Gunsmithing

 

This is the lock on my Tradegun. Take a look at where the flash hole into the barrel is. See how far forward it is in relation to the pan? The gun doesn't fire well, it'll go off sometimes but really just when it feels like it.

Previously sometimes it wouldn't even flash but I polished the frizzen which had a big gouge in it and also polished the pan. I'm kind of proud about how the pan came out, its really smooth. That made a big difference in getting the priming powder to go off but didn't really help the gun to fire.

So I decided the barrel needed to be better aligned with the bottom of the pan. This is kind of a big ask, either the barrel needed to move back or the lock needed to move forward. I decided it would be easier to move the barrel back, the inletting is less complicated and it won't leave as obvious gaps.

I don't have any pictures of the work in progress but I used my Proxxon rotary tool with a variety of milling bits to take out wood a little bit at a time. A lot of what I took out actually appears to be epoxy. It looks like the original builder of this gun might have moved the barrel forward, for what purpose I have no idea...

Here's where we're at. Notice how the touch hole is much more centered. I ended up taking out way too much material from behind the barrel but I've got barrel bedding epoxy I can use to fill in the gaps. I did that when I fitted the new stock onto my .300 Savage and that's held up perfectly. I kind of want to shoot the gun before I do the reinforcement but I don't want the recoil to break the stock. I might go fire a couple shots with just a powder charge and a wad to hold it in. If it'll go off reliably I'll know that my changes did the trick.