Barrel Inletting Question

[Sheppsan]

Hi everyone, building my first kit--from Pecatonica River--and have a quick question regarding barrel inlet. I have inlet the breech tang and tidied up the barrel channel (barrel is a 15/16 straight from Rice) and am getting good contact at the muzzle and breech. However, I have somewhere between 1/64-1/32 of spring in the middle of the forestock and am getting no contact there when I tap with a mallet. It looks to me as if the stock is bowed down a little in the middle. Question is, do I keep inletting at the muzzle and breech until I get contact all the way down, or can/should I just draw the middle up with a clamp when I pin the tennon. All three tennons are inlet fully and are not causing the issue as I can see. As always, any insight suggestions is much appreciated.

Thanks, Dale

 

[rich pierce]

See if drawing it up with a clamp causes issues with pulling or returning the ramrod. If no issues, do as you suggested. Otherwise you’ll need to inlet the barrel deeper at breech and muzzle.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Could be the barrel inlet is not perfect, I got one gouged out in various place from the P place. You could clamp the barrel in place with zip ties and give the forestock a good heating with a heat gun to make it conform to the barrel.

My barrel got lost by a pre-carver, they sent my stock back with an unsupported forestock which doglegged down during shipping to about a 20 degree angle.

I am an old bowmaker and once bent osage all the time. I heated the barrel to the almost too hot to touch temperature, put it in the barrel channel, heated the forestock and pulled it slowly up to match the barrel and zip tied it tightly in place. I continued to heat the forestock with my heat gun then I wrapped rags around the barrel and forestock to retain the heat and let everything "soak".

End result; a very straight stock and perfect barrel inlet.

 

[Sheppsan]

Could be the barrel inlet is not perfect, I got one gouged out in various place from the P place. You could clamp the barrel in place with zip ties and give the forestock a good heating with a heat gun to make it conform to the barrel.

My barrel got lost by a pre-carver, they sent my stock back with an unsupported forestock which doglegged down during shipping to about a 20 degree angle.

I am an old bowmaker and once bent osage all the time. I heated the barrel to the almost too hot to touch temperature, put it in the barrel channel, heated the forestock and pulled it slowly up to match the barrel and zip tied it tightly in place. I continued to heat the forestock with my heat gun then I wrapped rags around the barrel and forestock to retain the heat and let everything "soak".

End result; a very straight stock and perfect barrel inlet.

Thanks for the suggestion

 

[necchi]

If; IMHO,, if I had the barrel in the position I wanted in relation to the breech and muzzle ends,,
,I'd bed the offending area with accra-glas. I wouldn't allow possible future relaxing wood or wood twists/pressures to affect the barrel in any way.

 

[Eric Krewson]

When you heat the wood to the extent I do it melts the ligons in the wood and hardens it, it isn't going to be shifting or relaxing particularly if it is only hanging static under a barrel.

One of my heat treated wood bows can withstand being shot a couple hundred thousand times without any of the induced reflex pulling out, after a couple hundred K shots the bow will probably fail in some other area but not in the heat reflexed area. One of my customers actually kept track of approximately how many arrows he put through the osage bow I made him, I was astounded by the 6 figure number when he told me. Other customers have since compiled a similar record.

Not gun related but heat treating related; I bent the hooks on my personal bow with dry heat, they have not budged a fraction or tried to straighten in the years I have been shooting this bow. I probably have less than 50K arrows through it but that is still a good testament to how heat threating changes wood.

 

[Col. Batguano]

You're after a straight RR channel. My stocks often have droop in them when they are not snugged up to the barrel with the barrel keys or pins. As Rich suggested, clamp it up first and then use a long straight edge like a metal yard stick (on edge) to see if it's level. If you use a RR, those are too bendy (or may have some warp in them to start with) to give yourself a good read.

 

[user 34300]

I had a precarve, the RR channel had gaps around the barrel. I soaked the stock with hot tap water. I installed the barrel. I then wrapped the stock with stretched surgical tubing. I let it sit a week. The stock was dry and the barrel channel fit perfectly. It has not opened up in two years since the build.

On a full stock I would place a piece of steel round stock in the ramrod channel to prevent crushing.