Hawken Tang Sight

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I always enjoy seeing how someone has gone about making a rifle part - especially one that is not available commercially - so I'm going to start this thread by showing the process I'm following to build a tang sight to replicate (as near as photos can bring me) the tang sight that Sam Hawken added to his pistol grip target rifles.

I started with the tang already fully inlet into the wrist, so welding on a block of steel didn't seem to me to be the logical way to go about this, and Sam brazed his on, so why re-invent the wheel, so to speak.  I cut a length of 1/2" mild steel bar according to the length I gleaned from research photos.  The tang is curved in two directions, and I could have filed a flat onto the tang and silver soldered on the bar, and that may have been the way in which Sam did his.  But where's the challenge?  So I cut a curve into the base to match the tang's double curvature, using a 1 1/2" cut-off disc in a Dremel rotary tool, scrapers, and inletting black.  Once the curve matched the tang, I cleaned both up well, fluxed everything, clamped the two pieces together and silver soldered it into a unit.


Once I had the sides filed down to the edges of the tang (delicate work, since the tang was already inlet and I couldn't remove any metal from the tang itself), I put the tang back into the rifle, clamped a straight edge to the top of the barrel, and drew a line parallel onto the tang block.  I used a hack saw to remove the extra steel, and used a level to square the top with the barrel.  Then I marked the centre and punched it, mounted the gun into the drill press vise again using a level to get it perfectly square with the world, and drilled a pilot hole right through including the stock.  It came out perfectly.




Then it was only a matter of filing away all the steel that was not to be part of the base.  It is 'polished' to 180 grit abrasive at this time.

[JBJ]

Well done and thanks! Now for the rest of the sight.
J.B.

[Acer Saccharum]

You make me crazy, Taylor!

That is fabulous workmanship. You make it look so easy.

Your work is so clean and crisp. This is no accident. It's a mindset, a result of careful planning and thoughtful use of your tools and skills. I am so impressed. Thanks for sharing, and inspiring me!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Thanks Tom.  Being crazy may keep you from going insane!

I used the lathe to turn down a bar of steel, cut off the disc for the eye 'cup', and set it up in my little home-made mill to cut the dovetail for the windage adjustment plate.  Then I ordered a 3/8 dovetail cutter from Brownell's, rather than file the dovetail across that 1" disc.
Bob, your tap and die arrived this morning...thanks very much for it's loan.

Can anyone tell me the correct tap drill for a 1/4" x 80 tpi tap?  I have a #17 pilot drill hole and will bring the hole up slowly as these are really really really...ad infinitum...fine threads.  One revolution of the sight will change elevation .0125" - the thickness of a business card.

[galamb]

Taylor, you want to use a .238" pilot (drill size "B") - common tap

or by thread percentage

.2394 - 65%
.2378 - 75%
.2362 - 85%

[Habu]

Don't know what size, but the formula I diligently copied years ago is:

For 75% thread, drill size=major diameter- (.975/# threads per inch)

[galamb]

Neat piece of math.

.250 tap

.975/80 = .0121875

.250 - .0121875 = .2378... for 75%

Thanks - will save leafing through my charts that are getting kinda tattered.

[Curtis]

Most excellent Taylor!  It looks like it grew there naturally!

Curtis

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Thank you guys.  Good stuff.

[Dphariss]

Nice!

Dan

[Dphariss]

The interesting part is that even if the part is brazed on the tang could still have been case hardened.
A friend had a Freund  patent breech block Sharps in for restoration and the breechblock modifications included cutting here and adding there. The additions were brazed on and the block was case hardened in colors.

Dan

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I cannot imagine how that could be accomplished Dan.  Red heat will melt the silver solder, will it not?  And hardening prior to brazing - the colour would be lost during the joining process, n'est pas?

[alyce-james]

D. Taylor Sapergia; Sir, The tang sight project on the Hawken rifle looks really good. Waiting to see the completed custom tang sight. AJ.

[Jim Kibler]

I cannot imagine how that could be accomplished Dan.  Red heat will melt the silver solder, will it not?  And hardening prior to brazing - the colour would be lost during the joining process, n'est pas?

With regard to carburizing, you can get colors at lower temperatures.  Just no hardening.  You must of course be above the critical temperature prior to quenching to get a phase transformation and change in hardness.  Perhaps, some brazes might stay solid long enough to reach this temperature.  Don't know off hand.  Ordinary silver braze certainly won't. 

[David Rase]

I cannot imagine how that could be accomplished Dan.  Red heat will melt the silver solder, will it not?  And hardening prior to brazing - the colour would be lost during the joining process, n'est pas?

Taylor,
The highest temperature silver I know of has a melting point of about 1400 degrees Fahrenheit.  As you stated, this would be rather tricky for case hardening.  If the joint were brazed with nickel, then you could have a melting temperature of about 1700 degrees fahrenheit which is well above the temperature band needed for colors.  Since you stated you silver soldered the joint I would have to agree with you that case coloring is out of the question.
David 

[Jim Kibler]

Dave,

Case coloring isn't out of the question.  Case hardening is.

[whitebear]

Taylor you are amazing!

[Dphariss]

I cannot imagine how that could be accomplished Dan.  Red heat will melt the silver solder, will it not?  And hardening prior to brazing - the colour would be lost during the joining process, n'est pas?

Sorry I did not properly elaborate, the breech block parts were brazed not silver soldered and brass takes much more heat than silver solder. Beyond what is needed for casehardening. When I see "braze" I mean "brass" not silver solder. I was pretty amazed when I examined the Fruend breech block but after some thinking about brazing in the forge and the color needed to melt brass it made sense.

Maybe I should see how this works. However, I am trying to do constructive gun work right now. 
I need to finish something and sell it....

Dan

[Jay Close]

I've done a lot of brazing in the coal forge over the years just using snippets of sheet brass or flattened .22 caliber casings for the brass and household borax for flux. I am consistently surprised how hot the work becomes before the brass melts and flows. It always looks like a good, clear,  orange heat to me. I think that kind of heat is well above what might be needed for casehardening, but I couldn't put a number to it.

[Acer Saccharum]

You can color case at lower temps than will melt brass braze. Some low temp silver brazes would not be suitable for case coloring afterwards, with melt temps from 900 to 1200F.

[jerrywh]

 I rarely give out info on the net any more but since it is Taylor I will tell  him a neat  trick.  Taylor. You can braze the site base on with pure copper and then case harden as usual. It works great but need good flux.
 No charge.  PS- brass works also but can be risky if you don't have good temp control.  Gold solder will work also.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Thank you for that great info Jerry....I had no idea that any braze job could stay together through a pack hardening.  The silver solder I used in this case is the type used by sawyers to join carbide teeth to industrial saw blades.  It requires a good red heat to flow.  But I can't see it surviving a pack hardening.  Some experimenting is in order, I see.

[gumboman]

What happened to the pictures? Why were they removed? I really need to see them to understand the design.

[Clark Badgett]

^^^^this

[Scott Bumpus]

The pics are gone