Breech plug question

[A. Cooper]

In the process of cleaning and draw filing my barrel, I successfully removed the breech plug using a 15" crescent wrench. My guess is 100 ft lbs of torque were required. Now that the finish is better I am hesitant to use the same approach to tightening the plug as I am sure I will bugger the plug and or the snail. Is there an approved wrench or other method to tighten it? It is a w.m. Large barrel and I want to not create a mess. Thanks, Arlin

[frogwalking]

Arlin,

I use a big waterpumpwrench and a solid vise.  I have aluminum jaws I put between the vise jaws and the barrel.  Make sure the entire portion of the barrel that is tapped for the breechplug is not clamped in the barrel, but just sticking out a half inch or so.  You dont want to squash the threads when trying to install the bp.  Most new bps have parallel sides to hold the wrench.  This is good and bad as it is easier to get a good hold with a plain wrench such as the one you have, but it is harder to get a good inletting job.  The old ones were tapered narrower at the bottom to make inletting easier, I guess.  In any case adjust your wrench so the end of the jaws are a fraction of an inch from the  top of the tang, so any maring will not affect this crucial area.  I use antisieze compound, some others use other stuff.   Make real sure the threads in the barrel and bp are very clean before  you lube them with the greasy stuff of your choice.   A very slight maring of the barrel is not unusual, and can be  dressed up before you brown or blue it.  Good luck.  Frog

[Acer Saccharum]

I ALWAYS use anti-seize on the threads, it helps to prevent galling of the threads. Anti-seize CAN cause browning or rust blue to not take at the seam between plug an bbl if you are too liberal with the stuff.

[David R. Pennington]

I make a little pad for my wrench jaws out of a short section of copper water pipe. Always use the wrench from the bottom side of the plug. I use never seize as well.

[frogwalking]

Oh.  Use copper or aluminum between the vise jaws and your barrel.  Don't use wood.  I damaged a barrel once when it slipped out of the vice jaws when I tried to use oak.  I also once galled a bp installing it without cleaning the threads and without antisieze.  Had to cut the breech off the barrel and rebreech it.  One learns a lot that way, but you don't have to.

[Curtis]

I pad my wrench jaws like David R. does, I use cut pieces of brass sheet but copper like David uses or aluminum would work well also.  I have 3 different size crescent wrenches I use, large, larger and REALLY BIG.  I think an old fashioned breech plug wrench would be the way to go, gotta make one of those someday.

Curtis

[Mark Elliott]

All my breech plug recoil lugs are tapered.   I ground the jaws in an old adjustable wrench to roughly match.   You are still going to round off some edges.  Just make sure the open end of the wrench is at the top of the breech plug.   That way,  you are only rounding off the bottom of the recoil lug a bit. 

[A. Cooper]

Thanks for the help. The last 2 degrees were a bear but no big damage done. Arlin