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Author Topic: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit  (Read 54817 times)

Offline Curtis

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Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« on: July 14, 2019, 09:22:32 AM »
Thanks again to the Moderators for expanding the rules to include such guns as the Alexander Henry target rifle, which happens to be a bullet gun.  A review, photos of the parts set and some general information can be found in this post: http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=54946.0

The first thing I tackled was fitting the patent breech to the barrel.  In the fitting process I eventually filed enough metal off the breech face of the barrel to turn the patent breech approximately two flats past the initial tight fit.  I recommend taking great care in this filing process to maintain the trueness of the barrel face.  I painted the face of the patent breech with Dykem to indicate when the face had bottomed out, in order to insure a tight seal.







Once the patent breech was properly seated, I began the process of "prettying up" the castings, which of course translates to lots of filing.  Fortunately the castings are very nice in quality, it makes the job much easier.  First I used a jeweler's saw to add definition to the very top of the flash guard , probably not necessary however it helped me maintain it's integrity.  I also sketched on some makings with a Sharpie to help remind me of the some lines I wanted to maintain.







After the filing was all finished (at this stage at least) I used a cold chisel to make a couple of witness marks.  These will be useful for properly aligning the breech when it is removed and replaced in the future.  The bottom face of the "snail" will have to be filed the next time I have the patent breech off the barrel.





Then I filed the underside of the tang to remove the casting marks and seams.






And this is where I stopped with the filing, it is adequate for finishing the inletting of the barrel and tang. 





My next step will be to "square up" both ends of the octagon section of the machined inlet, and true up the end grain face where the standing breech will make contact.



That's all for now!  Thanks for looking,

Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Justin Urbantas

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #1 on: July 14, 2019, 09:56:39 AM »
What barrel are you using?
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Offline Bob Roller

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #2 on: July 14, 2019, 02:01:30 PM »
That breech plug/tang was Don Brown's idea of quality and he went as far as he had to
so it would be right.Rod England is following Don's idea with this VERY critical part.
Rod has asked me to make some locks for this project but at present I am not interested
in any more lock work from anyone.For some reason,Don would not use my 4 screw lock
unless the customer insisted.Maybe it was the cost but that was on the customer as a
separate purchase.
What you show so far looks really good and will it be a pistol grip stock or the stalking
rifle stock? I like the stalking rifle because of the good looking trigger guard it uses.
I started one of these in 2001 and finally got it done in 2003 and sold it in 2005 (maybe).
It had the correct 4 screw lock and I made a tang sight* that matched the "ears" on the
tang with a spring under the tang to stop the travel of the sight. The front sight was a
Lyman 17A with a special base I made using a level and Lee Shaver's inserts. The barrel
was a Green Mountain 45 with a 1;18 twist and a custom mould made a 560 grease groove
bullet that worked well at 500 meters.
Please keep us in the loop on this very interesting project and you are off to a good start.
Bob Roller
*Don Brown got some of his sights from Mike Neumann in Cresslawn Edleen South Africa.
They are fine sights and Mike is a former Berliner who is a master tool maker who learned
his trade well.

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Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2019, 07:19:33 AM »
Quote from: Justin Urbantas on July 14, 2019, 09:56:39 AM
What barrel are you using?

Justin, I am using one of the match barrels - .451 cal, 7 groove rifling with wide groove and narrow lands with a depth of .003 -.004 in a left hand twist 1-18".  35" length, 2" octagon then tapered round to muzzle. 

Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2019, 07:23:55 AM »
Bob- the stock I am using is a target rifle stock and has the pistol grip, and the gun is the heavy target gun.  I have a feeling after I get this one built I may be looking at one of the staking rifles to hunt with.

Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #5 on: July 15, 2019, 08:15:53 AM »
Here is the octagonal barrel inlet after the initial "squaring up" of the ends.  I will do some smoothing up as I remove high points of contact by the barrel.







Once the tang started to make contact with the top of the stock, I scribed around the tang and removed wood where indicated.  Anyone who had done much inletting will agree, SHARP tools are required for clean, crisp inlets.

It soon became apparent that the untouched bottom of the patent breech would need some material removed before inletting.  I filed it flush with the standing breech bottom.  More material will likely be removed when the lock goes in.  Here is it pictured covered with inletting black.



As the barrel unit goes down and back, I like to persuade it to the rear buy tapping it firmly on the muzzle with a non-marring tool, and tap the tang down after it is seated rearward.  In the third pic there you can see there is still a small gap and it must back to insure a solid fit behind the standing breech.







As it goes down I like to remove most of the excess wood proud of the tang, you can see better what is going on and it helps eliminate false readings.
 


Removing wood that is marked with inlet black:







The tang is down, and there is full contact behind the standing breech, this stage is complete!



I started prepping the drip bar, and sharpened the blade on my bow saw in preparation for cutting the excess off the butt of the stock.  The blade was brand new but cut miserably.  More to come later...

Curtis


« Last Edit: July 15, 2019, 08:55:40 AM by Curtis »
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline snapper

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #6 on: July 15, 2019, 02:31:42 PM »
Curtis, just in case you need to do some bedding, modern bedding material is not allowed if this rifle is to be used in the World Matches. 

Fleener
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My taste are simple:  I am easily satisfied with the best.  Winston Churchill

Offline Bob Roller

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #7 on: July 15, 2019, 02:37:58 PM »
Please keep us in the loop on this. I see you chose the pistol grip stock which
is more work but nonetheless elegant.
The 1971 edition of the Gun Digest has a fine article on these rifles and shows a straight grip
rifle.I used one of Don Brown's stalking rifle stocks and made a good copy of this rifle and made
a long range sight for the two "ears" in the tang and mad a spring stop to halt the back rotation
of this sight.
This issue of the GD also shows a "false muzzle"or muzzle protector as made by Rigby and I did
make one for my rifle.
We all want to see the finished rifle and wish you well during that build.

Bob Roller
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Offline Justin Urbantas

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #8 on: July 15, 2019, 06:20:05 PM »
Quote from: snapper on July 15, 2019, 02:31:42 PM
Curtis, just in case you need to do some bedding, modern bedding material is not allowed if this rifle is to be used in the World Matches. 

Fleener
Where would you find info about the requirements?  I still plan on building a bullet rifle one of these days
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Offline Bob Roller

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #9 on: July 16, 2019, 01:53:10 AM »
Quote from: snapper on July 15, 2019, 02:31:42 PM
Curtis, just in case you need to do some bedding, modern bedding material is not allowed if this rifle is to be used in the World Matches. 

Fleener

I did some bedding on my 451 by using thin veneer and pressing the barrel into it after
coating the barrel channel with a coat of Elmer's Carpenter's glue. It was undetectable
and the veneer was black walnut from a friend whose wife took a class in basket making.

Bob Roller
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Offline snapper

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #10 on: July 16, 2019, 04:53:24 AM »
http://mlaic.org/who-we-are/constitution-rules/


See the above for link to the rules

Fleener
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My taste are simple:  I am easily satisfied with the best.  Winston Churchill

Offline helwood

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #11 on: July 16, 2019, 05:01:48 AM »
Hokey Smokes, You've really gone to town.  Nice!
                        Hank
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Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #12 on: July 16, 2019, 06:52:45 AM »
Quote from: snapper on July 15, 2019, 02:31:42 PM
Curtis, just in case you need to do some bedding, modern bedding material is not allowed if this rifle is to be used in the World Matches. 

Fleener

Here is what I found on the MLAIC site that Art posted the link to:

c) Modern chemical materials such as fibreglass and epoxy resin may not be used for bedding barrels. Traditional materials such as animal glue and sawdust used by contemporary gunsmiths for making repairs are permitted.

d)Traditional materials such as wooden dowels, animal glue and sawdust used by contemporary gunsmiths for making repairs is preferred. Use of modern adhesives is permitted to restore function, but may not be used to bed barrels or otherwise improve firearms' performance above that which it possessed when originally made
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2019, 06:55:49 AM »
Quote from: helwood on July 16, 2019, 05:01:48 AM
Hokey Smokes, You've really gone to town.  Nice!
                        Hank

Yeah I got a bit sidetracked form my Henry Albright project!  And thanks!

Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Justin Urbantas

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #14 on: July 16, 2019, 09:09:49 AM »
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Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #15 on: July 19, 2019, 07:52:25 AM »
Got back in the shop and inlet the buttplate today.  First step was to cut off the excess wood with a bow saw I made in George Suiter's tool-making class at the NMLRA Seminar last year.



Then I did a little cleanup with a rasp and filed the inside edges of the buttplate to clean and even the up.





After fitting and rasping a few times I applied inlet black to the plate and started checking for fit.  Where black shows it is rasped off.  In the finial area at the top I use a chisel to carefully pare the black off.







The finial comes to a sharp point, so I use a little tool I forged up to clean out the front of the inlet.







Near the bottom of the inlet I like to take a shallow gouge and pare away the inside of the flat area a little bit, it really speeds up the process.  I mark around the plate with a pencil and stay about a quarter inch inside the lines.



When please with the fit I located the screw holes, marked them with a punch, then drilled undersized pilot holes in the buttplate.



I used a tip in the instruction sheet that came with the kit and put the bit used to drill the pilot hole in the hole in the buttplate, aligned it toe the proper angle and tapped it with a hammer.  Then for good measure I rotated it half a turn and tapped it again.  This is supposed to help keep the drill from wandering and moving the plate when you start the pilot hole in the wood.  It worked rather well I must say!  I will remember this technique, it works better than using a center punch.



Then I screwed the buttplate in place with some undersized non-period temp screws to keep it in place and protect the stock.  The fit looks good, if some minor gap shows up when I bring the stock down to size I can make a some minor adjustments then. 







Thanks for looking,
Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #16 on: July 19, 2019, 08:05:08 AM »
Next I started cleanup on the trigger plate casting.  I must say again these are some of the nicest casting I have used, there was very little cleanup needed.  The edges if the trigger plate were cast with a nice bevel.





The trigger riser will work fine the way it came but I decided to make it look a bit closer to traditional English trigger riser, so I marked it up, cut it with a jeweler's saw and did some filing to reshape it. It needs more work, will finish that up tomorrow:





The plate almost fits in the precarved mortise, the corners need a little squaring up and I ran a 3/8" reamer down the round hole for the tang  screw stud.
 




That's it for this installment.

Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Taylorz1

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #17 on: July 19, 2019, 03:15:57 PM »
Fantastic work Curtis ! I must say you get a lot more done in a shop session than I do ! Really enjoying this build and look forward to what’s next

Zack
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Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #18 on: July 20, 2019, 07:18:58 AM »
Depends on the day Zack, some days are more productive than others!

Once the trigger plate will go down far enough to touch the wood I hold it firm and scribe around it where needed, then start removing wood with gouges and chisels.  You can feel it when the tool drops into the scribe lines.





For the delicate areas around the pineapple finial I stab in with a small tool I made for inletting fine work:



A little more work and it's almost down all the way.  I didn't deepen the machine inlet area except at the rear of the inlet and a bit at the mid section, also the mortise for the trigger riser.







Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #19 on: July 27, 2019, 07:49:08 AM »
Once the trigger plate was in it was time to drill for the tang bolt.  The tang bolt will go into the lug above where the trigger guard screws into the plate.  I start with a 1/16" drill so I have room to fix thing is something goes haywire.  I use a drilling guide instead of my drill press.  I drilled about halfway from each side.





The initial pilot hole looked good, but when I went up a couple of sizes the guide evidently slipped on me.  Something didn't look right so I stopped after drilling a eighth or so.  I was heading for disaster, good thing I stopped.  Since I was well within the screw shaft area it was and easy correction, I used a small mill bit in a drill and a diamond burr to move the hole over and back on track.





I used progressively larger drills until I reached the tap drill size removed the plate and drilled for clearance, then tapped the plate in the gun.  It came out pretty much right on the money!




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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #20 on: July 27, 2019, 08:11:19 AM »
The next step was to drill the tang only to 1/4",  I used a drill stop to prevent going to deep.  Then per the instructions I made a reamer from a file tang and enlarged the hole for the tapered bolt, primarily to the rear to enhance tightening of the breech.  Last I installed the tang bolt.  I had obtained some used screws from Rod so I utilized one of those.







Next I drilled and tapped a hole in the standing breech, then cut off an 8x32 bolt and sharpened one end to a point in the drill press with a file.  I screwed it into the standing breech so the point barely protruded and installed the breech in the stock to mark where to drill for the standing breech screw.  This insures an exact location of the screw.











After completing that task, I prepped the drip bar and the barrel underlug for installation, then sawed off some of the excess from the bottom of the forestock.









Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline Gunnermike

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #21 on: July 27, 2019, 09:07:04 AM »
Thoroughly enjoying your tutorial Curtis, thanks for posting the detailed photos of your process.  This building thread really needs to be included in the Tutorial section of this forum I think.

When you showed the photo of drilling the tang with a 1/16" bit, I thought well he knows more than me (and who doesn't, eh?).  I bloody hate that bit size and use a 5/64" (.078") or better yet a 3/32"(.093") minimum for drilling anything.  Glad you sorted it out in the end though.

A friend tells me all the time that the sign of a craftsman is not how well he does his work, but how well he fixes his mistakes.

Thanks for "learning" me something again today and looking forward to your next installment!

An Alexander Henry fan, Mike
« Last Edit: July 27, 2019, 09:20:48 AM by Gunnermike »
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Offline Curtis

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #22 on: July 27, 2019, 09:19:51 AM »
Thanks GunnerMike!  Went with the 1/6th drill because I only have the sixteenth and #29 available with my drill guide.  The mistake happened when I used the #29, the 16th went right where planned fortunately.  Remove chips often, especially with a small bit.

Curtis
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Curtis Allinson
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Sometimes, late at night when I am alone in the inner sanctum of my workshop and no one else can see, I sand things using only my fingers for backing

Offline flinter49

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #23 on: July 27, 2019, 04:50:26 PM »
Thanks Curtis for taking the time to post your tutorial. Sure enjoyed it. What's a drip bar?
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Offline Daryl

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Re: Building an Alexander Henry Target Rifle from a Rod England Kit
« Reply #24 on: July 28, 2019, 01:32:00 AM »
Also heard it called a "drip rail". Soldered to the side of the barrel, ahead of the bolster.
Protects the wood ahead of the bolster and prevents rain from getting into the lock.(I guess)



what is corundum used for
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Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V
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