Pecatonica swamped barrel tang installation problem

Ordered Pecatonica kit with swamped barrel with breech plug threaded and not installed and with barrel lug slots cut out. It came with the steel lugs already installed. That will make chiseling out tang slot to the depth the barrel will fit snug in the pre-hogged out octagon barrel channel a problem. Plus, because I have to drill and tap a hole for powder drum with the breech plug out (and subsequently drill and tap nipple hole in correct angle), I am in a quandary as to the sequence of steps. I want to screw in the breech plug only once, fearing to do it twice will "mess up the threads". I can predrill the powder drum hole, clean out the metal debris, and screw in the plug NEARLY all the way in so the tang is opposite where it should end up. That way I can nearly fit the tang into the stock and still have a way to leverage it up and out during the process. Then would come the final tightening of the plug to the witness mark left by the machinist. Then I could soot the lugs and impress them onto the barrel channel and cut the slots at the marks and make a final fit. My concern, during that last process, is to not be able to get the barrel off several times to gradually lower it completely. Would have to do a lot of depth measuring and do it in one push. Any suggestions? Pecatonica told me not to use an anti seize lube in barrel breach threads. Online people don't have a problem with that. Help, please.

Knock out the lugs if they bother you and put them back on later.
You can take the breech plug on and off as many times as you like with out messing up the threads unless you're retarded. Leave the powder drum off until you get the tang inlet and the barrel pins drilled.

Inlet the barrel upside down, i.e lugs sticking straight up in the air, before installing the drum or breech plug. The barrel profile is the same, so it makes no difference on which flats are showing. Install the breechplug in the barrel and inlet that. Then install the drum.

As Mike says, don't worry about messing up the breech threads. I'll pull and reinstall a plug maybe half a dozen times during a build.

Check the breech plug to breech fit before you do any inletting, if your barrel is a Rice, it is probably correct, if it is not a Rice and a Colerain perhaps there is a good chance the fit will need some serious adjustment, another skill to learn.

Eric Krewson said:

Check the breech plug to breech fit before you do any inletting, if your barrel is a Rice, it is probably correct, if it is not a Rice and a Colerain perhaps there is a good chance the fit will need some serious adjustment, another skill to learn.

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It is a Colerain. Came with the plug only turned in a few threads, but it had been once screwed in all the way, because there is the tell-tale witness mark stamped on by the machinist. I think I'll drill and tap the hole for the powder drum, but not install that part, screw in the plug/tang, and slowly take out wood to lower the barrel with tang like a landing Harrier Jet. I have 1 to 0.8mm tolerance back and forth to play with because the rear of the lock partial cutout in wood is the limiting factor. Still will have to snug the lock to the barrel. I now know that it would have been best for me not to have requested extra time saving work done on the stock. Thank you all for comments. I'm going to put a tiny bit of anti seize lube inside the threads for the plug when I screw it in, but totally remove it all for final installation. That last intention is because Pecatonica was insistent not to use an anti-seize on it.

Major barrel manufacturers use anti size, pipe dope too. Even Teflon tape.

The witness mark on a Colerain barrel doesn't mean anything, they all have them. I went two more flats on my last Colerain barrel before I had a good breech to plug fit, the barrel and plug and a witness mark. I had to do about the same on the other Colerain barrel that I have used.

This is an easy thing to check, put soot or Prussian blue on the plug, screw it in and line up the witness marks, pull the plug and see how much of the breech face is marked. You may get lucky and have a good fit with solid marking around the entire circumference of the breech face.

Eric Krewson said:

The witness mark on a Colerain barrel doesn't mean anything, they all have them. I went two more flats on my last Colerain barrel before I had a good breech to plug fit, the barrel and plug and a witness mark. I had to do about the same on the other Colerain barrel that I have used.

This is an easy thing to check, put soot or Prussian blue on the plug, screw it in and line up the witness marks, pull the plug and see how much of the breech face is marked. You may get lucky and have a good fit with solid marking around the entire circumference of the breech face.

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Wish I had not had it done by Pecatonica, but the channels for the sights and barrel lugs were precut for me.

Mina said:

Wish I had not had it done by Pecatonica, but the channels for the sights and barrel lugs were precut for me.

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It's very counter intuitive but in fact, the less you have done for you the less headaches. Best to leave it to yourself. Even if you have never breeched a barrel, cut a dovetail ot installed a drum, it's easier to go slow and learn the way through it than to fix manufactured errors.

longcruise said:

It's very counter intuitive but in fact, the less you have done for you the less headaches. Best to leave it to yourself. Even if you have never breeched a barrel, cut a dovetail ot installed a drum, it's easier to go slow and learn the way through it than to fix manufactured errors.

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Yes! I just ordered some sheet brass to put on vises when I have to screw in and out that plug. Onward and upward. Have lock spring vise also and all chisels, even a 12 " Crescent wrench. & anti seize grease

Flexible stock mid fore-end quandary: Because the barrel channel for this swamped barrel was already "done", and has not been scraped or deepened in the channel for the thinnest section of this octagonal swamped barrel, I now am stuck with a mid fore-end that is flexible. The channel was already too deep at that section. I am pretty sure the barrel is not flexing. All three lugs are the same length. The lug "holes" are now at the correct depths...all the same depths. I know where to drill the pin holes for all three. But if and when I snug the mid fore-end up to the barrel, thus guaranteeing the pin enters the lug properly, what will happen to the ramrod when the middle thimble is also snugged up as the other two? To squeeze or not to squeeze? That is the question. (I don't know why this print changed to bold...)

I was going to delete this post, because the deflection is not that great at the moment. But deletion must not be an option. I am almost at the point where the tang is within a hair's breadth of being fully inletted and the barrel being flush with the channel, as it was before I screwed in the plug. Before I started inletting the tang there was great deflection in the mid section of the barrel. I don't know what happened. The flintlock lock is in the mail. Here's hoping I had not already moved the lock inlet too far forward and have not moved the barrel too far back to where the original scribe for the touch hole has not changed...

Received flintlock lock today and inlet it. Much to my relief, the pan lines up left and right with my calculated position of where the dimple for the drill for the liner must be. Much to my surprise, the biggest problem was that the stock kept interfering with cock. I'm going to have to mix some PC-7 to bed the lower edge of the plate so the pan will fit straight and tight against the barrel. Part of this stock had been partially inlet, which made it a pain to work around.

When you remove the breach plug a good wrench made for the purpose is best. If you don't have one you can do it with a crescent wrench. Go to the local hardware store and buy some 3/4 x 1/16 aluminum and cut some shims to protect the breach plug from being marred. Bend the shims 90 degrees to fit over the top of the plug tang. That long strip of aluminum that you buy is also real handy for marking a center line on a precarved stock since it's flexible. The idea that you should "First do no harm" applies here as well as to the medical profession.

I made a brass sleeve for a 12 inch Crescent Wrench and used it. Have sawed out another strip to form for same purpose. That is because the original slipped out the jaws and twannwaned and twunned somewhere totally out of sight and is now in the unfindable lost sock category.

Much to my disgust, the pan/bolster is close, but not close enough, snugged up to the swamped .45 cal. barrel. My Exacto chisel style blade snapped off at the root of the nearly useless handle with the L cheap-OH blue- colored plastic blade grippo. A different named, and recommended, handle is slated to be delivered--with a pack of replacement blades--today. Gap at pan-bolster goes, inexplicable from breech toward pan, .015 to .009 (used feeler gauge). Soot method has not yet picked up the culprit. I have a set of those lenses-on-a twist-adjustable head band and a 3 AAA cell LED light.

What was, and is, causing the pan/bolster gap problem in mating is that the lower inside (toward barrel) of the frizzen is just striking the sharp edge of the barrel where the planes join. Whenever the in-the-mail 90 degree countersink burr arrives I will install the touch hole liner and dress it down AND take off a bit off the barrel edge sharpness. Does that sound like it is the right direction to go, or should I work to adjust the lock cant right now before taking this out of the vise for the liner installation?

I think I would stone the lock bolster/pan/frizzen instead of rounding a barrel corner. Have you checked the bolster to be sure it is dead flat? Has the barrel been draw filed smooth yet?

I always completely dis assemble the lock and only inlet the plate first when the plate fits correctly then add the frizzen and make it work with the plate. If you have multiple parts trying to make it fit will be much more difficult.

Phil Coffins said:

I always completely dis assemble the lock and only inlet the plate first when the plate fits correctly then add the frizzen and make it work with the plate. If you have multiple parts trying to make it fit will be much more difficult.

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The mortise was already mostly hogged out when I got the stock from the company.