Touch hole liner conundrum

[Long Drinkwater]

be cautious if that is a Spanish made barrel you cannot pull the breech plug, they install their bolsters into the breech plug and then install a liner into the bolster.

I have an old Hopkins&Allen/Numrich "El Cheapo" flint Kentucky kit-built with a Spanish barrel. The breechplug has a very long threaded bolster up inside the barrel with a roughly 1/4" hole drilled up its center to intersect with the vent, which is drilled through barrel and bolster. This makes for a long flamepath, unreliable ignition, and slow lock time. PFoooosshh-boom! (when it actually works, about 50%).
I figure to drill and tap for a White Lightning, thread it in, then mark its alignment, take it out, and Dremel its inboard end to match the contour of the bolster center hole. I normally clean the bolster center hole with a .22 wire brush and bore swab.
Your thoughts?

 

[Elmhurst80]

Well I just finished pulling the breech plug, not a terrible job at all. The liner is clearly protruding well into the bore as shown in the attached photo. Ran into another problem though...

When I removed the barrel from the stock, the tenon second from the breech was laying there in it's inlet, looks to have snapped off flush with the barrel. Great, another problem to deal with. When it rains, it pours, right?

 

[IanH]

File off the liner and sweat the lug back on the barrel. Make sure to relieve whatever misalignment stress pulled it loose or it will happen again.

 

[Elmhurst80]

File off the liner and sweat the lug back on the barrel. Make sure to relieve whatever misalignment stress pulled it loose or it will happen again.

That's the plan. Thought about removing what's left of the old one and making a new tenon, but it snapped off so clean I am just going to solder it back on and call it a day.

 

[Sidney Smith]

This is why builders should measure barrel thickness at the touchhole, then shorten if need be, the liner before install. I do this with all my builds and avoids issues down the road such as the one here.

 

[hanshi]

I've had to remove vent liners a couple of times over the years and shorten them from the inside. Doing that also offers the opportunity to open the vent cone a bit more.

 

[Elmhurst80]

Well it's all back together and now patch runs all the way to the breech plug perfectly fine. Thanks so much to everyone for their advice on this project!

 

[Joemolf]

Pull your breechplug and grind off the excess metal in the breech, problem solved. I did the same on my first white lightning install, I put it in full length and sawed off the lug on the outside before I realized how much of the liner was protruding into the barrel. I used needle file to remove the excess carefully and not get into the rifling. I did a little adjustment on the next build and used a Dremel with a very fine diamond bit which was easier and quicker.

I found this after I drilled for a white lightning liner on my last build, Dremel tool to the rescue again. I took this picture with a $9 eBay scope.

View attachment 293644




I have a gun that had the percussion drum extend to far into the bore for a jag to clear. The previous owner didn't know this so it sat with a puddle of water on the breechplug from cleaning. I caught this right off and pulled the breechplug to check things out. The breech was completely bridged over with rust.

This is from the breech to just past the drum as best as I could clean it out. The rest of the barrel is pristine and is very accurate. I shortened the drum and fixed the initial problem. Of course, I have a Teslong scope.

View attachment 293643

Like Eric says remove breach plug and carefully (need I say that) use a round burr other and grind down to the barrel. Done

 

[Rebel bull]

I have an old Hopkins&Allen/Numrich "El Cheapo" flint Kentucky kit-built with a Spanish barrel. The breechplug has a very long threaded bolster up inside the barrel with a roughly 1/4" hole drilled up its center to intersect with the vent, which is drilled through barrel and bolster. This makes for a long flamepath, unreliable ignition, and slow lock time. PFoooosshh-boom! (when it actually works, about 50%).
I figure to drill and tap for a White Lightning, thread it in, then mark its alignment, take it out, and Dremel its inboard end to match the contour of the bolster center hole. I normally clean the bolster center hole with a .22 wire brush and bore swab.
Your thoughts?

Long Drinkwater, with out seeing your particular barrel my thought is that I would after a through examination, line bore drill the barrel from the muzzle with a slightly larger drill bit into the flash channel. I have only had to do this on one barrel in 30 years of working on spanish guns it turned a gun with your problem into a gun that goes off every time with or without prime in the pan.

 

[longcruise]

It all pretty much concluded at post #27

 

[Long Drinkwater]

Long Drinkwater, with out seeing your particular barrel my thought is that I would after a through examination, line bore drill the barrel from the muzzle with a slightly larger drill bit into the flash channel. I have only had to do this on one barrel in 30 years of working on spanish guns it turned a gun with your problem into a gun that goes off every time with or without prime in the pan.

Rebel Bull, I just noticed your months-ago reply to my H&A kit Kentucky question. I fail to see how drilling the bolster center hole will make much difference. The next size drill up from quarter inch would only shorten the touch hole channel by a few thousands of an inch. The barrel is way heavier then seems appropriate for a Kentucky (spell  THICK), which makes for a pretty long flash path to the center hole in the breechplug (diagram #1 in Post #20, this thread, except mine doesnt have a touch hole liner). I wouldn't want to enlarge the center hole too much because I don't know how much "meat" there is in the breechplug's threaded bolster, and I'm worried that the thick wall "heavy" barrel might tempt my nephew (who will inherit) to get a little adventurous with his powder charges. I did "cone" the flashpath at the pan end, which improved reliability from 50% to circa 60%, but from there on in, it's a pretty narrow (and long) channel to the charge. OTOH, that thick heavy barrel shoots pretty accurate whenever I can corral my pan flinch. Love that bench rest.