Ultra hi

[jdw276]

Picked up a very well loved 45 cal flintlock ultra hi? Has the large brass splint on the stock. Externally well loved, barrel is well maintained. Man those sights are low on the barrel! No grief please, i got it for $25 as a learning rifle for the grandsons to do maintenance and cleaning learning on.

So question, breech plug, easy to remove? Recommended? Why you ask, the touch hole is drilled with no liner. I have no real issues shooting it with misfires etc. Well trigger needs some more, lots more tlc. The breech plug covers about a third of the touchhole and i was thinking to remove the breech plug and shortened it a turn, turn pls a half to uncover the rest of the touch hole to the powder. Another option is to drill the touch hole and install a liner i believe.

Recommendations? Shoot it as is?

 

[waarp8nt]

I would leave the breech plug alone unless you have full access to a machine shop. I recently removed a plug from an AMR shotgun because the flashole touched the breech plug and was drilled at a 45 degree angle to the barrel. Only to find out the barrel was drilled and tapped way too deep with a thin area to allow the lock to set against the barrel. Ended up removing an inch and a half of barrel and had to make a new breech plug. If the gun fires I wouldn't mess with the breech plug unless it was truly a safety issue. The plug needs to touch the barrel on the outer edge and against the inner edge of the rifling, so removing a little plug would only make the barrel unsafe by exposing threads near the rifling creating a thin spot in the barrel. Below are pictures of what I delt with on the AMR.

As far as the trigger goes, do what you can to make it better, just don't over polish to lock internals to make them unsafe. Removing metal can be easy, adding it back can be somewhat more difficult. A light polish of the contact points of the lock internals can go a long way to making the trigger pull better.

 

[jdw276]

I would leave the breech plug alone unless you have full access to a machine shop. I recently removed a plug from an AMR shotgun because the flashole touched the breech plug and was drilled at a 45 degree angle to the barrel. Only to find out the barrel was drilled and tapped way too deep with a thin area to allow the lock to set against the barrel. Ended up removing an inch and a half of barrel and had to make a new breech plug. If the gun fires I wouldn't mess with the breech plug unless it was truly a safety issue. The plug needs to touch the barrel on the outer edge and against the inner edge of the rifling, so removing a little plug would only make the barrel unsafe by exposing threads near the rifling creating a thin spot in the barrel. Below are pictures of what I delt with on the AMR.

As far as the trigger goes, do what you can to make it better, just don't over polish to lock internals to make them unsafe. Removing metal can be easy, adding it back can be somewhat more difficult. A light polish of the contact points of the lock internals can go a long way to making the trigger pull better.

View attachment 129218View attachment 129217

Thanks for the guidance. IF I do anything i will probably drill out the touch hole and put a liner in. That will remove some of the breech plug but only to create more of a powder channel. Not cutting back the plug removing a complete thread. Then i will use all the guidance given in the breech plug scrapping thread to keep it clean. That may make it tougher to clean however with just a drill bit size powder channel cut.

Aa to the trigger, it has been shot so much the trigger bar had a bow wore in it and the metal was so soft. Polished and leveled out with a shrapening stone. The lock itself was crud filled and needed a little more inletting to not hit the stock wood. It is better, not the nine pounds plus i started with. Got a ways to go but baby steps.

To the 90 viewers so far, thanks for reading.

 

[Steel Hayes]

@jdw276
I just ended up tweaking the lock on mine, one of my favorite rifles to shoot.
Enjoy yours

 

[ronaldrothb49]

You might want to check out what is supposed to be the breech plug. I have an Ultra Hi barrel that I replaced for a guy years ago. What was supposed to be a breech plug was a rod that was welded in place with the tang welded to the end of the barrel. No threads at all in the breech. The rod extended about 3/4" into the breech. I cut it off at the end and the drill out for the breech extended another 1/4" from there. Also had terrible run out to the bottom angled flat on the left side. Probably why he could never get the thing to shoot worth a dam.