Barrel Tang Thickness

[Pete G]

While inletting a tang it occurred to me that we are removing a lot of wood from one of the weaker areas of the stock. What is the minimum tang thickness that you use? It seems to me that all of the commercial breech plugs are overly thick in this area, probably to allow for adjustment.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
I am not sure wood strength is an issue because on most rifles, the wood will be sandwiched between the steel tang and steel or brass trigger plate. In my opinion, of more importance is if you counter bore your tang screw rather than just cut a countersink. Counter boring is better because the bolt head is thicker, can support a deeper slot, and can be filed to adjust for any angle of the bolt relative to the tang if it is not perpendicular. All of those features are more difficult with a counter sunk head. The tang needs to be thicker for counter boring, probably 3/16" thick is about ideal. If you are just countersinking the bolt, the tang can be thinner but you still need enough thickness to keep strength around the bolt hole. There are quite a few old guns on which the tang broke at the hole because the tang was too thin. I would not go thinner than about 1/8" at the hole. The tail can be thinner as it usually is when the tang is profiled into the wrist of the stock.

dave

 

[billraby]

The tang is stronger than the wood.

 

[Vaino]

My tang thickness varies and more steel is filed off just behind the breech so the bolster won't produce a straight length of wrist which looks very awkward.....Fred

 

[Col. Batguano]

That is interesting that you also thinned up the back part of the plug tab as well, but were sure to cut a relief hole at the apex at the angle so that the whole tang wouldn't crack and break off when you bend it. Do you use heat when you are bending a tang, or do you do it cold?

Most plugs as you get them have wide and broad sweeps to them from the plug tab to the tang. If you leave all that in there, you will have a hard time bending the tang close enough to the breech to eliminate the breech hump, leaving you the only alternative but to file away all that metal, which might leave you a tang that's a bit on the thin side near the breech.

Dave, Could you please post some pictures of how counter-boring works? With a plain countersink the tang bolt location has to be determined by the tangent of the breech tang curve so as to intercept the trigger plate at the correct location. Get it wrong and one of the edges of the bolt is going to be a bit proud to the tang.
Your method sounds like tang bolt location isn't as critical.

 

[Vaino]

I bend all the tangs cold and have never had one crack. Yes....that "breech hump" really destroys the look of the wrist.....Fred

 

[dave_person]

Hi David,
I dscribe it here: http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showpost.php?post/1700233/

dave

 

[tenngun]

On my first build I couldn’t get a breech plug. My dad was a very good welder. I got a bolt and between me and my dad we made a plug with a tang about an 1/8 inch thick. It was as long as the wrist with two bolts going to the long trigger plate it worked real well I shot the gun hard for about ten years and gave it to a friend, it never gave me any problem. I carried it from Grand junction to fort Bridger, living out side for a couple of months. Then a few years later from fort Bridger to Yellowstone and back to Pinedale Wyoming. Again several months of living hard.