Accurizing the hook breach rifle.

[Cosmoline]

I'm pretty new to muzzleloading and I've been having some troubles on how to accurize the hook-breached percussion rifles I've got. Ordinarily with bolt actions I don't have to worry about a barrel wobbling around on the receiver, but these Pedersolis all seem to have a little wiggle room. I've tried locking down the hook with brass shims, and while that does stabilize the barrel it also seems to hurt accuracy.

Are these rifles intended to be a little wobbly in the stock? Also, with the keys sticking through stock and barrel how can you avoid stock impingement on the barrel? Should I be trying to push the barrel up and away from the wood or go the other direction? I've been searching on this and can't seem to find anything.

Thanks!

 

[BrownBear]

Sounds like it's time to glass bed the tang and the rear three or four inches of barrel. That works best if you temporarily marry the breech to barrel (very small dab of epoxy at the bottom of the joint between the two, releasable with a quick heating from a torch once you're through with the bedding job.) Then you bed them as a unit so there's a good tight fit of both. There's a bit of dancing to do with the keys and forend in some cases, but that's pretty easy once you get the rest bedded.

There's lots of advice and discussion about glass bedding over at the Gun Builder section here on the site. Rather than type any more, I'll send you over there to browse the threads. Lots of help there too when you have questions.

 

[Zonie]

As BrownBear mentioned a number of people feel that bedding the rear 3-4 inches of the barrel helps with accuracy.
This is done to prevent the breech of the barrel from moving around when the gun is fired.

Generally speaking a muzzleloader has a very stiff barrel unlike the thin barrels found on modern cartridge guns.
On modern guns, the stock is usually much stouter than the barrel and as the stock expands or contracts due to humidity and/or heat it can affect the accuracy of the gun. That is why the better modern guns usually have a 'floating' barrel.

On a muzzleloader the barrel is usually much stronger than the stock so the growth or movement of the wood is not a large factor in accuracy.

Barrel wedges can affect even a stout muzzleloader barrel some but as long as they are installed the same way every time their affect is consistent so the gun ends up shooting to the same point every time.

 

[NORD]

Howdy,

I just glass bedded the entire barrel channel on my Lyman to ensure no barrel movement and repeat barrel key placement...worked for me...on a calm day I can get two inch minus groups at 100 yards.

Good luck!

 

[Idaho Ron]

I had a lot of problems with my Renegade. I put a Green Mountain 45 cal barrel on it and started shooting. I just felt that I was not getting everything out of the gun I should. It was accurate but not consistent.
I was cleaning it and found the barrel was moving side to side in the barrel channel. I like my CF rifles to be free floated but as was said before ML and CF are not the same. I also found I was getting some splits in the wood behind the tang from the heavy recoil. I glass bedded the tang and repaired the splits. Then I glass bedded the end of the barrel channel. The gun is MUCH more consistent now, and regularly shoots sub 2” groups, and sometimes MUCH better than that. Ron

 

[rich pierce]

You can JB Weld your hooked breech together. If that doesn't work, heat will break the bond and you can get it back apart.

 

[Cosmoline]

Thankee for the suggestions! I had never thought about locking the breach down but that does make sense. I think part of my problem with the Tryon in particular is I "fixed" an overscrewed breach plug and thereby screwed up the previous owner's bedding job.

 

[davy]

Drill two holes in the breech tang on each side of the hook, then tap and istall two hex headless screws to hold the barrel assembly tite to the breech assembly. Works like a champ to minimize shake .. and can alwsy be taken loose too! :thumbsup:

Davy