Retaining pins through the barrel

[Dave B]

I was eyeballing the original barrel for sale in The classifieds and it has the  fore end pin going through the barrel with out any under lug. I have seen this on my old Numeric Arms Minute Man long rifle in .45 cal with a 15/16 barrel.  I have seen one original that was done the  same way but they made the oblique flats longer so the barrel was not a symmetric octagon. They did not use an under rib but  chiseled up tabs that trapped the ramrod pipes on to the barrel and were soft soldered in place.  Up till these two originals showing that they were doing this back in the day I was thinking less of the Numeric Arms folks for cutting corners. It shows to go ya that never say they never did it that way.

[Hungry Horse]

 I own a long rifle that will go you one better in this department. It is a half stocked rifle with a murderously heavy barrel of 1-1/8" x42" in .36 cal. Secured by a single barrel key. The loop for the key is milled right through the lower flat of the barrel. It is the first and only time I have seen this done on an original longrifle. It also has no underrib. The ramrod pipes are soldered into slight recesses in the barrel.

  Hungry Horse

[jerrywh]

 Just because things were done in the old days or by the so called "old masters" doesn't mean they were correct. There were just as many bad gun makers back then as now, Probably more. No body regulated them in America.   

[45-110]

hello
You will see the forearm retaining screw pass through the bottom barrel flat on Ballard Pacific and Montana model rifles.
So it has been done before by others and deemed safe if there is enough material there. My 40-90 has this arrangement.
kw

[Mark Elliott]

I did that (not nearly as far into the barrel) once by accident.  I considered the barrel ruined and junked it.   It is the only time it has ever happened to me.   Seeing this has not changed my opinion that I should have junked the barrel.

[Hungry Horse]

 I also own a Numrich Arms minute man in .45 cal. That has the barrel pins through the bottom of the barrel. I consider it perfectly safe to shoot, and in fact the previous owner shot it with some pretty hefty charges without incident. I have to admit that I did replace the hardware store Allen head set screw they used for a breech plug. Unless it was a lot lighter barrel, or a lot larger caliber, I would not junk a barrel over this. The other thing I have to ponder is why modern builders often slot the pin holes in the tenons, when obviously more than a few old timers saw no problem with a pin sized hole through the bottom of the barrel.

  Hungry Horse

[Gaeckle]

I had another barrel that had the same approach of pinning a barrel thru the barrel....made a rifle out of it and I've seen that done on other barrels that I've handled when they show up at the Log Cabin. 

[oldtravler61]

Have two guns made by custom humanity's. Both drilled an set pins threw the barrel. At the time of purchase did not know they did that. But thirty years latter they are still shooting just fine. But I still don't like the idea.

[David R. Pennington]

Saw a nice pistol once that had a silver blade inlet into a groove chiseled into top flat with a pin through barrel like that to lock it, looked pretty cool. I wondered how they drilled the oblique flats that close to the edge.

[Dennis Glazener]

Don't junk that barrel, I had one exactly like it and to this day I have never had a better shooting barrel. I was new to ML shooting and found out that the more powder I used the better it shot (very slow twist in mine). I will not repeat the heaviest loads I shot in it but suffice to say they were close to proof loads of 3F Dupont powder. Scares me to think about it today but that barrel (and drum) took the high pressures with no problems.
Dennis

[jerrywh]

 Black powder is very forgiving. Dangerous is one thing correctness is another.  Always remember small calibers generate more pressure in the breech than big calibers do, especially down bore.

[Turtle]

 I have seen lots of original NY halfstocks with the barrel pin through the barrel and no underib. This makes a thinner lighter gun. They did use fairly heavy barrels though. I have a 15/16 X .50 cal NY repo that has thousands of rounds through it. For peace of mind, I measured the barrel thickness above the pin hole and it is more than the minimum thickness recommended for under rib dovetails on thin long rifle barrels. No worries.
                                        Turtle

[Pete G.]

Not much different than loops staked into holes drilled into the barrel. My question is "How do you drill a hole perpendicular to the barrel into an angled flat of the barrel ?"

Incidentally I have seen a couple of examples of wedge shaped keys dovetailed into the bottom flat of a barrel.

[Mark Elliott]

My question is "How do you drill a hole perpendicular to the barrel into an angled flat of the barrel ?"

You drill through the stock into the barrel.   The wood acts as a guide.   However,  I really don't think you want to do that on purpose; regardless of what some others said.

[bob in the woods]

I've seen some rather deep dove tails for tenons that have never been a problem, until one day a short started load just happened to end up in that area, and .....surprise !!
split barrel !
I would base my opinion re safety on the amount of metal between the bore and the pin hole

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Somewhat on this subject:  This little N.Y. rifle has a single barrel retaining wedge that actually fits through a dovetail cut in the barrel, no wedge loop at all.  The sides of the wedge are tapered to fit the dovetail in the barrel.  Looking at the photos you may see that the wedge escutcheon appears to be a bit higher than the norm.

http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=28483.msg272001#msg272001

Jim

[Turtle]

 Here's how I drill the through hole. I drill through the stock and just touch the barrel to mark it. Then I remove the barrel and grind a flat there with my dremel so the drill won't walk. Then I remark it, drill through the barrel. Then I reinstall the barrel and drill through the existing hole out the other side of the stock.
                                              Turtle