Fred Miller ?

[Eric Krewson]

I talked to Fred Miller earlier about inletting a barrel channel and drilling a ramrod hole for me. Nice guy to talk to. This being my first gun I haven't sent him a stock before. I forgot to ask him if I should send the barrel with the breech plug in or out. I have a Rice barrel with the plug installed. Do you guys send them to him with the breech plug in? I hate to call him again and disturb him.

 

[B.Habermehl]

Send it without the plug. You may want to do some filing to change the profile or something. Fred will be likely to inlet the plug for you as well, so it will be too late for you to make any changes. Or even you might choose to move the barrel rear ward a bit, if he machined for your breech plug you would be in for a problem. You can slip a swamped barrel further to the rear than you would think if you really had to. I any case I would keep the plug at home. BJH

 

I send the barrel, breechplug and all and Fred takes out the plug and inlets the barrel. Now that you mention it, I would probably save Fred a little work if I left the plug at home. I have not inletted a barrel since 1979 since I found out Fred could inlet any barrel. Now many others inlet swamped barrels. Fred is probably not going to inlet a breech plug unless you so specify and he has a pattern specifically for it.

 

[IronCrickett]

I'd send the barrel minus the breechplug. Fred's a busy man, and sometimes "loses" breechplugs. This happened to me, and when he found it, I had to make another trip up to Fred's shop.

By the way, Fred is doing real well since his heart attach. I spoke with him last Friday at a gunshow. He's in good health and spirits.

Later
I.C.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I am going to have to get a bigger wrench. The breech plug on my barrel is really torqued down. I clamped the barrel it in my vise with a couple blocks of wood to hold it. And tried to loosen the breech plug with a 12" crescent wrench,no luck. Next I heated the plug end with a propane torch and tried again, broke the wooden blocks but the plug didn't budge. Any suggestions?

 

[Birddog6]

I use the vice jaws & a piece of leather on the barrel. 15" cresent wrench with the jaws ground to fit the taper of the breech plug. (Flea market for $10.) I have been able to get all of mine out with that. Put some Anti-seize compound on the breech threads when ya go back in, just IN the hole, not on the plug, as the stuff likes to migrate & may mess up you browning process if ya don't get it all off..
:results:

 

[Eric Krewson]

Thanks for the info. The wood would give a little and let the barrel turn slightly. I have plenty of thick leather.

 

[Birddog6]

The leather usually works. Another thing that will work is a piece of thin brass or SS shim stock on each side of the vice jaw against the barrel to keep the vice from scoring the barrel.

Most of the time I see guys having problems with the barrel turning in the vice is because they are using too small a vice & too small a wrench. You need a good hefty vice with flat jaws to hold the barrel good & put the barrel in the the vice horizontal & get all the flat surface you can get, then clamp the H out of it. If you get a 15" elcheapo cressent wrench at the flea market & grind the jaw the same angle as the breech plug, you will save yourself allot of aggravation & also allot of chewed up edges on breechplugs.


:results:

 

At the risk of getting off subject, the probable reason for the hard to remove breech plug is jamming the threads. Use an appropriate bottoming tap, grind the face of the tap so there are full threads all the way, and cut the threads all the way, full depth to the shoulder inside the barrel. You will find the plug is much easier to remove and probably doing it's job better.

 

[Eric Krewson]

This is a Rice barrel. I have heard he seats the breech plug pretty close to the face. I will see when I get the plug out.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Thanks BD6, a 15" crescent and some leather got it out. What I found was one side of the breech plug had a high spot that was tightened into the shoulder hard enough to score the shoulder on one side . The face of the plug wasn't touching the shoulder on the other side. Should I take the high spot off the plug and see how it fits?

You can see the scored place on the shoulder one the right side of the picture. Will this be a problem in the future?

 

[rich pierce]

You can mess with these things forever trying to get a perfect fit. It's good to have an excellent fit but perfect is, well- rare. One approach to check if your fit is very good is to degrease the breechplug and paint the end of the plug with cheap model paint or nail polish. These go on much thicker than transfer dye or magic marker or inletting black, which have practically zero thickness and make it look "bad" if you are missing contact by .001". Anyway, with a thicker "paint" on the plug face, this will show where you're not getting even decent contact. I've rarely been able to get nearly complete contact between the plug face and the breech as judged by transfer dye or magic marker, etc and inletting black smears around so I do not use it here. Of course when you are done you clean off the face because you don't want a girly gun. :crackup:

 

[Birddog6]

That all depends on how deep ya want to get into this breechplug thing. I like mine to fit 85% or more contact around the face of the plug. Sometimes that is real easy, sometimes that is a real PITA to get to.
If you take that high spot off it is possibly you may have to work the barrel plug to the next flat, depending on how high the spot is & how tight the plug is. If you work the high spot, do it just a tad at a time or you will take too much off.

:m2c:

 

[Eric Krewson]

I still have a calibrated arm from torqueing bolts on Hueys back in my Army days in the sixtys. This plug took over 100ft lbs of torque to remove. It had anti seize compound on the threads so wasn't frozen just really torqued in. What would be a reasonable amount of torque in ft lbs on a normal breech plug installation.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I measured the plug face with my calipers. The high side is 25 thousands longer than the short side. Looks like it contacted the shoulder and the plug was turned almost 1/2 turn to match up with a flat.

 

[Okwaho]

I misplaced Fred's number amd need to call him on a forestock matter.Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
Tom Patton.

 

[Eric Krewson]

1-570-922-1861

 

[Birddog6]

If it were me I would rework the breech & make it a better fit. However, I am known to be kinda picky & a stickler of doing it right inside a rifle, as I like the inside to look as good as the outside......
To me what is underneath is Much more important than what you actually see.......

:results:

 

[Eric Krewson]

Here is what I did for the breech plug. I have a good friend named Bruce Mckelevy, a real serious competitive BP shooter, gun builder, and really knows his way around guns and gun building. He took a look at the breech and showed me how to carefully refit the plug to the next flat by filing the barrel and plug face. He did the work while I watched. It took him about 2 hrs to fit everything just right to the next flat with 100% contact of the plug and shelf in the breech with out having to use excessive torque on the plug to line up the plug with the flat.

Bruce is one more fine shot. He can shoot better offhand at 50yds than I can shoot off sand bags. It is not unusual for him to shoot an offhand 50yd group that you can cover with a quarter. He shoots percussion and builds all the guns he shoots.

He scrutinized my Rice barrel very closely having not seen one before. He even slugged it so he could inspect and measure the rifling pattern. He was mucho impressed with the quality and said he would try one on his next rifle.

 

[Birddog6]

Eric: Yer friend did ya right too...... That is how it is supposed to be. Your not supposed to need a 48" pipe wrench & a 6' cheater pipe to unbreech it. What some fellers don't understand is that tight threads just go to a point & then you are damaging the threads by pulling & stressing them.... so the way your friend did it was right & now ya have a good fit & you are comfortable Knowing it was done right.

IMHO, the only thing better than doing it right is doing it right again the next time....

:thumbsup: