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barrel lug loose

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Joined
Jul 25, 2008
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Location
Wilrijk - Belgium
Hello all,
In the previous topic "I'm about done" there is talk of "take your barrel pins out and make sure the lugs are slotted"...
A bit further one says: "... relieving them parallel with the barrel"...
I do not understand this, and would like to know more about it - and what the purpouse is...
I went to inspect the barrel of my Pedersole Frontier. The barrel is fixed to the stock with screws that go through the underside of the stock into a dovetailed piece underneath the barrel. These screws also fasten the small pipes that hold the ramrod in place.
While inspecting the barrel I found that the middle dovetail under the barrel is loose. I can easely wiggle it a mm or two ... Should I faten the dovetailed piece with hammer and punch or leave it loose? I have no idea if this matters at all?
 
Let me start from the beginning as I attempt to clarify for you in case somebody in the future runs across this thread.

Barrels in many traditional rifles are attached to the stock with pins. These pins, as has been noted go through pieces of metal (called "tenons" by some folks) attached to the underside of the barrel. The pieces may be dovetailed to the barrel, they may be "staked" to small, shallow holes drilled into the barrel, or they may be simply soldered to the barrel.

Some folks dill through these pieces of metal using a drill bit that is just large enough to allow the pins to go through the hole. The pins slide through, but just barely. The pins go through holes in the wooden stock, pass through the metal tenons, and when in place rest in the tenon and the wood simultaneously, thus fastening the barrel to the wooden stock.

The problem is..., the wooden stock is a natural material, and sometimes moisture, from rain or simply from heavy humidity causes the stock to swell. Sometimes the swelling is linear, along the line of the wood grain, running parallel to the barrel. IF this happens, and the stock is very tightly held by the pins in the tenons.., the swelling will cause the wood to bind on the pins, and the stock will crack.

So to avoid this possibility, most folks open the holes for the pins into an oval shape, parallel to the barrel, just a tiny bit, to relieve any future stress. A tiny "needle file" is often used to open the holes toward the muzzle and toward the breech.

In your case, and I have owned a rifle like yours in the past, it is probably not a concern, unless the piece can be easily removed from the barrel by finger pressure. If it can be easily removed or if it can drop free from the barrel without using a tool to remove it, then you may want to tighten the dovetail slot to better retain the part. In your case there may be a risk that the part may fall out and be lost when you remove the barrel from the stock, but the use of the screws through the ramrod pipes does not put the same stress on your stock that pins might.

I hope my answer makes sense.

LD
 
artist rendering:
lug.jpg
 
Thank you both ...
You explained this quit clearly! I wrongly thought that it would impede with accurasy of the gun, but the problem lay in the possible cracking of the stock...
 
There are no holes to elongate on your rifle. The only problem I see is some difficulty lining up the loose lug so you can get the screw in. When you snug up the screw, the lug should stay put. You can also peen the dovetail material against the lug to increase the friction and then tap it into place with a hammer and a brass driver.

You do not need to remove the stock every time you clean it. Track of the Wolf sells flushing equipment. You must take the lock off and then clamp a flush nipple over the flash hole or use another design where you remove the vent liner and screw in a threaded nipple, Both have a small poly tube that you put into a bucket of soapy water and pump the cleaning solution through the barrel with a cleaning patch on your ramrod.

I use the screw-in nipple because my vent liner is not drilled square in the center of the barrel flat and the o-ring on the clamping tool won't seal. The vent liner thread is M8x1.25.
 
"Flushing" is really not a required practive, one can simply let the barrel soak in your favorite cleaning solution for a bit while the nipple/vent is plugged then alternating damp and dry patches to clean then lube with the anti rust lube of your choice, many have used such a method for 40 years or more with no ill effects to the barrel, many gadgets are made with much more benifit for the vendors than the shooters, nothing wrong with these gadgets they are just one of those modern things that are not needed but thatwe are lead to believe that they are and will do such a better job, many try to stay more with the old ways for others it does not matter.
 
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