Baker rifle and touch hole liner

[Frod733]

Greetings all,
I have a Baker rifle kit from TRS, and just getting around to start working on it. Thinking about installing a touch hole liner. However, the Baker has a round barrel. Anywone installed a liner on a Baker? White Lightning? Issues?

 

[Frod733]

Just took another look at the Baker barrel. This is a tapered flat on the lock side. That may help. Has anyone put a liner in a Baker. Would be interested to know.

 

[tenngun]

Flintlocks need a flat to put the lock against. Even a bess has that. I’ve added a liner to a round barrel with one flat without problem. The white lightning files smooth.

 

[Larks]

Hopefully Scota@457 might chime in here as he seems to have the most relevant recent experience on this topic. I hope he doesn’t mind me quoting him here but on another thread ( Anyone have a TRS Baker flintlock rifle? ) he pointed out:

The vent requires significantly notching the plug face. You can not use a liner easily. There is no way around putting the vent in the plug threads. I personally hate that but it is authentic.

Also, the drawings suggest that the V notch for the vent has been pre-cut into the plug but given what Scota@457 found with his builds I just had a look at mine with a (very cheap) borescope and I can’t see any indication of the V notch having been pre-cut in mine either

 

[Tobee]

I set my barrel back a bit which caused more work in that the geometry of the barrel, lock and hand guard and trigger changed. That was a huge struggle for me. The touchhole was drilled last with the plug in. I have a shallow V notch and if I'm not happy with the way the Baker shoots over time I'll install or to try to install a liner. If I recall Jess said the breech plug came to me torqued at 40 ft/pounds. But you should call him to confirm that and ask your questions. Jess and Jane were very helpful with my build. I found a pic taken just after I drilled the touch hole.

It's not that I don't want to help you Larks, but I've only built the Baker and two Pedersoli kits. Not qualified, imho.

 

[Scota@4570]

The plug picture above?? Be super careful of that. The chance of snapping a drill bit off with a side load is pretty good. It will also wallow the hole out oblong.

The reason I did not do a liner was as follows. The liner would be located half in the plug and half in the barrel. The barrel is relatively thinner than a long rifle or Hawken in that section. How many liner threads would get good purchase" Once the hypothetical liner was installed you would have to cut plug threads in half the liner. OK, so first the liner would need to be trimmed to the proper tap drill size. Then the liner would need plug threads cut in it. The tap would unscrew the liner as it cut. It would be impossible to unscrew the liner later without removing the plug.

If we go the other way around and try to cut liner threads in the plug we have another problem. You can not drill a round hole when half the material is not supported, so no dice there.

I though about making a new longer plug. You could then get good liner thread in to the side of the plug. The plug would then chambered to communicate the flame.

There is a guy who makes a tool to cut a cone on the inside of the barrel liner hole. IT has a thin shank, you spin the cutter from the outside.

I think the British military probably knew their business. I am pretty sure it is a non problem. If it is not reliable I will make a reverse liner. If I drill the outside of the touch hole with a larger bit but leave part of the original touch hole, that should do it.

This kind of thing is what you get with precarve stocks and parts cast from the originals. Yes, it is a copy, right down to the pits in the original parts. That is what TRS does. You have little latitude to modify anything. I would have prefer that the touch hole be 3/8" further foreword. I am OK with liberties taken to make a more practical rifle. But, the lock, trigger plate and trigger guard are all is already inlet. You can not do it.

Round barrel and lock?? You cut a flat on the barrel for the lock to rest against.

Round barrel hint. For cutting the dovetails all on the same axis you need a reference. After temporarily installing the barrel with the hooked breech, I used epoxy putty to glue an aluminum block to the barrel. I referenced the butplate screws, side plate and lock panels. IF you don't you will be guessing for the lugs and sights. I hate looking at crooked sights.

 

[Scota@4570]

I guess the next step is to shoot it.

 

[Tobee]

Yes, had my share of extracting broken drill bits and oblong holes in my short auto tech career! Learned not to ever let a drill bit flex. In case people are wondering what an amateur build looks like, here are a couple of pics. There are mistakes here and there and some wonky ones inside the stock. Not visible, thank goodness. The tang screw is offset due to setting back the barrel. Needed to do some creative work with a countersink bit.

Keep the awesome advice coming Scota, I'm getting the courage up to start on another TRS kit, I got a few months ago.

 

[Frod733]

Good day all. Restarting my TRS Bake rifle build. Per the above diagram from the TRS blueprint; It appears they indicate a "triangular" shaped cut out on the side of the breech plug. As you know, a cutout is needed as the vent, ideally located, hits about 1/3 back from the face of the breech plug.
Before I start filing, what have you folks found works best? Would like actual experience here with the Baker as it is so unique. Do you do a triangular shaped groove, cylindrical, ....." What have you found works best? What dimensions? Thanks much, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

Cylindrical, using sharp rat tail file - NO square corners (stress risers). I make them tapered towards the center of the BP whenever the plug needs one. I'd think you'd want at least a good 1/8" clearance between the face of the BP groove and the rearmost edge of the touch hole. But where barrel is set and lock is set ... might PRE-determine your placement.

 

[Frod733]

Cylindrical, using sharp rat tail file - NO square corners (stress risers). I make them tapered towards the center of the BP whenever the plug needs one. I'd think you'd want at least a good 1/8" clearance between the face of the BP groove and the rearmost edge of the touch hole. But where barrel is set and lock is set ... might PRE-determine your placement.

How deep do you make the channel/groove? How wide of a channel?

 

[M. De Land]

Greetings all,
I have a Baker rifle kit from TRS, and just getting around to start working on it. Thinking about installing a touch hole liner. However, the Baker has a round barrel. Anywone installed a liner on a Baker? White Lightning? Issues?

I picked up a flint hand gun some years ago made by Miruku of Japan for 20 bucks with a cracked stock ,no loading rod and missing a front sight. The bore was good so I milled out a new front sight, repaired the stock and the gun shoots like a house afire. It is .45 cal and has a rather cheap looking lock that makes a very good shower of sparks and is reliable of ignition.
This really is a head scratcher for me because along with the rather cheaply made lock it has an angled forward vent hole drilled in the barrel wall (no liner at all) so it inters ahead of the breech plug/shoulder interface. The angle of course makes for a longer flash channel.
Every thing I thought I knew about fast and reliable ignition performance is in this gun kind of stood on it's head and the gun just doesn't seem to care about my preconceived notions of what is proper for fast and reliable ignition. It fires reliably and fast in spite of my superior knowledge of why it shouldn't! I get the feeling the little gun is just flipping me off and it makes me chuckle!
When the time arises I see no reason why a liner for this gun cannot be made to thread in at the same angle from a home made, hardened drill and tap guide (I've made and used them before), as the original vent with the interior profiled and indexed to flush out with the bore as I am now doing the same with the straight in liners I am making .
This might be a very good solution for the Baker rifle problems talked about.
This eliminates the need to cut into the breech plug face and will foul less and clean up easier. The shoulder fit and integrity of the breech plug is what keeps fouling out of being gradually blown into the breech threads over time. When this is compromised by cuts in the plug face or thread nothing good comes of it.
The last picture is actually for a different thread that is some what related so I'll just add it onto this one. The picture is of two nipples , one burned out to where it began to give fliers in my groups and the other a new nipple of proper diameter.
Although a nipple orifice will usually be smaller than will a vent in a flint gun the erosive effect is precisely the same in nipple or vent as both occur from interior pressure venting out word not from pan flash or cap brisanance inward.
The nipples are usually harder than vents that are designed to be filed flush with the barrel flat the pan butts up to but still burn out. The eroded hole is not only larger it is also eroded irregular in shape which probably contributes to irregular ignition flash.
One could argue that comparing nipples to vents is apples to oranges but the differences in the mechanics of how they work are virtually the same.

 

[Frod733]

Looking for suggestions for a TRS Baker rifle. There is no question but that a groove/channel needs to be cut into the breech plug. Looking for what Baker owners have determined to work the best: dimensions, angle. On another post somewhere I saw a picture of a number of Pedersoli (NOT Baker) breech plugs. The channel in their breech plugs angled to the center of the face of the breech plug. Is this necessary? The only advantage I would see to this is that the angle of the fire from the pan, through the vent, and into the channel would not be as acute. And, hopefully improve ignition reliability. Thoughts?

 

[Larks]

Here’s what I did and it works as well as I could ever want it to. It is just as specified in the plan and there is no practical reason to vary from it - there was a lot more experience in establishing the design initially than we can ever expect to find in this era:

I drilled the touchhole first with the plug still in place to locate the centre of the V notch. I didn’t measure the depth but the mark from the drill shows precisely where you need to cut to clear the touchhole:

With the plug back in place a torch down the barrel shows a nice clear light through the V:

 

[Frod733]

Thanks Larks! That's what I had in mind. How is your ignition with this modification? BTW, while I am in an inquisitive mode, what ball size and patch thickness are you using for best accuracy? Thanks for the help! Merry Christmas!

 

[M. De Land]

Here’s what I did and it works as well as I could ever want it to. It is just as specified in the plan and there is no practical reason to vary from it - there was a lot more experience in establishing the design initially than we can ever expect to find in this era:

I drilled the touchhole first with the plug still in place to locate the centre of the V notch. I didn’t measure the depth but the mark from the drill shows precisely where you need to cut to clear the touchhole:

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With the plug back in place a torch down the barrel shows a nice clear light through the V:

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You do nice work with the parameters you were given but the design of the vent into the breech plug threads is "Piss Poor" no matter who's idea it was.
I can see fouling blown into the threads in the picture and where it has leaked onto the hook corner in the back.

 

[Larks]

It’s not a modification, it’s simply an integral part of the build and, as I said above, is according to the plan so there are no ignition problems and in all fairness I can’t imagine any reason why there would be any issues when built to plan.

I haven’t experimented with different ball sizes and have been getting suitable accuracy using .59 ball (which was suggested here on another thread). I’ve been using a variety of patches and can’t say that I’ve noticed any variation in accuracy but they include @50mm cleaning patches soaked in bore butter, Ox-Yoke Wonder lube patches (#5105) .50-.59cal and Eastern Maine shooting supplies premium lube patches .60 - .69cal.

I played with the paper cartridges but found they fouled the barrel too quickly and after just a few rounds it got harder and harder to load whereas I can get more comfortable and enjoyable time on the range using the lubed patches.

 

[Larks]

You do nice work with the parameters you were given but the design of the vent into the breech plug threads is "Piss Poor" no matter who's idea it was.

I’ve no doubt that you’d know much better than I do as this is my first and only flintlock build so far, but I’d be very interested to know why.

 

[M. De Land]

I’ve no doubt that you’d know much better than I do as this is my first and only flintlock build so far, but I’d be very interested to know why.

I explained it in an earlier thread but will again for you. The inner shoulder made for the breech plug to ab-butt is not only a stop for index it is also a seal between the bore and the breech plug threads so that gas pressured fouling and water from cleaning does not migrate into the threads over time and use.
When this seal is compromised by cutting into it the pressure from powder burn blows fouling into the threads even when sealed by grease or anti seize dope over time.
V threads load and center to one side even fit very well and are not water or gas tight unless they draw up on a well fit interior barrel shoulder which will seal them off to hot gas and water.
When the notch is made in the breech plug face one cuts both into the threads and shoulder thus eliminating the circumferential shoulder seal opening both to fouling migration from breech pressure .
Fouling over time corrodes threads and compromises strength. Most folks never remove a breech plug ever but I have done quite a few and most have some fouling blown into the threads. The ones with a good breech shoulder fit usually have very minimal corrosion from pressure fouling migration and will come out quite easily.
I've even seen one or two with a copper washer fit into the shoulder to seal them up. My guess is this was done because when the plug was fit it didn't show complete seal around the circumference when checked with marking fluid.

 

[Larks]

Thanks for going to the trouble of explaining that, it is indeed quite interesting.

I’m not sure that there is any sort of "inner shoulder" for the breech plug in the Baker barrel other than where the tapping for the plug thread ends. A borescope shot that I took early on to see if the V had already been cut (as indicated on the plan) suggests that there’s nothing present that would seal the threads, particularly in the rifling grooves, other than the potential quality of the thread itself...???

Although the plug does have a narrower end than the thread, I’m thinking that at some point the thread would open into the barrel, particularly if it happens to open into a rifling groove. Does that sound feasible?