Inletting Breech Plug- Don't Know What I Should Do

[Rifleratt]

To all,

I hope all is well with everyone. I have a question for the all wise group in rifle building. My son and I are getting ready to start building our first rifle and I want to have some planning figured out regarding the barrel breech. We went to a wonderful open house this summer and met some great people and watch some great process and even better, we walked out of the shop with a good product.

I'm not scared to do it and I have the tools/resources to get it done since having the advantage of managing an oil field service company. I can use general persuasion up to making it liquid. Do we unbreech the barrel to inlet or not.

I've borescoped the barrel the plug appears to have a thread lock or antiseize or something that has the appearance of slight rusting, but I'm confident it's not that.

We would really appreciate your input.

Thanks.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Is that a Kibler kit barrel? With the liner in and the lock bolt hole drilled it has that appearance, not much inletting to do if it is a Kibler. I pulled the breech plug first and made sure the barrel was in and square at the breech then installed the breech plug, blacked it with candle soot and checked the fit in the inlet, I cautiously removed the black marks until I had a nice tight fit. Beware; it is easy to chip out wood at the lower tang bolt hole, take the tang in and out cautiously.

 

[Rifleratt]

It is a kibler kit barrel. But I just have the barrel. During the open house, he had a selection of barrels. We came out with the SMR .40. The intent is for this to be my son's wood shop class. Since we homeschool, his woodshed would be to build a complete rifle from scratch.

So, we will be using a blank, not a kibler kit stock.

 

[oldwood]

Even If you know what you're doing , I would expect you will have 100 hours + , in just installing the barrel , tang , and r/r hole and r/r channel , as well as basically shaping the stock. That's all before any parts are inlet , so final shaping is begun. Starting from this Level of "Scratch Build" , will require some special understanding of m/l rifle architecture , and wood working skills , not possessed by folks that never did it before. I've been scratch building m/l rifles for over 50 yrs. , and wish you patients , so you can plan and study the moves to be done to work on this wood , and metal project...................Best wishes to ya....oldwood

 

[FlinterNick]

First thing I do is file down the tang to a taper / draft. Then deburr and polish the underside and corners.

I I remove the plug from the barrel when I inlet the tang. With the tang removed I line up the breech and mark the center, draw a line the length of the tang with a little extra. I work down then back, once the width of the tang is around 70% inlet i then draw a tracing of the tang to inlet.

The hardest part I think is figuring out the taper of the tang when inletting, too much taper in the inlet and you could have a gap, to avoid big gaps i use scrapers mostly and not chisels at the base and edge. Once the tang is just about flush I try to file off an excess of the tang at the surface with a smooth file. For very small gaps less than 1/4 of a mm I leave them be, and the finishing process closes them up.

 

[oldwood]

From what you say, you will ,(and maybe I'm Not getting it?) , put a center line on the top of the stock's wrist , then remove the breech plug from the barrel ,and inlet the plug with it out of the barrel? The center line is a good idea , but would question inletting the breech plug w/it not attached to the barrel ? Dunno , maybe I can learn something here? All the tangs I've inlet , were with the plug in the barrel. Luck to ya..

 

[martin9]

Remove the plug, inlet the barrel. Then put the plug back in and inlet it. when inletting the plug/tang work from barrel to the end of the tang. Buy a couple books on gun making. Also, not to argue with anyone but I inlet my barrels with chisels by hand and can normally get a barrel and tang inlet in a days shop work.... so 8-9 hours.

 

[geb324]

That is a very ambitious project for a fist timer especially with that breech plug and tapered barrel good luck. you
may want to rethink the stock issue and get one from Kibler.

 

[fishmusic]

Check out Bill Raby's series on building a Tennessee rifle. He goes into detail about all of the inletting procedures. Here is a link,


It is on Rumble and you can search his channel for the remaining videos. He doesn't hide mistakes and gives advice on how to correct them. It's good stuff.

 

[Rifleratt]

Thanks so far the responses. Yes this is a very ambitious project, but I'm not looking for a museum style piece. This is a long term learning project for my son and when finished he can be proud of it. I'm learning as well along the way and getting to live a little bit through him.

I'm leaning towards taking the plug out based on the style of tang. My logic says that if the tang was shorter and wider, I'd probably leave it in, but since it's kiblers style, I feel I would be inletting the tang before I ever got to the barrel.

I have the books and read through sections almost daily; and thanks for the video recommendation. We've watched a few of the first videos on the Maryland rifle. We will look up the Tennessee.

Since I'm using this as a "woodshop" elective for his school, I'm forcing him to relearn the use of hand tools and get away from power tools. His birthday was yesterday and he got some hand chisels. So his homework is now, to not use hand chisels but learn how to sharpen them.

I still welcome any recommendations.

Thanks.

 

[deerstalkert]

"So his homework is now, to not use hand chisels but learn how to sharpen them."
you are a wise man. starting off right.
i am of the same school as Old School.
i have only ever inlet barrel, plug, tang as a unit. was chastised by someone for this as "the correct way according to the book" was to separate, and inlet barrel first. tried it . not for me.

 

[Col. Batguano]

You might give some thought to sending the barrel and blank out to someone like David Rase to have him do the inletting for you. Something like ~$100 and you know it will be done right. And get you a nice thin web --- 1/16" at the breech, and 3/32" at the muzzle