Seating a breech plug

[KC]

I finally got everything I need except for a few tools and have started my first build, a Tennessee mountain rifle. A few questions have already come up. 

To start with, I went to seat the breech plug and started with a test fit just to see where things stood. I could barely start the plug I want to use so I took a different plug with the same threads and tried it. It threaded in relatively easy so I was a little stumped until I realized the plug I wanted to use is a cast one. I ran a die over the threads and it threaded in much better. I threaded it in as far as I could and came up just short of lining up with one of the flats on my barrel when it seated firmly against the shoulder in the barrel breech. This seemed almost perfect, just a few file strokes on the end of the plug and it should seat firmly and line up.  The only problem is that it was lining up on the flat with the barrel makers mark. I wanted this flat on the bottom. The way I see it, I'm going to have to file on the barrel and the plug a little at a time on each until I get a solid seat against the shoulder in the barrel and line up with a flat that puts the barrel makers mark on the bottom. Am I seeing that right?

Another question isn't as pressing, but I have a trigger guard from TOW that looks like it has 4 tabs. After looking closer, two of them look more like casting gates that can be filed off. The other two look like tabs for pinning the guard to the stock. My question here is, should I just go ahead and file all the tabs off and screw the guard to the stock after inletting it? Seems like I read somewhere that this was the more common way of attaching the trigger guard to a Tennessee mountain rifle.

[Herb]

For the breech plug, see Tutorials- metal shaping- Page 1- "Fitting a Hawken Breech Plug by Hand" (will work with yours, too) by Herb July 07, 2010.

[rsells]

The three original iron mounted TN rifles I own all have the triggerguard attached with screws, and is the most common way they were attached to the stock.  However, I do have an original butt stock from an iron mounted TN built rifle that used tabs and pins to hold the trigger assembly and guard to the stock.  This one is the only one I have seen like this.  I have looked at a bunch of original TN rifles over the years and have not seen another done like this, but where there is one, they are probably more out there.
                                                                                                           Roger Sells

[Ky-Flinter]

KC,

Yep, you're seeing it right.  Here's a post on calculating the amount you need to remove to line up on the desired flat.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=8685.msg81819#msg81819

-Ron

[Eric Krewson]

After spending a day fitting a breech pug perfectly I ran into the same visible makers mark on a side flat. I was done fitting so I punched the letters closed and draw filed the area a little, no" Green Mountain" showing at all.

[flinchrocket]

I built a halfstock flint 32 cal using a green mountain barrel. When I got the breech plug fit the barrel
logo and cal stamp was on the diagonal flat behind the frizzen. I finished the rifle and signed my name
on the top flat, nobody has ever said a word about the barrel stamp.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I make an effort to have the barrel info from the maker on either one of the three bottom flats.  But I strive for the very bottom one if i can.  I have a lathe with a four jaw chuck so I can remove metal with precision from both the plug and barrel, to make this happen.  But I did it with a file for the thirty years before I got the lathe.

[KC]

Thanks everyone for all the replies. I appreciate all the great input.