About those vent liners....

[Waksupi]

If all of you are like me, and are a cheap bastid, I like the idea of saving money. I hate paying even the small charge for vent liners. Here is a better deal. You can but either plain steel, or stainless 1/4X28 threaded rod for a darn cheap price. You can then cone the inside of the vent as you please, drill it and cut it off at a huge savings, and always have some on hand to repair an old vent, or do a new one. Here is one example, I'm sure there are many more vendors.

http://www.grainger.com/product/Threaded-Rod-19NM70

[kaintuck]

I know......but Barbie chambers is way better looking than granger, and needs the $ for kat fud in her shop.....
Marc n tomtom

[Frank]

I have done this with Countersunk stainless screws. You can lightly countersink the outside of the barrel, tighten up the screw and file it off flush. That was before the white lightning liners came out.

[Don Getz]

You can make a liner out of threaded rod, but, did you ever see a liner that was threaded all the way?  How would you make
it tighten up in the hole?  I don't think liners are that expnsive.  What kind of lock do you have on this gun?  I would imagine
that you thought $135 was too much for a siler, so you used a cheaper lock?  Sorry, but the days of cheap are gone, unless
you have a good machine shop and time is plentifull............Don

[Bob Roller]

Don is RIGHT,the day of cheap is gone. I tell people who want cheap to buy a carton of baby chickens and they'll get "cheep"from those little critters.There still is a mindset among some people that says ANYthing to do with a muzzle loader MUST be cheap no matter how much time is involved in making that particular item.
Years ago that WAS the predominant attitude and the sport/hobby lost a number of very capable people who said "Never again" and went on to other things.I did this to a certain extent,making locks for the FEW that would pay for them and making parts and transmission bearings for cars and trucks.I still do that when someone needs odd parts.I specialized in Packards and Duesenbergs and L or K Model Lincolns and that crowd didn't let $2 stop whatever they were doing like the muzzle loader people did.

Bob Roller

[wattlebuster]

I think its pretty cool to make your own parts when you can and save a few bucks. if its thimbles and sideplates and such im with you but when it come to the function of a rifle as in lock barrel breachplug and vent liner I will go ahead and pay out cause I want it to work flawlessly and I need all the advantage I can get

[Waksupi]

You can make a liner out of threaded rod, but, did you ever see a liner that was threaded all the way?  How would you make
it tighten up in the hole?  I don't think liners are that expnsive.  What kind of lock do you have on this gun?  I would imagine
that you thought $135 was too much for a siler, so you used a cheaper lock?  Sorry, but the days of cheap are gone, unless
you have a good machine shop and time is plentifull............Don

This tip was mainly intended as  quick fix, if you don't have a week to wait for something in the mail.  I do have a decent machine shop, and know how to put a flare on a piece of rod once it is cut off. Why do you make a tool, when you can buy one? Is the tool you make of any lesser quality? It is foolish to think the quality of a vent liner would somehow be inferior because you made it in your own shop. 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

...but cutting off a piece of all-thread rod, with no countersink provision, and running that into your barrel, is in my opinion, a poor way to make a vent liner.  Gas cutting is for certain, and eventual blowout a certainly.

[Acer Saccharum]

I like to try new ideas. I like to make, or tweak, an existing tool or product, always in the hope of improving performance or safety.

I applaud your creativity.

I also agree with Don, cheap is gone!

[Dan'l 1946]

Cheap IS gone. But the upside is that the array of high quality parts has never been better. You get what you pay for.
                          Dan

[bob in the woods]

Inexpensive is gone. Cheap is all too prevalent.   Unfortunately, a lot of folks where I am look at muzzleloaders as a way to get extra deer hunting time. That's it.  It's not like they are "real guns" after all. They're just muzzleloaders. The same crowd thinks that flintlocks are unreliable, and you need sabots and bullets to down game.

[albert]

I have my own machine shop,and can build any part of a gun that I want, but for the most part,I would rather be building a rifle from the best parts that I can get my hands on.I have made a few locks,patchboxes,buttplates,etc.,but most people wouldn't want to pay for the time invested.as for vent liners the threads are better than most threaded rod ,because they are a finer thread pitch which is stronger,and they don't really cost too much.

[jerrywh]

 They are only cheap if you don't think your labor is worth anything. Mine is.
PS  I never bought anything from Granger that was cheap.

[davec2]

I like to make stuff.  I really like to make something I can't get anywhere else on the planet.  If I buy a White Lightening vent liner from Jim and Barbie, it cost me $4...less than a lot of coffee I buy out in town.  (That's the beauty of having someone set up a screw machine to spit out a couple of thousand of the same part one after another.)  Its made beautifully and Jim makes a little money on each one.  I have a few on hand and can start right in with the installation when the time comes.  Assume for the moment that I can make a liner out of threaded rod in 15 minutes (saw, flare / swage, drill, countersink, drop it, loose it in the $#@* on the floor, make another one)...all to save $4.  And all this for a liner that doesn't really have a shoulder (see Don's post), doesn't have a contoured internal cone (unless you have some unusual countersinks), and probably has a sloppier thread due to the manufacturing tolerances usually used for threaded rod.  If I need to install one in 15 minutes, I might make one up like this.  Otherwise, I'll get one from Barbie and Jim and save myself the trouble.

[Waksupi]

Well, I'm surprised more of you don't know how to fabricates something so simple. 1/4 X28 threads are the same all over. I personally enjoy the challenge of making things. If I have to explain the simple process of flaring a rod, I'll go back to the machinist forums. Heaven forbid anyone here may pick up a new idea.   

[B Staley]

Well when your dropping over 2000.00 dollars on a gun I don't see why you would worry over a 4 dollar part just saying.

[rich pierce]

Folks are just expressing their preferences.  It IS fun to make things especially when not on the clock.  We could have the same discussion about nose caps, ramrod thimbles, trigger plates, sideplates, toe plates, sights, underlugs and any number of parts.  I expect that when 18th century gunsmiths bushed a blown out touch hole they probably made the threaded "liner" themselves.

[davec2]

Waksupi,

Just expressing personal preferences here, not giving you a bad time for making a liner out of threaded rod.  Don't be insulted.  No disrespect meant.  Almost everyone here makes their own...I don't know...... almost everything !

And, by the way, one of the major purposes of this site is to exchange both new and old ideas, so I don't think you will find much resistance here to ideas or methods.  Some, like me, are not all that hard over on being historically correct and use things like Super Glue, a lathe, a TIG welder, and electrical lighting.  Others go so far as to make their own taps and dies, barrels, bullet mold cherries, etc.  All sorts of ideas and methods are exchanged.  Not all of them appeal to all of us.  As I said, personal preference. 

[okawbow]

Threaded rod is not as good a fit in the threads as grade 8 Allen screws. A flat head Allen screw works great as a start to make a vent. The threads fit better, and the head can be screwed tightly into the slight countersink in the threaded hole in the barrel. These work well in a situation where you need a vent right now, and you have a lathe to cone the inside. Or, you could just buy several and keep them on hand.

[flehto]

My first LR had a  1/4-28 SS set screw  for a liner. The Allen wrench socket is towards the bore and to eliminate a deeper TH because of a screwdriver slot, 2 angled slots were filed on the OD for a spanner type screwdriver.  It's still being used and has performed flawlessly since 1977.

White Lightnings are now used because of availability and low cost and perform just as well as the SS set screw  ....Fred

[sz]

I have made my own a few times in the past, but all in all, I like Jim and Barbie’s liners best.
And Kaintuck is right.  Barbie is better looking.

Now if they would make the liners from Inconel.   I’d bet such a liner would never need to be replaced.  It would probably cost $25 each, but I would pay it without blinking to know the hole would not erode.

[Dphariss]

The problem with threaded rod and set screws, and I have used the latter. Is that there is no unthreaded head to act as a seal and to uniform the visible part of the installation. Without a seal on one end or the other they can leak gas and thus gas cut the threads. This is not supposition I have had it happen in my younger days. Other than using AMERICAN pipe threads in AMERICAN pipe threads (I just did some plumbing  ), threaded joints are not a seal and will pass both gas and liquids. Vent liners, nipples and breech plugs.
So I tend to seat vent liners and everything else against a shoulder at both ends when possible and at least at the outside as in nipples and some vent liners.

I make them in 1/4-28 since I can get low tolerance taps in this thread and cannot in 1/4-32. I make thicker walls than some commercial liners as well. I doubt that anyone can tell a difference in lock time (sear break to projectile out the muzzle) between a straight walled counter bore in the liner and and heavily coned one. So long as the counterbore dimension will pass powder to the vent end of the counterbore.


Dan

[Virginiarifleman]

ill pay the 5 bucks for Barbies Whitelightning vent liners. cheap has always left a bad after taste down the line.

[Dphariss]

Well, I'm surprised more of you don't know how to fabricates something so simple. 1/4 X28 threads are the same all over. I personally enjoy the challenge of making things. If I have to explain the simple process of flaring a rod, I'll go back to the machinist forums. Heaven forbid anyone here may pick up a new idea.   

Yeah I can flare a rod and when the threaded rod idea was put forth I thought of it. But one  must know that the stainless generally used is subject to WORK HARDENING and being a something of a dufus I prefer not to work harden parts that contain pressure and maybe make some microscopic cracks. 303-304 are generally workhardened to some extent anyway and this often used in vent liners and I bet the stainless reddi-rod is 303. Since its free machining.
So before assuming people are too dumb to do some operation or another you might want to take into consideration that 1. Machinists are not gunsmiths. Having worked as the only gunsmith in a shop full of machinists I can assure you this is true.
2. They might have valid reason for NOT doing the operation that would not occur to the machinist.

Dan

[Acer Saccharum]

Good advice, Dan. I fall into the class of 'I am a machinist, not a gunsmith'.   

A healthy dose of caution is good for all of us.