Hooked breech idea

[Scota4570]

I do not want o spend $80 for a cast hawken set.  The projects are a Vincent and a couple of half stock Lemans.  The Hawken type would look wrong anyway.  I think hooked breeches are a good thing on a half stock.  Attached is a drawing of my idea.  Basically the sides of the tang mortise are done away with.  The wood holds the barrel and tang in line.  It would be invisible as a hooked breech.  Has this been done before?  How did it work out. 

[rich pierce]

I do not think it would be stable. The hooked breech needs the metal standing breech sides, top, and bottom to hold it solid, is my thought. This design would just have the top.

[Scota4570]

How about a pin that traps it side to side too?  I could also use a spline?

[Bob Roller]

I used a nearly identical system on my 58 caliber match rifle and it worked fine.*
A snug inlet of the barrel and tang is the "secret".

Bob Roller
* This was in October of 1958 when I did this.

[Scota4570]

60 years of service sounds good to me.  I think I'll give it a try.  Worst case I can retrofit a regular tang.

[Robby]

If I read the picture correctly, I have done this several times. I use a piece of angle iron for the standing breech, cut and file a standard flint breech plug to form the hook. It's a lot of filing on both parts and a lot of, file and fit, file and fit, but in the end it is as snug as your patients will allow.
Robby

[smallpatch]

Seems like a lot of work to save a few bucks.  You could save even more by pinning the barrel and using a standard breech plug. Guess I just don't want to work that hard anymore.

[Scota4570]

It is an easy job to make.  I would fit then inlet a regular flint tang a $9 part.  Then  mill the tang of leaving the blue part in the diagram.  The new tang would be then milled as the diagram.  Filing is for fitting not roughing in my shop, less wasted time and a more accurate result.     It would be much less work that making a traditional hooked breech.   The architecture of the breech and lock relationship would be the same as a regular tang. 

Using a regular hooked breech tang moves the touch hole forward.  This is a disadvantage. 

[JBJ]

Why not glass the area and thereby minimize any slop in the fit and reduce potential wear to the surrounding wood?
J.B.

[Daryl]

If I read the picture correctly, I have done this several times. I use a piece of angle iron for the standing breech, cut and file a standard flint breech plug to form the hook. It's a lot of filing on both parts and a lot of, file and fit, file and fit, but in the end it is as snug as your patients will allow.
Robby

I made up a standing "hooked" breech with angle iron back in about 1978. I was going to build a SxS for 13/16" bls. one smooth, the other rifled, both in .45.
The plugs and breech were made, then set aside. Must have been distracted by something - for 40 years.  I just never got around to finishing the project.

[Robby]

I've seen pictures of your shop Daryl , you should dig them out and finish the job!!!! I made a .45 double with both barrels rifled. Standing breech was apiece of angle iron and the connection is a standard, 'traditional', hooked configuration, shoots real fine.
I waste my time as I see fit, ant many times it is fit for filing.
Robby

[hanshi]

That's an awesome piece of work, Robby!

[Daryl]

Yeah - I agree Hanshi - that's better than Cool!

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Daryl had a rifle once that had a unique hooked breech affair, and he has alluded to it a couple of times.  The standing breech was a simple angle piece of steel with a steel peg that stuck forward out of the face.  The peg corresponded with the socket of an allen screw breech plug, 5/8 x 18.  It was a solid hook up that was retained by barrel pins in tenons, and we eventually replaced the pins with slides and escutcheon plates.  Worked a charm.

[sqrldog]

Here's an idea for using a bolt and a piece of barrel cut off from a similar sized barrel to make a hooked breech. File and hacksaw.






what is a baby dolphin called

[B.Barker]

Some half stock percussion Leman rifles had patent breeches like Hawken rifles. The snail on the Lemans were a bit different but not much.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

SD:  that is brilliant.  I shall use your idea with much thanks.

[sqrldog]

Thanks Taylor wish I could take credit for the idea but I learned that method from William Young my good friend from Wahkon MN. Proof that it pays to hang around folks smarter than you are. Just thought it might be of interest to some on the site. Tim

[Bob Roller]

I used a nearly identical system on my 58 caliber match rifle and it worked fine.*
A snug inlet of the barrel and tang is the "secret".

Bob Roller
* This was in October of 1958 when I did this.

When I built my 58 caliber rifle all I had was about $10 worth of hand tools
and a 12 x 36 Atlas lathe and a bench on the enclosed back porch with a vise.
The breech and tang idea seemed to me like a workable idea and it was and
still is. Unless the barrel is removed from the stock,it's impossible to tell what
kind of construction was used. In my case it was "A poor man having poor ways"
or "Necessity is a cruel task master".

Bob Roller

[Dave B]

I would add that its a good Idea to slant or radius the back bottom of your blue hook portion or you will never get it out or in with out that little bit of material gone. Note that the examples shown have some form of lower hook angle, slope or radius. I have use the angle Iron trick with good success. I made the hook portion from a machine bolt installed as the breach plug. Once  it is fitting through the slot in the face of the standing  portion just not quite finally seated then heated the standing portion to a bright orange and beat it down on the hook portion to make the indent match perfectly into that inside upper corner. Worked very slick.