Unusual Breech, What to Do

This is going to be long winded so bare with me. I've owned this gun many years and match worthy accuracy. Douglas XX .45. Beautiful rifle too built by a master artisan who has now passed so I can't ask him. The drum is VERY far back on this gun and I had always assumed the drum was centered at the face if not even behind the breech face with a little fire channel filed in the breech. However, the drum threads for the nipple and clean out screw are worn slap out and I was in the process of replacing the drum when I saw this and had a heart attack. The breech face appeared to be BEHIND the drum hole completely.....maybe. 25" from the end of barrel. I quickly counted my blessings that it had never went boom in my face. However, ran a .45 scraper down, not even visible. Hmm.....ran a .36 scraper down....felt a lip then it extended all the way past the drum and bottomed.

So, based on my measurements it is breached about. 75" deep then the plug is milled around .36"+ for another half inch to the drum. My biggest question is why? I do have an underhammer bench gun with a coned breech and nipple drilled into back of cone.....but this one blows my mind. Ironically, never had a misfure or hang fire in years of shooting it, but that breech has never been scraped all the way to bottom even once???

Is this something more common than I realized? This gun was built in the 80's. Do I install my new drum and go back to shooting or should I be concerned at all. Thanks.

Situation normal. Fit new drum go shoot.

Really.....I've never come across a milled breech like this other than some of the oddball production breeches that border on being patent breeches. But thank you for the reassurance my favorite capper isn't a total loss.....lol

I still dont understand how I've never had a misfure though.....I bet I've shot this gun 8-10 years packing fouling down there Now that I know to use a .36 scraper I'll probably have one day one now

I think the need to brush out the breech area on These types of breech as well as the typical tc breech is less important than typically thought. I've been shooting TC, Lyman, Traditions and CVA rifles for quite a while and have never needed to extend any type of cleaning tool into the breech areas.

I think if the normal cleaning with water process is done it does an adequate job.

jonboyb said:

Really.....I've never come across a milled breech like this other than some of the oddball production breeches that border on being patent breeches...

Click to expand...

This approach to installing a drum and nipple was not that uncommon back in the 1970's. Green River Rifle Works and later Oregon Trail Riflesmiths used it on their Leman rifles. Below is a cutt-away of a sample breech made by the late Lloyd Helms for OTR from his experience at GRRW.

I use a hose on nipple and a tight patch to power flush all the away through. It gets everything real clean.

I've seen pictures of an 18th century jaeger breech done this way. Apparently it's a euro thing.