lugs, lugs, lugs

I did everything right in dovetailing, upsetting and peening the lugs in place. I am just not warm and fuzzy about them teeny little lugs just sitting there.

I'd post a picture, but there is nothing remarkable about them. What I really wanna know is this...is it worth soldering them in place? I dunno of anybody doing or not doing that, and I judge the heat would be low enough not to affect the barrel?

The under lugs aren't really required to hold much. Some low temperature solder won't hurt and it won't be seen.

More importantly, once you have the holes in the under lugs, be sure elongate them along the axis of the barrel. This will prevent expansion of the barrel when shooting or contraction due to temperature from putting stress on the barrel to stock contact.

Tell ya what. Tale a piece of 3/8" Key Stock & cut a dovetail in it & put an underlug in it.

Now inlet that into a piece of Maple or Walnut wood & drill a hole thru it like you would
a stock. Now pin it with a #3 or #4 finish nail. Now drill a hole 1" right in front or
behind it &
run a wire or coat hanger thru it.

Now make a loop out of that coat hanger wire & pull that dovetail out of the wood.

I think you will be impressed with how strong it is. Usually will split the wood or
bend the nail out before the underlug comes out.

ALL it is doing is holding the wood up to the barrel...... The barrel weight is pushing
Down on the wood.

But if it really worries ya, solder them. I have built Dozens of rifles & never had
one come loose.

Keith Lisle

I always solder them in. It's easy, and effective. And I have seen old guns that have had their tenons pulled right out of the dovetails by shrinking wood. :wink: (oh, by the way, even though it apparently wasn't done 200+ years ago, I STRONGLY suggest slotting the tenons to allow for wood movement. Because it will. :wink: )

Birddog6 gave a good answer about dovetails strength. If soldering them makes you feel better than go ahead. It won't hurt anything.

I've used stapled underlugs on several guns and although they are very tight after swaging the barrel material around the pins I have soldered them just to make sure.

If I was going to make one suggestion though it would be this:

Wait until you have completed drilling and elongating the cross pin holes thru the underlug.

Why?

Because if you mess up one of them in the process you'll have to drive it out and install a new one.

If you've already soldered it in place, driving it out might be darn near impossible without working on a 470° F. or hotter barrel.

I soldered the tennons on my current build because I'm using a Southern Classic A-weight .50 caliber barrel and didn't feel confident putting a dovetail in the thin barrel wall in the middle. I figured if I was going to solder the middle lug in, I may as well do all three that way.

Solder, I know several top builders that do. Low temp from brownells....

On some slender waisted swamped bbls, the lug at the waist is just soldered on...no dovetailing as w/ the other three which aren't soldered. I use an upsetting chisel when doing the dovetails and after fitting the lug/dovetail, the raised metal is peened down for a tight press fit and filed smooth w/ the bbl. Doesn't need solder.....Fred

I solder them all on but I mostly use round smoothbored barrels. I don't solder the ones dovetailed to the octagon section. I've had pretty good luck with them staying put. The holes do need to be elongated like mentioned before. The wood will move enough to either bend a pin (1/16") or pull the tenon off. I have had that happen a few times. However, it is avoidable and fixable.

I never thought about soldering staked staples but in any event a staked staple is commonly used and holds and it sure seems a dovetailed lug has a lot stronger holding than a staked staple.
BTW staked staples are pretty cool. Amazing how well they hold.
There is a downside to soldering a lug because it must be driven out while the solder is in a liquid state. Soldering a staked staple- I see no downside in that.