How to remove breech plug from round barrel

[Lone Wolf]

I'm working on my first round barrel, and it came from Rice with the breech plug installed.  How do you hold the round barrel in the vice when removing the plug without damaging the barrel?

[Fly Navy]

You can buy a barrel vice that is for round barrels. I've had one for years and it works great.

[Willbarq]

Brownells might be a good starting place for that.

[Robby]

I've only done one, so I took some soft wood, i think it was white pine, cut it the length of my vise jaw, bored a hole the length of it to the smaller size of the barrel taper, sliced it lengthwise, rasped a rough tapir on each half, folded a piece of 220 every around the barrel just above the breech plug, sandwiched my wood over the emery, placed it in the vise and clamped it. it worked.
Robby

[JBJ]

Try powdered rosin before you resort to the emery paper.

[45-110]

2 oak blocks with the matching radius grooves, mix a thick slurry of sugar and water, apply to blocks and give it a minute to set up. Clamp in a "MAN" vise and have at it with a proper plug wrench.
kw

[Bob Roller]

I was thinking of "V" blocks but to make them requires a milling machine.
Try the wood as suggested first.
Bob Roller

[45-110]

A table saw can cut the "V" in blocks, but it lacks the surface contact area for a good hold.
kw

[Dan Fruth]

Just saw a piece of 3/4 oak to the taper of the breech, tape it to the vice jaw so it stays put, wrap the barrel with a piece of leather, and pinch it in the vice. I do this ALL the time, but I made a steel movable jaw adapter for my vice. I think Mike Lee sells them as well

[Clowdis]

Doesn't your round barrel have a couple of small flats just in front of the breech? Most have a flat where the lock sits against it. If it does have flats you can grab it with a vise and try to back the plug out.

[Pukka Bundook]

Hard wood blocks with corresponding Vee grooves in them work fine. The Vee smaller than the barrel. Bolted together around the barrel, with two wraps  of brown grocery sack.

It works so well I never use anything different and use it for dismounting modern barrels as well as round old ones.

Ron Ehlert told me of this Years ago, and it has never let me down.

[Lone Wolf]

Doesn't your round barrel have a couple of small flats just in front of the breech? Most have a flat where the lock sits against it. If it does have flats you can grab it with a vise and try to back the plug out.

The lock side has a flat area ground where the touch hole will go but the opposite side does not, so I'm not sure how I would utilize the flat on one side without buggering up the other side of the barrel.

[godutch]

   I use the same setup as several of the guy's posting above. Softwood blocks w/tapered channel for the bbl., the only variation on that theme is that I used sheet lead on the clamping faces of the blocks which crushes and form fits itself nicely.  Rosin is necessary for this but then again, no matter what you use to face your blocks, rosin is an outstanding helper. Music shops and violin supply houses have it (used for bows).  It comes powdered or in a cake which you can grate or scrape to a powder. Sprinkle and rub into your blocks and bbl. and it locks things up tight.

[Scota4570]

Take the time to make some hardwood blocks that fit the barrel closely.  This is not difficult.  Clamp two blocks of hardwood together with a small wood spacer between them.  Drill or bore a hole that matches the barrel diameter down the middle of the spacer.

IF is does not fit the breech perfectly, make it so with sandpaper around the barrel toward the muzzle where the diameter is a bit smaller.  Now you have blocks that fit.

Put some rosin on the blocks.  Use only rosin.  You can get it at the music store, or sports store.  The rosin will prevent slipping. 

Clamp the barrel with the rosined blocks in a barrel vice.  You MAY get by with a bench vice, maybe.  Use a long stout wrench that fits the breech plug.  This can be a large cresent wrench.  Protecting the plug from the wrench with brass or copper sheet stock is good.  Grab the plug from the bottom so that the wrench does not mar the top of the plug. 

Put some good pressure on the wrench.  IF it  does not come, hit  the wrench with a hammer.  IF you hold pressure and mimic an impact wrench, the plug will come out. 

Rosin blocks are the choice of modern gunsmiths.  With a real barrel vice, you can hold a round barrel against 100s of foot pounds of torque without disturbing the outside finish. 

Round or octagon this is a great way to safely remove a plug. 

Using the fool proof method I described may not be necessary all the time.  On an unknown plug you will know when the plug come out or you mar the barrel.  It is a gamble. 

 
 

[Daryl]

I've used aluminum tube, split on one side and clamped in a vice. Action wrench, etc.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I had the occasion to remove the plugs from a pair of 15 gauge double shotgun barrels, and Jerry Huddleston (may he rest in peace) told me how to do it.

So I cut two blocks of sugar maple to roughly fit over the barrels at the breech end, applied Kiwi shoe polish (brown) to the barrels and let it dry well, mixed up some bondo and slapped that onto the blocks.  I squeezed the blocks gently over the barrels and rubber banded them in place, and let the body filler cure.  The filler with the maple blocks was a very secure way to clamp these delicate and awkward barrels into my machinist's vice so I could put a proper wrench on the plugs and they came out easily.  The barrels neither twisted nor moved in the blocks and the bondo left no marks whatsoever on the barrels.

To hold onto a round barrel, I simply bored an oversized hole through a block of maple, used the band saw to split the block in half through the hole, filed it with bondo and applied the halves to the round barrel, 1" below the breech.  When it cured, I had a clamp that gripped the barrel as tightly as one could hope, and the proper wrench removed the plug without incident.

[Hudnut]

Bedding compound, JB Weld can be used to form fit the blocks to the barrel. Use a release agent.  Floor wax works, as does shoe polish. Powdered resin or icing sugar does a good job of reducing the chance of slipping.  A barrel vise or heavy machinist's vise is a good idea.  If the barrel moves in the blocks, there is a good chance the finish will be marred.

[Lone Wolf]

I called Rice and they said their octagon barrel vise will also work for round barrels.  Evidently it is aluminum and he said it won't harm the steel barrel.  So, I'm going to try that.  Should be better than Plan B which was to get some friends and beer and have a couple of them hold the barrel.   

[Dphariss]

I called Rice and they said their octagon barrel vise will also work for round barrels.  Evidently it is aluminum and he said it won't harm the steel barrel.  So, I'm going to try that.  Should be better than Plan B which was to get some friends and beer and have a couple of them hold the barrel.   

Line it with lead sheet and use rosin. If you put too much pressure on a round barrel you can make a “choke” where its not wanted.
I would get a couple of pieces of Oak to maple and do similar to what Taylor do with the double barrel. But i use lead sheet to line them and rosin for grip. I used to pull out at least move a lot of barrels on SA revolvers and a Few BPCR at one time and wood or even aluminum blocks lined with lead and rosined. For wood blocks you can clamp the pieces in a vise and drill with a hole saw centered at the parting line  diameter at  or just little larger than the barre. Actually the lead may not be needed of the fit to the barrel is good and the blocks rosined. Clamp the barrel lightly in the blocks and turn it a little to warm the rosin a little so it will grip then clamp tight. But wood is more likely to mar finish on a finished barrel than clean lead if the barrel slips in the blocks.

[Cory Joe Stewart]

The fully round barrels I have worked with did not come with a flat side for the lock plate.  I had to add that.  I have the aluminum jaws that Rice sales but did not try them.  My brother in laws dad has a vice with a clamp side for pipes that I use and it works fine.  Just put some leather around the barrel before locking it in, if it scoots at all it will scratch the barrel pretty deep.

Cory Joe

[P.W.Berkuta]

Get two hard wood blocks and bore a hole larger than the barrel diameter and apply a layer of Bondo into the hole - apply mold release to the barrel - place wax paper between the blocks then put the barrel into the two halves of the wood blocks. Lightly clamp together let cure. Make sure you place the wood blocks below the breach plug threads when applying to the barrel. When cured remove the two wood block halves and clean up both the barrel and wood halves. I use powdered rosin and apply liberally to both barrel and wood blocks then clamp together in a sturdy vise and unscrew the breach plug. This method has been stated by Taylor above in his message - it works. I guess you can use other methods, but this is the method a lot of gunsmiths have use for years.