Stan,
Instead of welding the hook, have you tried replacing the hinge pin?
Mike
The pressing job right now is a set of 32" NOS Fox barrels that had never been fitted to a gun by Fox. A file or stone had never had never touched the hook when I got them. Chambers cut, chokes cut, rib matted, ejectors fitted, barrels roll stamped, never blued. I sent them off to a renowned doublegun smith out west to have them fitted to a Fox that has already got a set of 30" barrels. He ruined the hook and when it came back it had maybe 50% contact with the breech face on the right barrel, and none on the left. The hook cut was not circular, but in a long oval, just screwed up.
After some time, I sent it to another doublegun man who advertises that he fits barrels to actions. He welded the hook and "fitted" them. When I got them back there was the same problem. Right barrel on face, left barrel off by at least .003", top to bottom. A good Fox hinge pin is right on .375". A good, clean .375" drill was pressed into the hook and compared to a machinist's rule laid snugly cross the breech face of the barrels. It revealed that the hook was filed way out of square, resulting in the problem. It has to be corrected by welding, or it will never fit properly. You can easily see that the cut on the hook is canted.
I'm sick and tired of paying people who claim they can do something and can't. When they send me a mess like this, I won't even call them and tell them it's screwed up because they will want me to send it back so they can do it over, and that ain't happening. They've already showed me what they are capable of.
I'm going to learn to do this myself, and am making preparations to get the necessary equipment to do it. I plan to build a fixture to hold a set of barrels on a mill table, so that I can set them up with a proper sized pin. Then, I will take them out and weld the hook without moving a thing on the fixture. Next, I will replace the barrels in the fixture, put in a plunge cutting mill, make a few thousandths adjustment to the location, and make a plunge cut to cut a perfect circular cut, leaving just a tiny bit to be removed by file or stone to smoke it in properly.
Thanks for the suggestion, Der Ami. But, in this particular case, that's not the issue. I appreciate the question, tho'.
SRH
