Thread for clean out screw

[ccmountainman]

yes I did in a pm specifically for him.
Being it's Italian almost guaranteed it is metric.
suggested a machine shop measure with a pitch gauge and diameter.
Also Harbor freight does or did sell sae and metric thread pitch gauges.
I did the pm as I knew most everybody would get sidetracked from the actual question.
and a direct pm would short direct and to the point of his original question.
He says he has a HF close by.

 

[Trot]

I think I would just try to get a couple from Pedersoli, then they would be the right thread, length, everything.

 

[nhmoose]

Yep I go with that. Folks who have to play with the working parts without knowledge create problems for themselves same as in the rest of their lifes.

 

[bpd303]

Just hope none of the "remove" crowd shoots the guy to his right with a loose screw.

Now you're just being silly. :slap:

Not really. A bit of added humor perhaps. But, a loose screw or one in a stripped hole can shoot out dangerously so.

From personal experience, this happened to one of my barrels. The previous owner removed the screw a lot and must have overtightened it weakening the threads. When I shot a near max load the screw blew out. It went through a chair cushion to my right. Just glad no one was sitting in it. So not silly but a real possibility.

 

[Semisane]

Every Ace Hardware I've ever been in had an American Standard & Metric thread gauge hanging in the nuts & bolts aisle. The simple thing to do is take the screw to a hardware store, find the correct thread, and buy a half dozen appropriate slot head bolts or hex head set screws (and appropriate Allen Head wrench). I prefer the set screws.

 

[Zonie]

Speaking of "clean out screws" I have seen several cases where owners had apparently been removing them.

When they reassembled their gun they dutifully installed the nipple first and then installed the clean out screw until "it was tight".

Later, they had a H3ll of a time removing the nipple, some of them going so far as to damage their nipple wrench.

What they didn't know was many of those clean out screws do not screw in to stop on a shoulder.
In fact, on some guns they will screw in until they jam into the nipple threads if the nipple is already installed.

Screwing in the clean out screw before the nipple is installed also isn't always a good solution either.
If it is screwed in too far, the nipple will not tighten down like it should because it is stopping on the end of the clean out screw.

Personally, I avoid all of this by just leaving the clean out screw alone when I'm cleaning my snail breech rifles.
Rather than mess with it I just remove the nipple before I do my breech in a bucket and pump the cleaning rod method of cleaning.
In special cases I've had no problem working a fuzzy pipe cleaner into the flame channel if it really needs some extra cleaning.

 

[newtewsmoke]

clean out screws do not screw in to stop on a shoulder... on some guns they will screw in until they jam into the nipple threads if the nipple is already installed.

that was exactly my experience!...dinged the nipple threads, got lucky and managed to not hurt the female threads on the barrel itself, near as i can tell. After that I loctite'd the screw in place just off of the nip. threads.

Funny this hot topic marches on while the OP was here 1 time only to ask his question, which was answered in a PT. :v I guess we're all bored, being it's the middle of hunting season and all! :grin:

 

[ryoung14]

What they didn't know was many of those clean out screws do not screw in to stop on a shoulder.

In fact, on some guns they will screw in until they jam into the nipple threads if the nipple is already installed.

That's the way it works on all my Investarms and Green Mountain barrels, so figured it out early on. I remove the screw before removing the nipple and install the screw after the nipple's in place. The screw is tightened just snug against the nipple threads. So it's treated as a 'nipple lock screw', though I don't think that is its purpose.

While it's out I make a point of running a pipe-cleaner down the flash channel. Even after pumping water through the channel, the pipe-cleaner comes out black or gray...so something was there.

Never had a problem with barrels that lack clean-out screws, but take advantage of the screw when it's there.