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I finally started my golden age Lancaster build.

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I'm still in the same spot. Stock and tang is bedded. It's ready for the triggers when I get to it. I baited for bear all of August, then shot one a couple weeks back. I'm goose hunting this weekend, waterfowl hunting for the next month, deer the first week of November in MN, then another week of waterfowl, then a fall turkey trip the black hills, Thanksgiving, then deer hunting in SD, finally ending mid December with an elk hunt in Wyoming.

To put it mildly, I'm booked until after Christmas. I plan on working on this rifle on and off during the waterfowl season. I haven't completely ruled out using this for deer hunting this year yet, but it's going to take some work.
Sounds like life is good!
 
I'm still in the same spot. Stock and tang is bedded. It's ready for the triggers when I get to it. I baited for bear all of August, then shot one a couple weeks back. I'm goose hunting this weekend, waterfowl hunting for the next month, deer the first week of November in MN, then another week of waterfowl, then a fall turkey trip the black hills, Thanksgiving, then deer hunting in SD, finally ending mid December with an elk hunt in Wyoming.

To put it mildly, I'm booked until after Christmas. I plan on working on this rifle on and off during the waterfowl season. I haven't completely ruled out using this for deer hunting this year yet, but it's going to take some work.
You poor blighter.
My heart goes out to you.
So much to hunt and so little time......😥
 
This is not a criticism and different builders have their own ways of making MLers, but I've never used epoxy or any other similar product for bedding a bbl or in the tang area. Just can't use that stuff. Have used glue sparingly, including super glue but only to glue in pieces of wood where a crack was present, to glue a crack if it can be squeezed together or to fill a gap w/ wood that was caused by my negligence. If the crack is stained prior to gluing, the crack is nearly invisible because the super glue absorbs the stain. ....Fred
 
Basically it came down to this. I could spend weeks lightly shaving away fibers at a time until the barrel and tang fit perfectly. Or I could do the best I could for a day, end up hogging out more than needed, bed it, get a better fit, stronger, and less prone to weather warpage.

#1 is the historical way. #2 is a no brainer if you don't worry about what you can't see.
 
Have 2 LR "styles" that are my favorites....Lancaster and Bucks County w/ the BCs slightly ahead in numbers. Both are made from blanks and oddly enough, the Lancasters are laid out free hand while the Bucks County LR layouts use a template copied from a Shuler in RCA 1 seeing the comblines have a slight curve.

Don't like the Daisy headed Pboxes so often found on Lancasters so searched and found a different style by John Brooks, an original Lancaster builder. Shown below is a close copy of a Pbox he favored.

Some of the Lancaster LRs I've built have "B" weight swamped bbls and the same LR is shown below ...a 50 cal. X 44" lg...... makes for a lighter LR w/ that bbl. .....Fred
Lancaster-IH 011.jpg
Lancaster-IH 014.jpg
 
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