Contemporary .45 percusion - Russ Hamm lock

[bones92]

Recently picked up a neat rifle that I thought I'd share with you all.   Built on a GR Douglas barrel (made for Golden Age Arms).  Barrel is 41" and about 13/16" ATF.  Lock is a Russ Hamm.  The rifle has a greenish hue, which I understand is likely from a chromium trioxide stain that was popular in the 70s and 80's.

Bore is excellent, and the trigger is perfect.  The front sight has been made to come to a fine point, which is just how I like it.

The cleanout screw and nipple seem pretty well permanently attached, and though I can probably use the existing drum for shooting for a good while, I'm thinking of replacing the drum.  (I like to disassemble the drum for a thorough cleaning every time a rifle is fired).

The threads have about a .308 diameter and what looks like 24 or 25 tpi.... so I'm guessing a 5/16-24 drum (advertised on TOTW) is probably the right fit.   The old threads look a bit worn, which is why they mic out a bit under .310", I suppose.

I don't really have the tools or experience to drill and tap the drum for a nipple, so a pre-drilled one is probably the best bet.  I figure some very thin washers (like the synthetic kind with a reddish hue) will probably work.   Any other suggestions for getting a pre-drilled drum to line up with the hammer consistently?  I also debated filing a very thin amount off the shoulder, if the drum only needs another quarter turn.

Anyway, take a gander if you like...   http://imgur.com/a/Q0wTY


BTW, what should hold those little star-burst plates to the stock (the ones where the barrel pins are inserted)?  

Also, the barrel lugs have only round holes, just big enough for the finish nails used as pins.   Seems I recall Mike Brooks recently saying that these lugs should have a slot to allow for a bit of expansion front to back as the barrel warms up.  Should I elongate the holes in the lugs with a Dremel bit?

[Natureboy]

  When I needed to replace the drum on my second-hand Traditions "Hawken," I bought the new drum, nipples, drill jig and taps from TOTW.  They don't cost much, and work great, even for someone like me who doesn't have a drill press or even decent tools or experience.  I did the job with hand drill and crescent wrench.

[Hungry Horse]

Well, it is quite a collection of parts cobbled into a rifle. The lock is a Russ Hamm Bedford, but the stock isn't really Bedford style, although the triggerguard is a Bedford. The stock is very slab sided, and the inlays appear to be glued in. And, then there is that green color, and interesting carving. Just what are your plans for this rifle?

  Hungry Horse

[bones92]

I had planned on firing it.  

I may eventually strip that finish and give it a proper one, but how far into the wood does that green tint go?

[Mike Brooks]

I had planned on firing it.  

I may eventually strip that finish and give it a proper one, but how far into the wood does that green tint go?

You'll probably have to use a rasp to get rid of it. Be a good chance to do some shaping and eliminate that carving too.

[bones92]

Is the effort worth it?  The lock and barrel seem to be decent quality.  I am not so much concerned about emulating a true Bedford style, but I think that green tint hides the inlays and detracts overall from the appearance of the rifle.

I dont think there is as much excess wood as the photos may imply.  However, the mid section between the rod entry thimble and the lock could probably be thinned up a bit, though.

I found an old thread here on ALR discussing how to eliminate (or mitigate) that green tint.  As I understand it, the CrO3 is a stain, not a surface finish.  But there is some sort of finish on this, as I can see brush strokes in the finish.  So, I'm thinking perhaps stripping this with acetone to get to bare wood, maybe sanding a bit to mitigate the green in the wood.   Then use LMF Nut Brown (as recommended by Lucky R A) or something similar.

I am cautious about sanding down the raised curl carvings on the butt.  If the surrounding wood is free of any green tint, it would be okay.  But if not, there will be a ghost image of the curls compared to the surrounding wood.  And sanding the whole left buttstock to even out any ghost image would likely make that part of the stock stand out differently from the rest.  Bottom line... I'll probably only tackle the raised carvings if I sand the whole stock.

[Hungry Horse]

I think if you are going to make any kind of a respectable gun out of this thing, that doesn't scream mongrel, you will have to get rid of the carving, adjust the stock styling to better represent either a Bedford, or a Somerset county rifle. And, then thin everything by scraping or sanding, which will get rid of most of the green, and the slab sided look. Oh, and reshape those hideous lock mortises, so they fit the shape of the lock.
 Sound like it's close to building a new rifle, getting all the bungles straightened out. Oh, those locks spark pretty well for a small lock, but wear fast, and are pretty  hard to get parts for.

  Hungry Horse

[bones92]

I think it would be hard to make this look more like a Bedford, as the ones I've seen in archived threads on ALR seem to indicate a fairly straight comb and toe.  It would be a major re-shaping job to get it even close, given that the existing toe-line is concaved.   FWIW, it shoulders very nicely as is...

When you say "slab sided," do you mean flat, vertical faces on the side?   Should the stock have a more rounded-V shape, and less of a U-shape cross-section?

The lock mortises are the raised wood around the lock and sideplate, correct?  

Fortunately, this is percussion lock, so hopefully wearing of parts will not be as fast as a flinter.  

[Hungry Horse]

Bedford, and Somerset, guns are about the only ones that use a rat tailed lock like the one in your gun. These guns are long, and slender, and the bottom of the buttstock runs straight from the trigger guard to the buttplate. The stocks have a lot of drop, and the comb is low and usually blends into the wrist of the buttstock. There are a couple of examples in the virtual museum on this sight, with very good pictures.These guns were often incise carved, so if you wanted to replace the carving you could. The carving patterns used in Bedford county especially were often very similar from one smith to the next. The side plate is odd on your gun, and I'm not sure what you could do to remedy that. The lock screw in the middle of the plate is going to be hard to change. The Patchbox is a stylized Bedford pattern, so it works in this case.

  Hungry Horse

[bones92]

I am somewhat disinclined to try to alter the shape dramatically.   Getting the low, straight comb of a Bedford would be tough on this stock, it would seem, and the concave curve from the triggerguard to the buttplate would be overly burdensome to fix.

[Hungry Horse]

 I think you are right about the bottom of the butt stock. Straightening out the comb might be a little easier, and would reduce the Roman nose look of the butt stock. If you look at the examples in the virtual museum you can see the features you can fix and those you can't. You will also see in the pictures that there are a lot of Beford parts in your gun. Making slender in the forearm, and trimming the lock mortises to make them look longer and slimmer, will change the entire personality of the gun. The cheek piece is too large for a Bedford as well, and needs to be shortened. If the sideplate is not inletted I would make, or buy a new one in the correct style.

  Hungry Horse

[frogwalking]

The lock bolt appears to be down low where it would interfere with the mainspring.  How does that work?

[nosrettap1958]

If it was mine, its not I know, but if it was mine I would take that great GR Douglas barrel and wrap another stock around it.

[bones92]

If it was mine, its not I know, but if it was mine I would take that great GR Douglas barrel and wrap another stock around it.

Perhaps,  but I already have a build project on tap for a Bill Large barrel.

[Hungry Horse]

Bones;

 I think that if you look at all the original Bedfords you can, and fix what you can fix on this gun, the things that you can't fix won't be all that bad. The combination of wrong stock shape, bad carving, flat sides on the forearm, and wide, fat, short, lock panels, all add up to a rifle that isn't historically correct, and quite frankly not very appealing. It looks like there is extra wood to work with, so give it a shot. You can always repurpose the parts if it all goes wrong.
 Those Russ Hamm locks do wear out pretty fast. Mostly the internals,and the plate where the tumbler goes through. The parts in the Bedford lock are pretty delicate, and back then the only mass production lock maker that was concerned with steel quality was Siler.

  Hungry Horse

[bones92]

The lock bolt appears to be down low where it would interfere with the mainspring.  How does that work?

It seems to work fine.



I do notice that once in a while, after setting the rear trigger, the front trigger clicks but hammer doesn't fall.  Resetting the rear trigger again usually does the trick.

[Dale Campbell]

I'll throw my 2 cents in. While I'm all for looking close to a particular school, and I have this niggling affection for Bedfords, if you want to shoot it, and the gun is comfortable, I wouldn't mess with the comb line and cheek. Anything else, you have nothing to lose. I'd lose the carving if I could.

As for the lock, if the hammer sits down on the nipple, then the spring is probably clear of the lock bolt. Have you tried it with the lock out of the stock and the lock bolt in? Is there any play in the hammer/tumbler from the mainspring hitting the bolt? From previous comments about Hamm locks, you may want to try casing the tumbler hole, or even other parts (but I don't have any personal experience with those locks).

[bones92]

I didn't fiddle with it much while the lock was out.  I did manually push the sear up to see the hammer fall, and the mainspring flung out, so I considered it wise to just put it back together and see if the hammer strikes the nipple with good force, and it sure does.   I bear in mind, this rifle was fired by a previous owner (quite possibly the maker), so it is a good assumption that anything that would have interfered with function would have been corrected.  Probably.

[Hungry Horse]

 That lock bolt location would be pretty easy to fix, if the sideplate isn't inletted, or is very shallowly inletted.
 I have a used large Siler flint that had a single lock bolt that was installed just above the hump in the mainspring. I plugged the hole, and put the bolts in the proper position. The plug is a piece of copper wire that is upset on the end, that exits the outside of the lock, and has my cartouche stamped in it. It looks like I planned it.

  Hungry Horse

[stuart cee dub]

If your going to use it as  shooter I would not spend too much time fixing it up .Shoot it.
In weird way these are period correct c. 1975ish 

 I had a loading block I made some time ago that went green along with a Hawken I built at the same time ( I will not  use magic maple stain ever again if it even still exists ) .

The Hawken I refinished stripping down the bare wood, restained it, looks great .Lots of work . As an experiment I applied analine die directly on top the finish of my green loading block . That still looks good... and while the green is still lucking beneath the finish it was a cheap fix .

If you are thinking of stripping the finish anyway ,as an experiment, and you have nothing to loose really......Stain the finish with a brown .
It might be good enough so if you are at a shoot no one will notice your green gun.

There are a lot of mixed part guns like this around made when ''parts is parts''.
I don't think they are worth messing with trying to fix them .You would be better off getting the right parts first go around and building from the ground up .

Yet these mixed parts guns can hold and shoot fine. Use 'em .

I use a gun like this to take my nephew shooting. I don't worry about him wrecking it Shoot it till you get a better one built. Give it to a kid. Such muzzleloaders make great teaching guns.

[bones92]

I tend to agree with Dale and Stuart... the rifle is really comfortable to shoulder.  I think I may take a stab at stripping the green finish, and depending on how that goes, possibly smooth out the carving on the butt and the shape of the mortices, but I don't think it would be wise to mess with any significant re-shaping.  The mid-section looks a bit slab-sided, but it feels very thin and lithe in my hands.  Honestly, I'd be afraid of screwing up a very comfortable stock.  Such things are probably best done by building a rifle from the ground up.

[frogwalking]

In the photo of your lock, the sear is in the halfcock notch.  I would bet the spring hits the lock bolt and stops but the hammer and tumbler travel on to hit the nipple.  If this is the case, you cannot move the lock bolt without having to deal with the flying spring issue.  I think who ever built this thing knew of this problem, and used a clever method to deal with it.  On another note:  I don't see a fly.  This does not mean there isn't one.  Is it on the plate side of he tumbler?  If there is not a fly, I am surprised the nose is not broken off the sear.

[bones92]

Yes, I think you may have a point.




The hammer can continue downward while the bolt stops the spring.  However, the hammer will already have engaged the nipple.




I think all of this points toward refraining from trying to modify this rifle substantially.  If the lock ever wears out or breaks, I may consider a partial or complete rebuild.  But it could be a very long time before I wear out any muzzleloader, given how infrequently I am able to fire them.

[bones92]

Resurrecting this thread for a few questions on removing the green tint and possibly reshaping some of the wood details.

The green tint is caused by the CrO3 in the stain being improperly "finished" during initial application, as my research here indicates.   

This is an actual stain, correct?   Meaning, I'll have to sand all the surface to get it off, right?

[Majorjoel]

Bones, if there are no fancy carvings on this rifle, I would advise to use a chemical stripper like "Strip Ease"
and avoid most of the sanding.  It will remove the top protective coating and a lot of the stain underlayment, so then a minimal light sanding with a fine sandpaper  should remove the rest.

You may have to use the stripper a couple of times to get the best results.