Can cast be peened?

[Whaleman]

Building a Hawken. There is a small gap under my snail to the lock plate at the rear I would like to tighten up. I have some "extra" metal in the bottom rear of the snail. Can cast be carefully peened out with a small flat punch to tighten this up? Thanks, Dan

[Mark Elliott]

If you can file or drill your plate, it should be soft enough to peen.  It shouldn't be brittle.   Most of those plates are made of a low carbon tool steel.   It doesn't make much difference that they are cast.   

[rich pierce]

Whaleman, if you are talking about peening the snail, I would not risk it.  Figuring out the flash channel in a percussion snail breech must be carefully considered and re considered. There have been some Hawken breeches with scant wall thickness of the snail outside the flash channel.

[Whaleman]

Thanks,I will skip it as it is not bad at all. Dan

[EC121]

I had a patent breech blow out right in the front corner of the snail where the bolster meets the barrel.  The angle they drilled the flash channel was off just a little, and it was too thin at that spot and blew out.  I was testing the rifle for the builder and kept seeing fouling on the barrel and wood just in front of the bolster.  I thought it was the nipple blowing downward and put a piece of tape there and shot it.  Instead of the fouling being on top of the tape from the nipple, it was under the tape from the leak after I shot.