How do you get a muzzel cap to fit tigth along the barrel??

[Rolf]

I've been trying to make a one piece muzzle cap following Acer's tutorial.
I've tried three times. Every time I try to file the cap to fit the barrel, I get an ugly gap between the barrel sides and and the cap.

How do you get the sides of the cap to fit tight along the sides of the barrel?

Best regards

Rolfkt

[lew wetzel]

file,patience,file somemore,have more patience!!!!they are a pain but you just have to work at it till its there or settle for less....

[Dennis Glazener]

I've been trying to make a one piece muzzle cap following Acer's tutorial.
I've tried three times. Every time I try to file the cap to fit the barrel, I get an ugly gap between the barrel sides and and the cap.

How do you get the sides of the cap to fit tight along the sides of the barrel?

Best regards

Rolfkt

I get mine close then fasten it in place without the barrel in the stock. Letting the top part curl in toward where the barrel would be. Then file it down even with the top of the barrel channel.  Hope this makes sense. Its easier to do than describe.
Dennis

[Ken G]

I so the same as Dennis.  Take the barrel out.  Stick it on and draw where I want to sides to be.   File it close. Stick the nose cap back on with the top edges curled into the barrel channel and file away. 
Sorry, I looked to see if I had a photo showing it but do not. 
Ken

[Birddog6]

I've been trying to make a one piece muzzle cap following Acer's tutorial.
I've tried three times. Every time I try to file the cap to fit the barrel, I get an ugly gap between the barrel sides and and the cap.

How do you get the sides of the cap to fit tight along the sides of the barrel?

Best regards

Rolfkt

It is very easy to file the wrong place. Thus I take a black permanent marker & mark it well, file where I can see marker removed. If I hit another place with the file that is not supposed to be filed, I can easily see it, I remark it so I don't continue to file that spot.

[Acer Saccharum]

I do the same, but I use different words. 

I make the cap with extra stock, so it overlaps the wood, and hangs into the barrel channel. In my tutorial, I did not have much extra, nothing that would show in a picture.

Good luck, Rolfkt.

Tom

[LynnC]

Rolfkt - On the 3 previous tries there may be enough material thickness along the upper edge to draw it out and try filing again.  One of the three may come out good and the other 2 good practice.   Just a thought...................Lynn

[Long John]

Rolf,

I am a chicken!  I shape the fore end where the cap will go.  Once I am staisfied with it I make a surrogate fore end from  a scrap of maple and shape it exactly like the the fore end of my rifle.  EXACTLY!  I measure the surrogate for end with calipers to make sure it is exactlythe same sixe and shpe as the fore end of the gun I am building - but, there is no barrel - its solid wood.  This allows me to hammer the annealed brass down onto the surrogate without the fear of damaging the rifle stock.  It also allows me to have enough metal overlap into the barrel channel so when I remove the barrel from the rifle stock and install the muzzlecap I can file back the metal until it is flush with the barrel inlet.

That's how I do it.  It has worked for me.

Best Regards,

John Cholin

[Acer Saccharum]

John, that's a really good idea.

[Rolf]

Thank you for your input. I think I found out what went wrong.

This is how I made the caps:
I made the muzzle caps on a oak forming block("surrogate forarm"). The block and the pistol forarm was shaped with the same profile scraper. They are completly identical in shape and size (I'm using a strait oct. barrel). I used steel hose clamps to hold the brass in place while peaning the front down. I put the muzzel cap on the stock and filed the brass flush with the barrel channel sides. When I put the barrel in the stock I got an ugly gap between the cap and the barrel.

This is what I think happend:
When I put the muzzel cap on the pistol stock it was a tight fit.
Tension in the brass squessed the sides of the barrel channel together. This caused me to take off to much brass when I filed it flush with the barrel channel.
Putting the barrel in the stock forces the channel walls out again  and causes the gap.

This is how I fixed it:
I used inleting black on the cap to find all the tight spots on the forestock. When I scraped these away ,the cap closed with the barrel.


Best regards
Rolfkt

[Rolf]

I had to break this posting  in two messages. Something is limiting the size available when typing. 

On the next practice stock, I'll aneal the cap after forming it to remove tension, before putting on the stock . I'll make sure it slips easly on and off the forestock before filing off any brass.

Best regards

Rolfkt