A while back, Smart Dog wrote about how a bayonet should fit on a musket….firm fit….no rattling. In checking the fit of the bayonet on my Ferguson, it was a little sloppy. I made some minor modifications (by peening) and it tightened right up. Now it takes a firm hit with the heel of the hand to knock it forward far enough to twist and remove it.
In the 1980’s I received a Pedersoli Brown Bess kit as a gift. I put it together and it worked great. I had always assumed that it was what a Brown Bess was supposed to be. Of course, 35 years later, I learn from Smart Dog’s posts how far out of whack the Pedersoli Bess actually is. (So now I’m waiting for Jim Kibler’s version). In addition, I had a bayonet for the Bess (that I purchased somewhere along the way ?) and it fit the gun like "socks on a rooster” (an expression my Dad used to use when things didn’t fit very well.) Not only was the fit to the barrel sloppy, even the notches were cut incorrectly 180 degrees apart so that, when the bayonet was mounted, it completely blocked the ram rod. So today, while waiting for finish to dry on a stock, I decided to at least correct the fit of the bayonet.
The first thing I did was to cut the final notch correctly at 90 degrees from the initial notch rather than the incorrect 180 degrees and at the width of the lug on the barrel. The notch on the bayonet was actually nearly twice as wide as the lug. Once the bayonet came to rest at the correct position on the right side of the barrel (rather than under it) I wanted to patch the incorrectly cut notch. So I channeled Runar and cut a patch for the incorrectly cut notch out of a piece of steel pipe nearly the right diameter. I then TIG welded the patch in place and finished the surface with files.
Incorrectly cut sloppy notches….
New notch in correct position and correct width….
Patch being cut out of a pipe….
Patch fitted, welded, finished off…..
The bigger problem was that the ID of the bayonet socket was about 0.040” too big. To correct the fit, I machined a couple of thin brass shims and then silver soldered them into the front and rear ends of the socket. I purposely cut them a little small on the ID so I could do the final fit up to the barrel a little at a time. The muzzle end of the barrel was 0.877” OD and 4 inches away, at the other end of the socket, the barrel was 0.882”. I bored the two shims to about 0.002” under those dimensions. After brazing the shims in place, I used a flap ID sanding brush to slowly fit both the front and rear shims until it took a firm push fit to engage the bayonet fully. No wobble. No rattle.
Machined shims…...
Shims brazed in place…..
Final fitting to match the barrel diameters…..
Done…..
Thanks again to Dave Pearson for instruction on how a bayonet should fit and thanks to Runar for often demonstrating how to make gun parts out of plumbing scraps...
