breech plug shaping

[BlackNet]

OK so I started my blunderbuss tonight. cut the slot for the breech plug and that parts done, only prob now is the tail sticks out and not curved with the stock. Was wondering what's the best and easiest method to put the curve in it and expand and shrink the width.

Ed

 

[davy]

OK so I started my blunderbuss tonight. cut the slot for the breech plug and that parts done, only prob now is the tail sticks out and not curved with the stock. Was wondering what's the best and easiest method to put the curve in it and expand and shrink the width.

Ed

I am not sure about the other .. but I know you can cold bend the tang in a secure mounted bench vice if you do it very carefully, and slowly do a little at a time until it fits.

Some folks install the breechplug into the barrel properly and then very carefully use it as a lever to easily bend the tang in the vise. :hmm:

Davy

 

[MikeChapin]

Some folks install the breechplug into the barrel properly and then very carefully use it as a lever to easily bend the tang in the vise. :hmm:

Davy

That's pretty much what I do. I put the tang in a vise and use the barrel for leverage and bend it in a couple of places. I snug it in the vice to make sure I don't twist as I'm bending. It doesn't take much and gun steel is rather soft and bends easily.

 

[54JNoll]

Just remember that you need to start bending closest to the breach and bend closest to the end of the tang last. Provides for better curving. Plus if you go the other way you soon can not longer fit it in your vise securely.

 

[mikelange]

The only thing I'd add to the above advise is, be extremely careful about bending a tang with the bolt hole already drilled in it. Though few come that way, once in awhile some idiot (ahem! Don't ask who I mean by that!) will get ahead of himself. Or, more charitably, will recycle a barrel and breechplug from another gun -- anyhow, the steel does tend to want to snap, in that situation.

 

[Zonie]

Mongrel: You too?

 

[Roy]

Mongrel and Zonie, I have a fix for that. :grin:

 

[BlackNet]

what's the fix?

Ed

 

[Roy]

remove just under an 1/8" of metal from the tang along the top surface and silver solder on a peice of 1/8" steel plate. Dress down the excess amount of the added piece to match the top of the barrel. This way you can alter it by not having to fit another breech plug. Once all inlet this is never seen, just will have a step on the under side. I did this when I wanted to extend a tang for a southern stlye rifle. :thumbsup:

 

[mikelange]

Roy --

I've done that fix. However, nowadays I work in our school district's maintenance shop, where we have various models of arc-type welders I don't even know the technical names for. The one I use for work like this welds with steel wire and, if I'm careful what I'm doing, will weld-and-fill the break without hardening the steel. I do make sure to have the tang set in approximately the shape/curve I need it to be, so I don't have to stress it any further. So far so good.

The easiest and neatest way of fixing them, of course, is not to break 'em to begin with -- or so I'm told. I wish there was a Smiley that shrugged in an "oh well" sort of way -- I could use that here.

 

[Roy]

I haven't broke one of those... yet. :grin: I really need to learn how to weld though.

 

[BlackNet]

how easy is it to break?

Also what's a good way to widen the tang?

Ed

 

[Roy]

Also what's a good way to widen the tang?

Ed

You can widen a tang using my method posted above or heat it up red and smack it with a hammer. :thumbsup:

 

[mikelange]

Use an arc welder to add steel to the edges (be careful about the heat -- you can easily either harden the tang to where it breaks before it bends, or literally melt the edges away); heat it with an oxy-acetylene torch and beat it flatter and wider, as Roy suggested (again, there's some chance of hardening the steel -- fine-tuning the temper of steel by annealing isn't one of my better-developed talents); or, since they run right at ten bucks or less, buy a plug with a flared tang. Of course, I'm a fine one to suggest buying one already widened -- I'll work backbreakingly hard for several hours to save a few dollars. Not cost-effective, but it makes me happy. :grin: :grin: :grin: