I have a recently acquired A&H mountain rifle. I have noticed looking down the bore the powder drum protrudes into the barrel about half way across? This makes cleaning behind the protrusion impossible with a rod.. it appears the protrusion is a ways from the breech face looking down the bore with a bright light. Is this something to be concerned about if I put the barrel in the shower and pump hot water through the drum and nipple?
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Clean past powder drum protrusion
- Thread starter rbeave
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Sam squanch
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It might work. But it needs to be corrected. I had a target pistol with the same problem, I never could understand why the breech area would rust after a thorough cleaning. The culprit was the “ patent breech” was actually just a fancy screw in drum! And the threaded part stuck out a good eighth inch into the bore! And it had LEFT hand thread, so I damaged the barrel and drum when I tried to remove it!
Ouch. Who was the maker?
Thereis no benefit to having the threaded end of the drum protruding into the barrel. The threaded end of the drum should terminate at the inside surface of the bore. Cleaning equipment should pass the drum entrance to the breach.
Is this a factory gun or did someone convert it from flint to percussion by installing a drum & nipple arrangement and a change of locks? Removing the drum and a few of the protruding threads might solve the problem, but sometimes it is difficult to re-index the drum so the hammer lines up with the nipple.
ronaldrothb49
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Someone was too lazy to do the job correctly. The threads on the drum should not protrude into the bore. You definitely got a problem there.
This will happen in the breech if you can't clean past the drum. Pull the breech plug, cut off the excess drum in the barrel or pull the drum and cut it off. The drum should shoulder up against the barrel and go back in correctly aligned.
Sam squanch
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Chiappa le page- NOT the pedersoli la page!
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Forget about pulling the drum. You don't have one. You need to pull the breach plug(not an easy task) and see what's going on.
Sam squanch
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Trust me!!! It may look like a patent breech- but it’s NOT! I’m just talking about the chiappa le page. I don’t know anything about the original posters gun! On some guns, the drum( or whatever) may partially thread INTO the breech plug face. So I would unscrew the drum first.
Unscrew the drum as it may e threaded into the breech plug. Shorten the threads to the depth equal to the barrel walls and reinstall the drum.
Sam squanch
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While you are at it- clean the threads well and wrap a little white teflon tape around the drum stem , seals it and makes it easier to remove down the road later.
What is the best method for removing the drum? This barrel is made in Spain if that means anything. I assume its a normal right hand threaded apparatus. The drum is round. I can see the ramrod tip through the opening in the end of the drum. It leaves around 1/4" of chamber and the breech plug face that cannot be reach with the jag on. The ramrod without a jag will slip by
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The best way I can think of to properly fit a drum or vent liner is to finish off the inside end flush with the same profile as the bore so there are no corners, flats or voids to hold/catch fouling keeping it from the cleaning brush and patch.
This can be accomplished by profiling, fitting and indexing either or pulling the breech plug and boring, reaming or grinding them flush. I like to fit them flush to groove diameter personally so there is no rifling land ends sticking up into the bore making blind corners at land ends against the vent or drum body.
This is also the reason I always fit the lock, pan and vent at least .250 ahead of the breech face/interior shoulder contact when not using a patent breech system.
Actually I think it a good idea to chuck ream the bottom of the bore to smooth bore to just ahead of drum or vent about 5/16s inch ahead of the breech face. This method cuts a 45 degree angle lead into the lands ahead and is not enough smooth bore length to loose a patch off a cleaning jag and leaves nothing to hold fouling.
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I ended up finding a solution... well sort of.
It was not nearly as critical as I was initial thinking it was. I filed one flat on the powder drum wide enough to fit the jaw of a 7" knipex pliers wrench. I ended up choosing to flatten the area threaded for the nipple. A little bit of squeezing and turning and the drum came right out. I shortened the threads on the nipple to make sure it did not set to deep after. It seemed like less work filing the hole flat and was hoping for a better seal between nipple and powder drum.
The threads of the powder drum only extended into the chamber around 1/100 of an inch. Just enough to not let the jag through. The powder drums threaded base is much closer to the breach face than it appeared. Actually so close that the threads cut into the breech face which is what made it appear to protrude so far into the barrel. A little file work on the drum and all good to go. I will more than likely order a new drum and nipple for the rifle just to have. If for some reason this ever seems to fail. The drum re-indexed fine on the barrel but I did not crank it down unholy tight
It was not nearly as critical as I was initial thinking it was. I filed one flat on the powder drum wide enough to fit the jaw of a 7" knipex pliers wrench. I ended up choosing to flatten the area threaded for the nipple. A little bit of squeezing and turning and the drum came right out. I shortened the threads on the nipple to make sure it did not set to deep after. It seemed like less work filing the hole flat and was hoping for a better seal between nipple and powder drum.
The threads of the powder drum only extended into the chamber around 1/100 of an inch. Just enough to not let the jag through. The powder drums threaded base is much closer to the breach face than it appeared. Actually so close that the threads cut into the breech face which is what made it appear to protrude so far into the barrel. A little file work on the drum and all good to go. I will more than likely order a new drum and nipple for the rifle just to have. If for some reason this ever seems to fail. The drum re-indexed fine on the barrel but I did not crank it down unholy tight
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smoothshooter
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Take the drum off and file off the excess. Dress down any sharp edges until they are slightly rounded. Reinstall.
Do it a little at a time. Trial and error.
