Would a stock swell after some time?

[bob243]

I finally got around to shortening the length of threads powder drum on a build I finished in Sept. (stuck too far into the bore and was causing fouling issues)

When removing the lock which when I put together had a great fit, not tight, but not sloppy, it took quite a bit of effort to remove it like if the lock mortise got smaller. Also when putting it all back together, I had to re-drill the hole for the lock screw. Even with the lock out, I could not push it back through the hole. The barrel is still in the same spot, the hole was still perfectly round, just a few drill numbers smaller.

:idunno: Any ideas?

 

[Mike Brooks]

Probably shrunk with the heat on and low humidity of winter. Very common problem.

 

[Zonie]

bob243
If quite a bit of oil, either finishing oil or just gun oil, got into these areas it will make the wood swell.

As wood swells, holes and mortises get smaller in size.

That could be what you are seeing.

When folks drill their clearance holes some of them use a drill bit that is the same as the screw body. For example, if their using a #10 screw they may be tempted to use a 3/16 inch drill for the clearance hole.

Because drills sometimes drill slightly oversize, especially in wood when the bit is run thru the hole several times, "to clean out the chips" that can make the hole slightly larger than .187.

This may seem to be a good clearance hole for a #10 screw but because a #10 screw can be .190 in diameter it ends up being a "line to line" or "push" fit.

IMO, clearance holes should be from 1/64 ti 1/32 larger than the screw.
For clearance drills try using the following sizes:

#6 (.138) screw = 5/32 (.156) clearance drill
#8 (.164) screw = 3/16 (.187) clearance drill
#10 (.190) screw = 13/64 (.203) clearance drill.

As for lock and trigger mortice, I usually scrape them to fit after finishing the stock is complete.

 

[bob243]

Thanks for the info, I ended up re drilling the #8 screw clearance with a #12 drill (.189), based on the numbers from Zonie, looks about the right size.

As far as oil on the stock, my only explanation is I usually wipe the soot from the perc caps off that area with wonderlube, which actually brings up something else I found.

A few years back, I bought a few tubs of the version of wonderlube that EMSS sold, (around the time where oxyoke was hard to come by) and from some other things that just didn't make sense to me started occurring. I am thinking the water content was too high in it. The biggest tell tale sign of it was the iron on this and another gun I shoot allot, After I would clean it up for the day before I would put it away, I rubbed down all the browned iron parts with this stuff, next week I would go get it and it was have all tiny rust particles on it as if I didn't stop the browning process completely. After some time of trying to figure out what I did wrong, I quit doing that and haven't have rust since. Oddly (or luckily) it didn't cause any kind of rust in the bore or on shiny metal :surrender: