Tom,
They are not hard once you take the time to make the mandrels. I used wood ones for a while, but recently took the time to make mandrels from wrought iron for B and C profile barrels. I also have a big one out of wrought iron for a 1.125" barrel at the muzzle. This last one was for my chunk gun. I have used all to date with two small stainless steel hose clamps. The clamps must be at the very top of the mandrel where the nose piece is to end and near the bottom of the nose piece. They must be extremely tight. I leave a rectangular 2" section at the bottom of the mandrel to clamp TIGHT in the vise. If everything is tight. It takes one minute to hammer out the end of the nose. A little filing and fitting and your are done.
I can't remember the last time I cussed making one. About the only time I do that is when I drill through the bottom of a forearm.
I have two blanks on the bench out of .25" thick steel plate for the swages/dies to go with the wrought iron mandrels. Then I won't need the hose clamps. By the way, I used wrought iron because I have 1.25" round wrought iron bars that are the perfect size for forging out these mandrels. I use what I have as even steel is expensive these days.
I also have paper templates for the brass or steel blanks for the nose pieces. They are just the right size so they close up around the mandrel perfectly and there is little waste to file away. Like I said above, material is expensive. Also the more waste, the more work to file it away. I like results, not work.
Using all this stuff, it takes me about 15 minutes and maybe one anneal heat for the brass to finish the nose, to make a nose piece ready to be filed to fit. It is one of the quickest, easiest things I have to do on a rifle. I can only assume that you don't have all the little pieces I mentioned above. The more dies/swages/forms, and mandrels I make, the faster all the sheet good fabrication goes. I started with hard wood than then moved to iron/steel over time. I still use hard maple forms for the rear thimble tang and the patchbox lid and finial. Just take a day here and there to make some jigs to make your work easier.
I would solder on the end of the nose piece if I was doing a nose piece with a groove for the ramrod today, but only because I haven't made a mandrel and die for it yet. It I had, I expect it would only take an extra heat to form it considering that the ramrod gooves on the originals were pretty shallow. However, most of the original nose pieces I have seen that had ramrod grooves were silver soldered. I would do whatever the original maker did.
Best,
Mark
