Pins or keys?

[varsity07840]

I recently bought a custom built rifle that I would describe as a plain "American Jaeger".It's fully assembled but needs some final finish work to wood and metal to get it up to snuff. It's a .72 cal with a 30" x 1 1/4" straight barrel. As assembled, the barrel is held in place by three
pins. A friend of mine commented that he would have used keys for such a big gun. Th barrel and tang are fit very well to the stock and bedded at the breech. Comments /advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Duane

 

[54JNoll]

The pins or keys are not meant to take the recoil load of the gun. They are there to simply hold the stock to the barrel. The pins are fine.

 

[spitfire]

The pins or keys are not meant to take the recoil load of the gun. They are there to simply hold the stock to the barrel. The pins are fine.

Correctly stated.The pins are PC for the gun mentioned.Keys just make barrel removal easier. :winking:

 

[Johnny Tremain]

I went with keys over pins for one reason only.
In the spring and fall, its very wet here. In fact our first shoot of the year is called "Rain-De-Vue"
(only a few days away

After 2 days in the rain, I alway take my barrel out, and let the wood dry. May not have to, but it gives me piece of mind.

 

[varsity07840]

Thaks to all for the feedback

Duane

 

If you're going to be PC correct you'll go with three pins. Check out the Track of the Wolf catalog. Check out pages 114 & 115 They list everthing you need to build a repro. You'll also note that pins and not wedges are listed.

 

[Zonie]

As nice as the guys at TOTW are, I don't know that I would wave their catalog pictures around as representing original guns. On this issue though, they seem to be correct.

George Shumways JAEGER RIFLES , which has many photos of many original Jaegers shows that pins were the common method used for attaching the stock to the barrel.
Only a few of the photos show wedges, and on several of these, I'm not sure if they are wedges or just fancy escutcheons.

 

[TN.Frank]

Yep, pins are correct BUT I think half size wedges would still look ok and it'd let you use a hooked breech so you can easily remove the barrel for cleaning. That's one thing I really like about Plains rifles, the wedge is so easy to remove and it makes cleaning a piece of cake.
Personally, if everything is fit up like you said it is I'd leave it alone but if you ever do a build in the future check into using small, half size wedges instead of pins. JMHO, YMMV.