Breech Plug Removal

[breachloader]

I have a TC barrel I need to install a breach plug. Does any body know where I can get a wrench tool for a 15/16 barrel? Any other info on installing would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Rifleman1776]

To the best of my knowledge they aren't made anymore. I have one but it is not for sale. Best bet (probably) would be to send it off to an expert. IMHO, installing the breech plug is the most important step in building a rifle. It MUST be done right. If you do not have the skills and experience for this, turn over to someone that has. Other than that, put the barrel into a vise close to the end of the breech threads and tighten only enough to secure it.

Edit: I just noticed the title of your thread says "removal". Your actual post says "install". You can remove with just a good vice and smooth jawed wrench. What are you doing?

 

[breachloader]

Thanks for the info. Ill change my heading. I was wondering if a regular slightly oversized wrench with padding would do the job by lining up the flats? Doesn't seem like there is much to it.

 

[necchi]

A good bench vice properly padded and a large Cresent wrench will do it.
But a replacement breech plug is not a "drop in" fit. The bottom of every breech plug is filed/machined to the proper length to reach the bottom of the internal barrel breech (perfectly) as well as making the flats line up.
Even with factory manufactured barrels and rifles,, "breeching" is done individually to each barrel by a skilled person standing on the assembly line.

When dealing with used barrels as example, the odd's of a beech plug removed from one,, actually fitting another barrel properly has to be somewhere around 100 to 1.

 

[Scota4570]

Removal...Without a real barrel vice, barrel blocks, a real fitted plug wrench and some experience the chances of mangling a TC barrel and plug are nearly 100%. They are usually crazy, stupid tight. Now 40 years later it is probably rusted in place too. You cannot generate the force needed with a bench vice and a crescent wrench. You will just mangle it.

Fitting a new plug. Can you get a plug with the correct threads for your TC barrel? Betcha you cannot. The guy who used to make them is not doing so right now. The OEM TC ones are long gone.

The last one I did I had to machine a plug from scratch out of a piece of bar stock.

If you have a barrel and its original plug then no biggie. Use a padded vice and a crescent wrench. Use black marker or cold blue to tell where you need to remove material from the plug and barrel to make it fit properly. There is no good reason to make plugs as tight as TC did. Just snug is much better for many reasons.

 

[curator]

Mojavegreen:

Check with Trackofthewolf. They will install their breech plugs in your barrel and do it right. They might even have a close copy of the original T/C plug. I had one done a few years ago and I got it back in about 2 weeks. IIRC the cost was $40 for the labor.

 

[Rifleman1776]

There is no good reason to make plugs as tight as TC did

Amen, Bro.
In fact, publicizing that issue put a magazine publisher out of business. TC did not like what (then) was unsafe manufacturing of it's barrels.

 

[bubba.50]

best of luck to ya with that crescent wrench. and I mean that sincerely. I have had two such animals in the last couple months where some "smith" TRIED to remove the plugs in such manner. fortunately they were either too lazy or just smart enough to quit while they were behind & only made a small mark on the plug with their wrench.

 

[Col. Batguano]

It's also possible to shear off the end tab on the plug with enough force applied. There must be some kind of trick to getting them off of there. soaking in ATF and acetone maybe? Heat? Cold?

Some times when these things are made, they can be made in a way that makes their installation permanent. The breech bands on a parrot gun for instance were heated red hot, slipped on the tube, and then allowed to cool. Same thing with wagon wheel tires. There just isn't a way to heat up just the restricting metal, without heating up the underlying substrate to facilitate removal. Of course, it could be cut off, but that's destructive.

I hope that wasn't the case with your barrel plug.

 

[bubba.50]

the problem with these is for some obscure reason T/C used about a million pounds of torque when installin' their breechplugs. this makes ordinary tools inadequate for their removal.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I have removed and installed TC breech plugs. Stupid tight is an understatement., I accidentally flipped my work bench over trying to put the darn thing in. I had a massive 8 inch bench vise bolted to a 10 x 3 table made of 6x6 uprights and 3 inch bowling alley for the top. I used two pieces of oak between the vise jaws to pad the barrel and then put an extra long wrench over the breech plug and a 4 ft piece of pipe. Also lubed with "never seize". I had almost enough torque to twist the barrel off.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

I removed the plug from my T/C to lap the barrel. I used one of the factory "wrenches" shaped to fit the percussion breech plug. They appear on ebay freqently. At the time we lived in a tiny duplex and had no place for a shop. So, I used my Black and Decker Workmate as my vise and a 24-inch pipe wrench to grip the factory thing. I ruined the wooden jaws of the Workmate but did get the plug out. I put oilfield thread dope on it when I screwed it back in and it lined up easily and was a snug fit. No issues

If you have a heavy well fastened down vise, and a longish wrench to work the factory tool you should have no issues at all removing and replacing your breech plug.

Despite what all the armchair gunsmith have to say an incredibly tight breech plug is probably not neccesary. Consider the barrels on center fire modern rifles need only be little more than hand tight to be safe, although some are torqued by giants, and there are much higher pressures at work there. An AR barrel need only be worked to roughly 80 foot pounds. A breech plug screwed into a barrel should be safe at the same torque which is easily reach with ordinary wrenches.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Bench vise anchored to the center of the earth...with lead faced jaws.......A large crescent wrench and 3 feet of cheater pipe.

The crescent wrench will mar the plug if you don't wrap it with tape or something.

 

[Artificer]

Despite what all the armchair gunsmith have to say an incredibly tight breech plug is probably not neccesary. Consider the barrels on center fire modern rifles need only be little more than hand tight to be safe, although some are torqued by giants, and there are much higher pressures at work there. An AR barrel need only be worked to roughly 80 foot pounds. A breech plug screwed into a barrel should be safe at the same torque which is easily reach with ordinary wrenches.

80 foot pounds of torque on an AR is the MAXIMUM torque by both civilian and military standards, though I have pulled some of them and some M1's and 1917 Enfields that went well over 100 pounds and that FAR EXCEEDED the specifications.

I have pulled a couple of original muzzle loading breech plugs where they had less than 10 foot pounds of torque holding them on, but I personally think that is not enough.

I would feel far more comfortable with 20 foot pounds as the bare minimum for a breech plug on a muzzle loading barrel.

Gus

 

[curator]

I have two very early T/C Seneca rifles that came with a breech plug tool and threaded "clean-out" screws. Apparently early rifles did not have their breech plugs super-torqued into the barrels. At one point Thompson Center no longer recommended the removal of their breech plugs and the tools were no longer available. At that time, the factory began milling off the heads on the flash channel clean-out screw as well. This would explain the different experiences some of the posters have had. Later model breech plugs "can" be removed with the proper tools, but one does run the risk of marring the barrel or the breech.

 

[Eric Krewson]

There is a guy making TC type plug wrenches that are thicker and stouter than the original TC versions. He sells them on eBay for $16. If he lists a 15/16" and you need a 1" he will have it if you ask.

 

[Scota4570]

"They might even have a close copy of the original T/C plug."

They do not. The plugs they sometimes sell are threaded for new replacment barrel blanks. TC used a bastard thread on their barrels.

I am not clear on why we are swapping plug on a TC barrel. IT is best to let sleeping dogs lie in this situation.

For whtever it is worth I use a Carver model C hydrolic press for barrel work. With steel v-block the barrel not slip. I line the steel blocks with business card stock.
https://www.hofstragroup.com/product/carver-model-c-laboratory-press-12-ton/

A bench vice is fine to fit and install a new plug. For removal of a plug it is a gamble.

 

[necchi]

They do not. The plugs they sometimes sell are threaded for new replacment barrel blanks. TC used a bastard thread on their barrels.

Sage advice for the most part, many don't understand the "bastard thread" of the T/C barrels vrs replacement barrels.

But TOW does indeed have available the actual 11/16x20 thread for T/C barrels,, Flint only but in 15/16 and 1".
These are new items not listed in the current catalog. https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/667/1

 

[breachloader]

The plug came off of the barrel. An alignment line was scratched on the bottom flats. I put the plug on with some anti seize. I do not have a vise so I used a hammer with leather padding. It appears that it is still not quite lined up so Ill take up to my ranch in AZ and put a crescent wrench on it. I have a vise there. As it stands right now being .005 off of center I see no reason why it would not function as is. Any feedback?

 

[Eterry]

EURIKA!!!! Someone finally asked the $60000.00 question... a guy on this forum asking how to remove a breach plug... someone might wanna ask him why he thinks it needs removing...
Just saying.