What's wrong with my layout?

[WonkyEye]

Why do I have so much wood below the lock?

This is a practice piece of pine that I will inlet and rough carve as practice before I get into the fancy maple.

From top to bottom:
- .50 B weight barrel , 1" thick at the breech
- 3/16" web (a little thick I know but I wanted to leave a little leeway for the lock bolts for my first build)
- Chambers Dale Johnson lock, I disassembled it to layout exactly where the flash hole relative to the pan, and front lock bolt should go. That determined where the tail wound up.
- 3/8" ramrod hole
- Davis #4 triggers

I have what looks like a ton of wood under the lock to me? What can I move and how?

 

[BoomStick]

Looks to me like the front of the lock is too high, or the tail is too low. Tail and the farthest point of the front should be level.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

If this is your first build I strongly recommend that you get all your parts together and do a full scale drawing of how they all fit together. A piece of meat wrapping paper works great for this. The barrel is what determines how all the other parts fit together. It determines where the touch hole or the nipple is located which determines the position of the lock which determines where the trigger goes which determines where the butt plate goes and so on. Once the lock is located you can locate the trigger plate which will give you the depth of the stock. Of course the ramrod hole and barrel lugs factor into this as well. A full scale drawing will make all of this a lot more obvious to you and eliminate some bad mistakes. Plus it's kind of fun to do.

 

[brushyspoons]

Those look like RE Davis triggers. The trigger blades come way taller than you'll need for most any rifle. I have a set on my desk and they're almost 5/8" from the base of the plate to the top of the trigger blade. The original set triggers I've handled are closer to 3/8" to 5/16" tall under the sear. Not sure if that's the height you need to subtract from your wrist to get where you want to be, but it should get you moving in the right direction at least. I've never held a Dale Johnson in my hands so I could be way off with the following assessment, but the curvature of the lock plate towards the wrist looks pretty extreme to me.

 

[billraby]

Brushyspoons got it. I add about 1/8 inch below the ramrod then cut the trigger bars to fit.

 

[Hatchet-Jack]

The tail of your lock is angled down too low. Ideally it should be centered on the wrist. This is making the wrist too tall which is why you have too much wood below the lock. Correct that line and your triggers will move up.

As Crisco said make a full layout on large paper. If the DJ lock doesn't match the angle of the wrist you want you might need to go with a different lock.

Here's one of my builds with a DJ lock and Davis #4 triggers.

 

[WonkyEye]

Those look like RE Davis triggers. The trigger blades come way taller than you'll need for most any rifle. I have a set on my desk and they're almost 5/8" from the base of the plate to the top of the trigger blade. The original set triggers I've handled are closer to 3/8" to 5/16" tall under the sear. Not sure if that's the height you need to subtract from your wrist to get where you want to be, but it should get you moving in the right direction at least. I've never held a Dale Johnson in my hands so I could be way off with the following assessment, but the curvature of the lock plate towards the wrist looks pretty extreme to me.

Yes, it is Davis triggers and they are very high like you said. I knew I had to grind them, and accounted for about 1/16" removed but there is still a ton of meat, I could probably remove another 1/4". Do I need to be worried about removing too much mass from the rear trigger and having it bounce off the sear bar instead of tripping it?

Regarding the tail being too low, can I taper the web a bit thicker near the lock so I can drop the front lock bolt a bit, which would raise the tail?

Would it be wrong to raise the touch hole a tiny bit, like 1/32" instead of putting it right in the middle of the barrel flat? Assuming the front lock bolt stays in the same place , the pan would have to move up to meet the new touch hole location. That would move the rear of the lock up, which would also help with the overall thickness..

 

[WonkyEye]

The tail of your lock is angled down too low. Ideally it should be centered on the wrist. This is making the wrist too tall which is why you have too much wood below the lock. Correct that line and your triggers will move up.

As Crisco said make a full layout on large paper. If the DJ lock doesn't match the angle of the wrist you want you might need to go with a different lock.

Here's one of my builds with a DJ lock and Davis #4 triggers.
View attachment 363543
View attachment 363545

Thanks, that's a huge help, especially with the same components

 

[rich pierce]

I don’t think it’s too thick. I agree with the lock tail placement suggestions.