Assumimg you have a nose cap, and aren't making one. Look the cap over, look for twists and out of kilter if a cast cap before filing it.
1. Fit the nose cap to the barrel. Get a good tight fit on the 5 flats, the sides can be squeezed little to close the sides up. File the back flush and straight. Look the cap over to see if it's not twisted and is straight. The cast caps sometime get distorted and twisted some.
2. The barrel shouldn't protrude more than 1/8" past the muzzle.
3. Cut the stock back so the cap will be be flush now, if its a sheet metal cap. If it's a cast cap, you'll notice the front is thicker than the sheet metal caps, cut the stock little more, so it will be flush.
4. Turn the nose cap around on the barrel with the flush (outside) side towards the breech, and mark the outside with a pencil all the way around.
5. Place the muzzle cal upside down on the barrel, about 1/16" or about flush from the muzzle and mark the end of the muzzle cap. Square that line around on the stock. Square the lines down on each side and connect them on the bottom. Take your saw (hack saw, jewelers saw). Leaving the pencil lines on, cut the stock where you just marked it, but only as deep as the pencil line shows on the muzzle you already marked.
6. Take a chisel and from the front (muzzle) shave the stock down towards the cuts you just made. You can use a file/rasp instead going around the stock and not into the stock where you cut it with the saw, especially if you notice the grain is working against you and digging into the wood.
7. Once you get this done, you can start with sooting your cap, or using the inletting black. Take off the darken portions. You can use a file, filling around the stock. Working your way back until it's on.
8. Now a common mistake,(well for me anyway) is you have to keep the bottom of the muzzle cap straight, so its not tipped up or down from the ramrod channel. It was suggested to me, to use a piece of ramrod dowel layed in the groove to gauge your progress.
9. You want the bottom of the muzzle cap to be about 1/16"-1/8" distance between the ramrod groove and the muzzle cap.
10. Keep fitting the cap until you have reached the back of the cap. You want this to fit tight all the way around. This area where you originally cut with the saw, now you can remove the wood with a chisel until you have the barrel exposed about 1/8". Check to make sure the breech of the barrel is tight against the stock.
11. Attaching the cap, there are a few ways:
a. Epoxy
b. Riveting.
c. Screw from bottom barrel flat into the cap, filled flush
d. Combination of epoxy, and a rivet or two, a combo of epoxy and screw.
12. The epoxy is good for filing in and bad spots, Sometimes to keep the bottom of the nose cap straight with the ramrod groove, you can use the epoxy to fill that spot in. Let it dry, then drill for a rivet, or screw. If you use a rivet, countersink the cap so you can peen the rivet down. The bottom barrel flat on the stock has to be counter sunk for either a screw or a rivet.
13. If after the epoxy has cured, you find that there is a gap where the back of the nose cap touches the wood, you notice a gap. You can heat the nose cap gradually, but being very careful not to burn or scorch the wood. You will expand the nosecap and the epoxy bond will be broken. Now you can refit the cap to get a tighter fit.
14. File the stock flush with the nosecap
15. Others please add or correct this....my finger's tired!!...Geo.
