My Kibler SMR Build Log

[wiscoaster]

Build Log #6

The Barrel Fits

Dry-fit the barrel today with some gentle taps here and there ...

... and ...

... honestly ...

... to tell the truth ...

... there's nothing I am capable of doing to improve that fit. Yes, the tang is a little proud, but it won't be when there's a screw pulling it in. I'm going to declare this step as:

DONE

(This step took about five minutes)

 

[Kevin Houlihan]

Thanks, I was thinking the same, except wood is hydrophilic, it can draw liquid into the touch hole even though it's plugged, no?

No. You're over thinking it. Just plug the touch hole by tapping in a toothpick - it won't leak. I plug the touch hole with a toothpick when I fill the barrel with water after shooting and the water doesn't leak out. As Bill said, you're not submerging it. It'll be fine.
Kevin

 

[IanH]

I would blue the breech end of the barrel and back of the tang where the lock bolt goes through, give the muzzle a couple of whacks on the muzzle with a chunk of wood or mallet, and get a print. I don't know if Kibler is cleaning up the radius of the inlet at the very back of the barrel channel or not, but I see a gap and on mine it was required to sharpen that edge on the side, lower, and bottom flats of the inlet with a very sharp chisel to get the barrel to seat fully. This is because even though he uses the smallest possible radius tool, there is still a radius at the back of the inlet. This is all in Kibler's assembly videos. Also check to make sure the tang bolt holes line up with the tang and the lock bolt hole in the stock lines up with the barrel. If not, they can be adjusted with a chainsaw file or needle files AFTER you're certain the barrel is "home".

For longevity and sealing of the stock, I skim-bedded the breech of my SMR with Acra-Glas, took about a pea sized dot on both sides of the end grain where the breech of the barrel touches the stock, and about half that much behind the angle of the tang. Recoil is assured to put even pressure on the wood, no oil will seep into the end grain, and the tang will not flex back and split out the inlet in the wrist.

 

[wiscoaster]

....give the muzzle a couple of whacks on the muzzle with a chunk of wood or mallet, and get a print. ...

Done, and there's no visible gaps, not even with a magnifying glass, and the metal contacts the wood equally on both sides. I'm not going to bother with transfer marking, because my skills aren't equal to remediating something so inconsequential that mostly I just risk making it worse.

.... Also check to make sure the tang bolt holes line up with the tang and the lock bolt hole in the stock lines up with the barrel. If not, they can be adjusted with a chainsaw file or needle files AFTER you're certain the barrel is "home".
...

That I'll certainly do and will be part of dry fitting the trigger plate and lock. Thanks for reminding me!!

 

[wiscoaster]

Build Log #7

A screwy trigger fitting.

Dry-fitting the trigger assembly is next. Of course, the trigger plate fits exactly into the inlet and no adjustment is needed. I did do a little light polishing on the sharp edges, but that wasn't necessary to fit. One thing that I learned from my Kentucky pistol build, though, is to make sure the screws actually screw all the way through where they're supposed to go. So after greasing both the screw threads and the holes, they do:

A little clamp is a handy-dandy aid to keep the trigger plate in place when it's on the bottom:

So far, so good. The hardware and the software (stock) couldn't be more perfect. But then, the screws starting screwing with me, and ended up being quite a challenge. First, the rear tang screw wouldn't engage. The holes weren't perfectly aligned. This is a problem Jim Kibler addresses in his build video, and was easily remedied. But then the front tang screw presented a new problem: it wouldn't align when snugged. I needed another 1/8 of a turn, and it wasn't there. Also, the screw head was slightly recessed:

To top it off (or bottom it out, one or the other) the ends protruded from the base. I like my screws flush and aligned.

What to do? I decided to cheat and to shim the front screw with a washer under the head. The first attempt didn't work; the washer was too small and I hadn't accounted for the screw to be tapered:

The next size up was too large. I opened up the tang hole just a tad, but didn't want to take that too far:

Besides, that tool is for wood, not metal. So I ended up spinning the washer in a drill against a file to reduce its outer diameter, and also thinned it a bit by sanding:

The washer then fit the hole nicely, the screw went in and snugged up, and perfectly aligned, and my "cheat" even fixed the end to be flush without any further work:

A little grinding, filing and sanding on the end of the rear screw fixed its problem and now both screws fit flush, aligned and snug tight:

I suppose my "cheat" isn't exactly flintlock rifle build kosher, but, hey, it worked, and only I know it's there.

Total time fitting the trigger assembly: about five minutes. Total time making me happy with way the screws fit, about an hour and a half, including a trip to the hardware store.

I'll address the trigger spring adjustment screw protrusion later when it's disassembled for rust browing.

Errata: my thanks to a fellow forum member for suggesting the barrel be taped into the stock to protect the stock.

 

[Eric Krewson]

On my SMR the barrel fit was so tight that once in it was very hard to get it out. I think this is one reason the guy sold the kit for $800 shipped, he apparently didn't know how to properly remove a barrel from the stock, gave it a yank and cracked the forestock, the crack was about 3" long. It took me about 10 minutes of bumping the stock upside down to get the barrel to release.

I fixed the crack to be invisible, draw filled and sanded the barrel to 220 and achieved a perfect barrel fit with no gaps, it was easy to remove after I worked on it.

Fixed crack, it starts above the pin.

I would suggest you draw file then barrel before you do any other fitting, things will change. You definitely want to have the barrel finished and fitting as well as tang bolts in place before you drill for the pins.

 

[wiscoaster]

....


I would suggest you draw file then barrel before you do any other fitting, things will change. You definitely want to have the barrel finished and fitting as well as tang bolts in place before you drill for the pins.

Yes, I was thinking the same. Thanks!!

 

[IanH]

Your trigger plate isn't all the way down. Stop and watch the Kibler videos again before you get ahead of yourself and screw up even more. Dang, I'm starting to sound like "Evil Mike Brooks"!

 

[wiscoaster]

Your trigger plate isn't all the way down.

You are absolutely, positively 100% correct!! Thank you, sir!!

.... Stop and watch the Kibler videos again ...

I'm on my third watching and I didn't catch that. There's so much detail!!

...before you get ahead of yourself and screw up even more.

That's the benefit to me of posting this and having multiple people looking over my shoulder to stop me from doing that.

.... Dang, I'm starting to sound like "Evil Mike Brooks"!

No problem, keep it up, it's cool!!

no wonder I had so much trouble with those screws - I'm the one with the screws loose

 

[tgfrench]

Now all you need to do is fit the trigger assembly and undo your tang bolt adjustment and file the proud screw heads off flush

 

[IanH]

I found that the trigger plate was actually a touch long tang bolt holes line up and don't move the plate the wrong direction, you may need to take wood off the front of the inlet instead of rear, check with a light and see.

I know you have an aversion to marking compound but please get a tube of Prussian blue and and old toothbrush, you will not regret learning how to use it to make things fit.......especially when you go to fit the trigger guard, butt plate, and rammer thimbles.

 

[SDSmlf]

An observation about your workbench that you may have covered. Is that bench top securely attached to the support legs (aka sawhorses)? If not, with weight of your vice, gun, various tools and all the excitement happening near the front edge of the bench, it wouldn’t take much movement to upset the balance of nature and have that bench top flip over off the sawhorses…. And that would not be pretty.

 

[BillyC]

I found that the trigger plate was actually a touch long tang bolt holes line up and don't move the plate the wrong direction, you may need to take wood off the front of the inlet instead of rear, check with a light and see.

I know you have an aversion to marking compound but please get a tube of Prussian blue and and old toothbrush, you will not regret learning how to use it to make things fit.......especially when you go to fit the trigger guard, butt plate, and rammer thimbles.

I just grabbed a 12” long candle, left it lit on the bench and used candle soot for the little inletting I had to do. It can get messy but I was just careful enough to keep things clean and it just felt right to do it that way.

 

[IanH]

There's a zillion ways to mark for inletting, just for the love of dog use SOMETHING and learn to use it properly, it will save many headaches even with a 99.5% completed inlet job such as the SMR has.

 

[Flintandsteel]

Wow, hard to believe you’ve gotten 3 pages out of this so far.
The whole process should take about 2 hours.
Fun though.

 

[wiscoaster]

Build Log #8

Fixing Build Log #7

Thanks to @IanH I discovered my trigger plate wasn't fitted properly. It's supposed to be flush with the trigger guard inlet at the front, and flush with the stock at the back. However, the problem wasn't that I didn't have it fully seated in the inlet; the real problem turned out to be that the inlet itself wasn't deep enough to accomodate the trigger plate thickness:

So, sorry Jim, but my experience so far of inlet perfection didn't transfer to the trigger plate. May I suggest maybe your CNC code for the SMR trigger plate inlet needs a little tweaking? Anyhow, this was a real challenge for me. My precision chiselling skillset is about null as my previous chiselling experience has been limited to pretty much wacking out larger chunks of wood, such as needed for an outdoor retaining wall new facade project:

And especially since the plate depth needed to be increased not only at the front, but along its entire length, and especially the little lips along the sides of the inlet, and since the plate itself was curved, proved to be a real challenge and learning experience. But eventually got it to be flush at front and at back, though maybe the inside looks a little rough:

At least now the plate is seated where it's supposed to be seated, right? And the tang screws snug up nicely and align like they should, though the front screw now protrudes even more without its spacer that I don't need anymore to make it flush:

A simple fix that I can handle.

I spent about two hours adapting the trigger plate inlet.

 

[wiscoaster]

An observation about your workbench that you may have covered. Is that bench top securely attached to the support legs (aka sawhorses)?

Absolutely!! And thank for the concern and the observation.

 

[wiscoaster]

There's a zillion ways to mark for inletting, just for the love of dog use SOMETHING and learn to use it properly, it will save many headaches even with a 99.5% completed inlet job such as the SMR has.

... used candle soot for the little inletting I had to do. ...

Yes, thanks, I tried using candle soot, but I guess my candle doesn't leave enough soot. In my Kentucky pistol build, I marked the barrel fitting while I was browning the barrel with the rust on the barrel. That worked pretty good. I guess I'll need to look into some other way to mark. I don't want to used anything that soaks into the wood. Someone in another thread suggested lipstick, and I can't see that working very well for metal to wood?

For modifying the inlet as per my log #8 post above, I relied mostly on "feel" and, of course, visual observation.

 

[wiscoaster]

...
The whole process should take about 2 hours.
...

Yes, maybe for someone that knows what they're doing. But fun, nevertheless, especially when I can get my mistakes pointed out here where I can fix them before they ruin the project.

 

[wiscoaster]

Build Log #9

Fixing the "Fix"

Now, don't everybody panic. I already know where I went wrong. It struck me late last night during a thunderstorm. Really. I went downstairs and tried fitting the lock and discovered I couldn't get it to hold full cock. The trigger bar was contacting the sear. Which means the trigger was in too deep. Then I got out my trigger guard and took a real close look:

Note there's a little offset I hadn't seen before because I hadn't been working with this piece of hardware yet. The edge of the trigger plate fits in there, which puts its proper depth at not flush at all, as per my assumption it went under the guard. In my defense, this isn't mentioned in either video or instruction manual, and in my only previous kit build, the guard went over the plate to be flush with the stock. But I must apologize for my comment about CNC code tweaking. Totally uncalled for. Perhaps this "gotcha" can be added to some future edit of video or manual.

So, right now there's a layer of wood filler drying and curing, and I'll make this right in due time, but today it's going to be cooler, so I might have to spend some time working on my outdoor project.