I built my hook so now when I close the gun with just barrel and receiver the lever is 1/4" right of center, but when I put on my forearm iron it is 1/2 " right center and I have to physically move the lever to the left to get it in the 1/4" position. Barrel and receiver only, very tight, there is no light between fence and chamber, the space between barrels and flats is equal .006 on both sides. With forearm iron on tight, no light but one side excess of .006 the other 000. The ejector on left side is broken to full forward. I'm thinking my shim is ok, but must fix ejector and believe gun now ready to shoot. True?

This sounds like an amateur attempt at rejointing. Lever should rest the same whether fore end is on or off the gun. Also from your description the hook shim axis isn't parallel with the barrel flats. Personally I wouldn't fire the gun what ever maker it is. Probably best to let a professional re do it. I'm sorry if I upset you , but you asked. CB

I agree with CB that the jointing should be done initially without reference to the forend.
Pooch, if I understand you correctly the barrels appear correctly jointed without the FE on but tighter when the FE is fitted.
I don't know what gun you are discussing, and therefore I may be incorrect, but with a normal British S/S, the forend only defines the distance between action knuckle and rear of the FE loop. It would in fact draw the barrels AWAY from the action, not increase the bite.
As CB says, it would appear that the forend is twisting the barrels on the action which in turn is causing the increase in bite.
Without examining the gun in person it is impossible to say how this has come about but I suspect the CB is right and the fitting on the hook/hinge pin is skew, allowing the gun to appear correctly jointed until the forend squares everything up.
I'm not sure what you mean by the ejector sentence, but I certainly wouldn't mess with the ejector until you have the jointing sorted or you could land up chasing a series of problems round in circles.
I wouldn't go as far as sending it off to someone. Try and sort out the issue first, it's the only way to learn anything unless you have a mentor handy!
Have fun.

A quarter inch right of center sounds excessive to me, much less one half inch. You have a way to go. I would not change the ejector or "smoke in" the receiver until I was sure I had correctly diagnosed the problem. Good luck! Steve

I believe the gun to be a bit of smoke from being joined properly. One of the ejectors is extended and pressing against the fences. The barrels being tight against the fences now must rotate around the X axis instead of the traditional Y axis, this rotation is cocking the dolls head and restraining the return of the release lever. I believe the problem of my broken ejector must now be addressed.

I was instructed to remove ejectors/extractor from the barrels when smoking the breech face for fit. It makes sense to elimate that variable when checking breech end of barrels against the standing breech. FWI

The way the forearm affects the lever is ,since the barrels are set back,they pull the forearm back against the reciever,keeping them from "snaping closed"freely.This has little to nothing to do with the fit of the barrels to the reciever.The correction would be where the forearm bears on the barrel lug.I would only worry about this during final fit up, it may partially work itself out in "USE".For sure, don't mess up good barrel/reciever fit,trying to work it out.
Mike