits up snug against the wood so I can just manage to fit a slip of paper between.

Any opinions,  thoughts, or advice would be helpfull. This is my first one.

[Acer Saccharum]

I use inlet black to see if I have good breech contact when the bbl is lightly clamped in place.
When you clamp the breech and the muzzle pops out of the inlet, then there is a high spot in the channel. If it stays in place pretty good, then you're close enough.

Keep this in mind: from the tang to the first lug, the stock and barrel are adding strength to each other. From that first lug out to the muzzle, the barrel is supporting the stock. Also, the forestock should be thinner and flexible, so you'll be able to clamp at each lug to pull the stock to the barrel before you drill for the pins..

[Ed Wenger]

What Tom said...  The barrel should make contact with the bottom of the barrel channel the entire length.  You probably won't have a solid black transfer on the wood, but it should be hitting every couple, few inches.  I'm thinking that the breech might stand up a little if you tap the muzzle, even with a good fit, but the best method is using some sort of transfer (soot, inletting black, etc) as the best way to check for a good seat. 

Also, if you blacken the end of the breach, you should get a good transfer there as well when you tap the muzzle.  I'd take a look at that area again if you can get a piece of paper in there, the end of the breech should contact the stock.


         Ed

[kutter]

Assuming you have the stock blank held in a vise (or two)., Place the solid vise support at the muzzle end of the wood, and also support the stock further back.

 Then try the mallet tap to the muzzle end and see if it still lifts the breech end of the bbl out of the inlet.

What you may be seeing is the long forend of the blank flexing just a tiny amount from the mallet wack. That allows the bbl &  forend to flex down,,the breech end to kick up out of the inlet just a small amount even on a good inlet.
Even a solid piece of stock blank can flex hanging out unsupported. It only needs a few .000" flex to rock the breech end up a fraction of an inch over the length of a M/L bbl.

If it still lifts out,,


Then  place your hand tightly around the breech end of the seated bbl and stock.
Then rap the bbl with your mallet going forward towards the muzzle and see if you feel the bbl  start to lift at the breech where your hand is tightly wrapped around it.  
That should be a high spot or beginning of the high spot in the inlet.
Place a small mark there and go back to inlet black and see if concentrating in that area you can pick up the problem and smooth it out.

Remember what's already been stated though about the bbl supporting the stock once you get out much past that first lug.

[Jerry V Lape]

Check to make sure you have the inlet correct under the portion of the underside of the breech plug/tang which is often a curved surface.  I make sure this curved portion is a little clear of the wood so the shoulders of the barrel/breech make solid square contact with the stock.  You said you have paper thickness between barrel and stock.  If that is at the shoulders of the barrel and that curved underside of the tang makes first contact the barrel will rise as the tang slides upward.

[TMerkley]

If you don't have any inlet black handy, you can also use chalk or a pencil.  If I also look for gray marks on the wood where I have been taking the barrel in and out as well as tapping it on the muzzle towards the breech to look for "rub" marks to make sure I have all of the splinters out of the way.  just keep looking for rub marks and play it by ear until it looks good to you.  How far up do you want the wood to come up on the sides of the flats?  Half way or less? It is all up to you. 

[Dave B]

I have on a couple of rifles run into trouble with barrel inlets in the fore stock. The problem I think came from having a slight high spot just past the middle pin lug area. My stock was cut closer to the profile than most before inletting so it flexed just enough to allow me to over inlet that area. I ended up with an annoying tendency for the forestock to move if you squeezed it in be tween the tenons while loading. I ended up using some bedding compound to cover my mistake. The next one I was more careful not to be clamping the stock to the barrel to get my transfer marks  and I didn't have the problem. In fact I have never had that annoying problem with my inlets.....Well I must confess that nowadays I have Dave Rase do all my barrel inletting.

[Daryl]

I'd get a perfectly black fit if I put black die in the acra glass. I believe in bedding rifle barrels - I know many don't, but I am a bit of an accuracy nut.

[Acer Saccharum]

- I am a bit of an accuracy nut.

You're not going to get tack driving accuracy out of a long swamped  A,B, or C weight barrel that is encased in a wooden sheath, that has a mind of its own...no how much bedding you put in there.

So there! That's my opinion, I said it, have at me with all your contrary opinions! 

[Acer Saccharum]

Oh, sorry, I got sidetracked.

I believe inletting should be well done, supportive at the breech, and close as you can practically get it the rest of the way. It's not anything to fuss over, because it won't help or hurt the accuracy.

The forestock is just a carrier for, and protector of, the RR.  

No more blasphemy out of me today, I promise. I will also do my best to stay on topic.  

[Long John]

I think Acer's first reply was right on.  Remember too that often it is the bottom oblique flats that are not relieved quite enough.

As far as inletting black, I use soot from an oil lamp.  Since the soot coating is a fraction of a thousandth thick I end up with numeros spots of black along the length of the barrel - you will never get a continuous run of color, like Ed said. 

Remember, too, as you remove wood you are relieving stresses that are stored in the wood as a result of the drying process.  It is not unusual to have a portion of the stock move a quarter of an inch during inletting.

As Acer said, beyong the entry pipe the stock conforms to the barrel, not the other way around.  As you reduce the fore end down to finished dimension it will be very flexible and subject to breakage anytime it is not protected by the barrel.

Best Regards,

John Cholin

[Artificer]

Acer,

Though I never thought about it before, I believe what you wrote about bedding explains why from the 1850's onward, they used half stock rifles for all SERIOUS target shooting guns. 

Gus

[Waksupi]

I generally feel with hand pressure, and inletting medium. I don't pay much attention to a raising breech or muzzle, as long as I can feel the contact full length. Wood is not stable. It may have forces working on it, that has nothing to do with the clearance between metal and wood. Supposedly dry stocks from back east, do some serious traveling once they get out here in the dry west. One "dry" stock I recently had from a major dealer, ended up with an inch and a half off cast, fortunately the right way. Chasing wood with an inlet can be a sad business.