rebreeching a barrel on a finished gun

[billd]

I have a gun here already assembled and shot many times. I pulled the breech plug today for another reason and come to find it was never breeched properly.  Tons of gunk getting past the face and into the threads. A quick measurement shows the plug will have to go in about a half of a turn.

My question is, since the gun is already assembled is my only option taking metal off the face of the barrel until the breech plug goes one full turn then putting a spacer in the gap between the top flat and the tang to keep the length the same for assembly?

Am I thinking right here? 

Yes, it's my fault, the barrel came breeched and I didn't check it to make sure it was breeched properly. 

Thanks,
Bill

[Randall Steffy]

I have never heard of this being done, but let the authorities give their thoughts. How about fitting a "coin" of the correct thickness, copper, steel, or other shim stock, as a gasket to allow use of your present breech plug in it's current location? Sealing gases from the plug threads is your goal if I am not mistaken. May not be historically correct but should be effective and require the least modification. My 2 cents.

[Telgan]

Another option is to get a new breach plug with the same thread size - but with enough legth so you can refit the plug to your barrel. You will have to remove metal from the front of the plug until you get the tang up snug to back of barrel. Then you'll have to time the tang top to the top flat of the barrel by removing more metal from front of plug and front of tang bolster where it meets the barrel. Tedious, but an intersting process. Once that's done, you'll have to fit the new tang to the existing tang inlet.....

[Stophel]

Definitely get a new plug...leave the barrel alone.

I'll tell ya, it's LOADS of fun lining up a breechplug with a certain flat!!!

 

[Ben I. Voss]

I'm with Randall- solder a shim onto the breech face.

[Dphariss]

I have a gun here already assembled and shot many times. I pulled the breech plug today for another reason and come to find it was never breeched properly.  Tons of gunk getting past the face and into the threads. A quick measurement shows the plug will have to go in about a half of a turn.

My question is, since the gun is already assembled is my only option taking metal off the face of the barrel until the breech plug goes one full turn then putting a spacer in the gap between the top flat and the tang to keep the length the same for assembly?

Am I thinking right here? 

Yes, it's my fault, the barrel came breeched and I didn't check it to make sure it was breeched properly. 

Thanks,
Bill

Like this perhaps?

The rebate on this one was heavily packed with fouling but no rust since it was BP and the owner had oiled it pretty well, and its Montana.

This is why I don't consider "breeched when I get them barrels" to be a plus.

I have done a couple-three over the years.
PITA. Couple of ways to do it.
Buy a plug, with the same or larger tang. Fit the the barrel until the tang is properly indexed at the top flat.
To avoid setting the barrel back and moving the vent location you will need to fit by filing the plug only. If the barrel does not have a square shoulder at the bottom of the threaded hole its a little more work too. GMs generally have a flat bottomed hole.
Next is to make one from a bolt fit it to the end of the bore then cut  the bolt head to shape and silver solder or weld the old tang to it.
Internal fit should look like this breech face.



This a a 5/8 plug fit to a 50 smooth barrel, rifled barrels will show the print of the lands and grooves when fit is right.

It does not take a lot of torque either if everything fits right. Firm pull with a 12" crescent will  be enough once everything is well fitted.


Dan

[Dphariss]

I'm with Randall- solder a shim onto the breech face.

Jury rig fix and will not work in some barrels due to how the barrels are drilled for tapping.
A flat bottomed hole will allow this. Like Douglas used to do and GM still does. If the threaded hole does not have a flat bottom fitting the soldered shim to the barrel will result in the solder being exposed to powder gases with can cause corrosion of the solder and then the steel.

Dan

[Roger Fisher]

Interesting and another example of why this site is so important to all of us!

[billd]

The tapped hole does not have a flat bottom. What about soldering a soft piece of copper to the breech plug, like a crush washer. I work in a machine shop so I have access and experience.  I could machine a ring with an angle on one end and flat on the other. Then machine the plug back one thread to have a true turn for location. Then solder it on, get it real close with a file on the angled end of the copper washer, maybe just a degree or two from flush with the top flat and crush it from there?

As far as the black powder corroding the solder, once it's on and tight the solder won't be doing much anyway.

Am I thinking with the wrong end of my body?
Bill

[Dphariss]

You could set it up in a lathe and bore the hole to make a shoulder then breech it like this to keep the vent in the same place. I have done this to cure having the vent right at the breech face which usually allows the powder gases access to the threads.



I have also made piloted cutters to do this with hand tools.

Dan

[davec2]

Billd,

If the plug is short of the bottom, I have, as you suggested, silver soldered an extension on the face of the plug.  I used steel (12L14, 1018, or similar) rather than copper and counter bored the face of the existing plug about 0.120".  I then machined a breech face piece that fit the counter bore and extended out far enough to seat the breech properly (actually a little long so I could trim it back during final fitting).  I cut a groove in the part of the face piece that fit into the counter bore I had cut in the breech (like an "O" ring groove) for a ring of 0.050 silver solder wire.  Put a ring of solder wire in place in the groove, flux the two pieces, put them together and paint the plug threads with anti flux.  When you solder this together, the solder won't run into the existing threads.  Sounds complicated, but it only took about 30 minutes and was a $#*! of a lot easier than a lot of other methods.  You now have a steel breech face, properly seated and no external changes to the fit of the barrel into the stock.

[Acer Saccharum]

Am I thinking with the wrong end of my body?

I keep getting all bruised up falling off my chair.
Another keeper.
If I can only remember this at the right time!

[northmn]

I have made all my plugs since the Douglas era when you had to line the breech plug up to a certain flat.  I use a fine thread grade 8 bolt and seat it using prussion blue to make sure it is bottomed.  I cut off the sides with a hacksaw and file down to width and weld on a tang.  I have made several of these over the years and they work fine with no leakage.  Might be a solution for your problem here.

DP

[Dave R]

To chemists out there in readerland, Will black powder fowling actually deteriorate solder if exposed for a period of time If it does not I will post how I have taken care of this problem!

Dave R

[Don Getz]

It is very obvious that most of you have never looked at the breeching on old barrels......there isn't one out there that will meet your standards.    Put some pipe dope on the darn thing and screw it back in..............Don

[davec2]

Don,

I agree !  On the first rifle I built (in 1970), I used a Dixie Gun Works barrel.  It came with a breech plug and I used it as is.  Didn't ever see a need to pull the plug.  I have shot it now for nearly 40 years.  I pulled the breech plug about 6 months ago, just for fun.  The threads were about 3/4 inch long (no wonder I had to put the vent so far forward) and not bottomed on anything.  The barrel is a .45 cal and the thread is a 1/2-13.  They just ran the tap into the bore for a distance and screwed in the plug - no seat no seal.  It looked like it had pipe dope on it and it came out clean.  I cleaned off the old pipe dope, put on some new, and it should be good for another 40 years.

Dave C

[Dphariss]

Sloppy work is sloppy work.
Sloppy work in the past is no excuse for sloppy work now.
Sure there was LOTS of sloppy work in days past, just like now. I once owned a 45-70 Borchardt military with .040+ headspace. I rebarreled a modern production American made lever action  that had about .030".
I have a modern made copy of a 1876 Winchester in the shop that the barrel was extremely poorly chambered and the barrel was not even finger tight in the action. "Made in Italy" stamped on the barrel. But who wants one this loose today?
ML barrels are usually easier to fix and not really that tough to do right in the first place.

I have pulled a breech or two from original guns and some new ones.
Some originals are good. Some not. Just like now. Some will turn out from being tight then turn in 1/8 to 1/4 turn farther than they should. Should we make them like that too??? The modern factory made ML stuff is usually pretty grim with fouling/oil traps being the norm.

Fouling/oil traps (they are one in the same) are pure unadulterated bull $#@*. They make the gun hard to clean and forment misfires. There is no reason to make a breech plug like the rebated plug in my first post. If had about ring of fouling full depth of the rebate when I pulled it out. There is no way to get the fouling out of this reliably and if it is removed there is a solvent/oil trap that can affect the next charge put in the barrel. The plug is like it was intentionally made to trap fouling. Again who would want one if they had a choice?
There is just no excuse for sloppy breeching. Its not that hard to do it right.
Maybe I will re-install that rebated plug and do a bore scope video and see how it looks from the inside. Then show the plug on a couple of barrels I have breeched for comparison.
 
Today we have the spectre of highly corrosive substitute powders being used in the gun then the fouling trap takes on a whole new meaning since this stuff loves to get into hiding places and eat out holes. Yeah it does eat "crawdad holes". As related to me by a friend who has looked into this by pulling breeches several years ago and recently by a poster on this or probably another site who lives in Germany where the gov't proof house told him the same thing about perchlorate powders.

Of course in the process of talking about the breeching of original guns we should also discuss people getting breechplugs imbedded in their heads. Which happened. I would guess that this was usually fatal but at least one shooter survived.
There is a historical account of this in one of my old Buckskin Reports written by a physician about 1840. The patient not only lived but lived for a couple of years before going to the doctor complaining of headaches, the story was so amazing the doctor wrote it up. I guess I should dig it up and post a jpeg of the page.

Below is a breechplug I took out of a very rusty barrel back about 1968 Its been in a series of drawers since. I have the drum too. The nipple hole is rusted out completely no threads but the drum threads are very nice.
The breech face is heavily pitted and is slightly cupped likely from the corrosion. The bore was apparently tapped for the threads or the bore rusted out to that diameter. There was no way of telling due to the amount of pitting. I have never cleaned it up in anyway. The barrel was lined at the time I pulled  the plug back in my somewhat poorly informed or over enthusiastic youth.
But the threads are *not* pitted except where the pitting ate into the face of the threads on one side other than this which is about 1/3 the distance around it still shows the marks on the threads from the screw plate. I suspect the barrel dates from the 1830s as it appears to be a tapered forged barrel with what are likely hot filing marks on the bottom 3 flats.
The reason the threads are not pitted because the threads were well sealed by technique and because the threads had a tighter fit than modern "tolerance" allows. The tap made the screw plate or the screw plate made the tap. The close fit and the fact that the threads on the plug went in as deep as the tap did means there was no fouling trap/oil trap. I think the corrosion ate back and got to the threads in one place since the lead thread is not pitted and shows were it stopped against the end of the threads. You can see this in the photo.
This was actually a pretty good breech job but its impossible to recreate unless the plug maker takes a great deal of trouble to make the plug a tight fit in the threads and grinds a tap to make threads right to the bottom of the hole. If the hole is shouldered the threads can be rebated so long as the face of the plug seats against the shoulder and seals the bore.



Dan

[davec2]

Dan,

Good post.  I don't think anyone here is endorsing sloppy workmanship and we should all endeavor to the best possible job.  However, often things are not perfect and, in many instances, it doesn't make any difference.  I think my point and Don's point is that a breech plug that doesn't bottom perfectly, as an example, is not a show stopper and need not be obsessed over.  As you pointed out, originals and reproductions alike vary in how precisely they may have been built.  In a nut shell, sometimes I spend so much time "picking the fly sh$$ out of the pepper" that I get very little work done.  When a simple fix will do, it is often the correct answer.

[Don Getz]

My point exactly Dave, thanks.    As a former barrel maker, I can probably speak for all the barrel makers.   They are all
capable of breeching in the exact proper method by taking their "time" and fitting every plug with layout fluid, etc. until
they have that perfect fit, but, in the meantime their production is falling off and they will go out of business.  What you
will end up doing is one of two things....either make the plug slighly longer and "scrunch" it into the barrel, raisng burrs
on the front edge, and making it a bitch to remove, or you can cut relief on the end of the plug and try to get it close to
the bottom of the hole, close to or against the rifling.  It is virtually impossible to cut threads completely to the bottom of
the hole, at least in a commercial venture, so you must remove threads from the front of the breech plug to compensate
for that area that is not threaded in order to get close to the rifling.  Just remember, all of these barrel makers are doing
the best they can while trying to scratch out a meager living, and, when is the last time you have heard of a breech plug
blowing out of a barrel?           Don

[Dphariss]

Dan,

Good post.  I don't think anyone here is endorsing sloppy workmanship and we should all endeavor to the best possible job.  However, often things are not perfect and, in many instances, it doesn't make any difference.  I think my point and Don's point is that a breech plug that doesn't bottom perfectly, as an example, is not a show stopper and need not be obsessed over.  As you pointed out, originals and reproductions alike vary in how precisely they may have been built.  In a nut shell, sometimes I spend so much time "picking the fly sh$$ out of the pepper" that I get very little work done.  When a simple fix will do, it is often the correct answer.

"Just put some pipe sealer on it" will not cure a breech with a fouling trap. If this is not endorsing sloppy workmanship what is? Now I suppose I have "offended someone" I get offended when my intelligence is insulted, so what? I am a big boy. The barrel the plug I pictured  was replaced, not for the breech or the steel but because some "gunmaker" dovetailed it too deep in the waist.
"Probably OK" don't cut it and the guy asked me if it was safe to shoot. You gunmakers out there need to know if it comes to YOUR shop and YOU look at it and say this its SAFE and it fails later you better have a good lawyer. This guy has WAY too much money for me to get crossways of in any legal matter.  I told him I would not personally shoot it which was perfectly true. I can furnish photos of the cavity it fits in if you like. And photos of a couple of Colerain's which, BTW, *don't* look like they were done by a freshman HS shop class.

Barrels with fouling traps is used with chlorate powders are a serious safety hazard cause there is no way to neutralize the stuff other than to wash it ALL OUT. The fouling trap makes this impossible. So there is a danger that there will be a hole eaten out from the inside.  The only thing that has prevented this to date is that usually the bore gets so bad the the gun is unusable first.
Blackpowder is more benign but its still not right to have a fouling trap.
Breech going to blow out? Unlikely except by corrosion. So other than the "inconvienience" of having a fouling/oil/solvent trap at the breech I guess the sort of breech discussed here is acceptable to some. Then some shooters wonder why they have a gun that will not fire every time they expect it too. Makes me wonder about the numer of people with CO2 ball ejectors...
Then we have this to further "confuse" the issue.
Where I live there are 4 species that are known man killers (not counting man). People get chewed every year somewhere in the mountain range I hunt in. The Gbears in some areas hear a gunshot and THEY COME TO IT. They come to the "cow calls" the bow hunters like to use with predictable results. So having a gun with an oil trap in the breech might suit some just fine. I don't care for it.

The funny part of all this is if someone comes on here and points out the best way to do something  people immediately start making excuses for why it should be done sloppily. Does anyone else wonder why???

Some one asked how to fix an oil trap breech I told them. Then I have to explain why the breech should be sealed in detail, again, when its obvious.



Dan

[Roger Fisher]

I'd love to stir this up some more; but really don't know how!

I love it so!

[billd]

Thanks for all the replies. It looks like I stirred a few people up with this one. Maybe I can settle it a little.

For starters, it's a Paris Barrel. I had it for many years but just got around to using it 3 years ago.

To Dan and Don, I know where your both coming from. I work in a machine shop too. I do the quoting and CNC programming. This is a high production shop catering mostly to the hydraulic and petroleum industries. We all strive for perfection but it comes with a cost. I'm constantly between our QC people who always want it better, regardless of the cost or time, and our bean counter who wants as many as possible as fast as possible. To be competitive there has to be a line drawn in the middle.

To hand fit and 100% inspect every part made would drive the cost up so high we may as well just lock the doors. A lot of labor on expensive machines goes into a barrel that sells for just $200 dollars.

Labor's not cheap today, and like most things in life, you get what you pay for.  To make a quality product you have to have quality workers, which are in demand in our industry. There's just not enough people in today's society willing to get dirty. Seems like everyone want to have a job sitting behind a desk but no one wants the job making the desk.

Then you have insurances, business taxes, etc., etc.....  If your involved in the industry a quality barrel for 200 to 300 dollars is a good deal. Just realize that every once in a while a so-so barrel is going to slip by.

I think our barrel makers a doing a great job for a fair price. Just remember to check it out before you use it. That's why manufactures offer warranties.

As for what I'm going to to with the barrel in question. I'm taking both Dan's and  Don's advice. I'm going to screw it back together and use it for hunting season then fix it properly next winter.

Bill