doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Loose Rib Problem??

Just remember Leighton- with Homeless Joe- you have to keep reminding him-with screws: "Righty Tighty- Left Loosey"- sorta like the boss man with a crew of Polacks laying sod at the condo-every so often, you gotta remind them: Green side goes up, brown goes down!

Fox I see now why you prefer the pump gun.

...a SxS offers you two too many choices.

Keith,
The long rib is lifting where it meets the Rib extension above the chambers.

Stallones, Then the situation is probably not that serious as long as the rib is undamaged and there is not serious corrosion underneath between the barrels. If you are lucky, the old solder and any contaminants can be cleaned on the loose section, and then fluxed and re-soldered. If it's not possible to do a thorough cleaning job, the entire upper long rib may have to be removed and re-layed. I've done a couple small repairs but have not had to do a complete re-lay job. There are several methods of controlling the heat of the soldering torch to keep from loosening the bottom rib such as submerging the lower portion in water or placing steel rod in the bores to act as a heat sink. Even with a small repair, it would be very tough to clean the joint without damaging the bluing. I might consider J-B Weld on a cheap barn gun, but I ask those who suggest using it on a good double how they would feel about coming home from a shop or gun show with a new baby and finding it had such a repair. It's not irreversible, but it would sure complicate things.

Just my two cents, but when soldering such a repair, just wire the upper and lower ribs just like a complete re-lay job. It takes a little time to wire it properly, but it provides assurance that the opposite rib and the rib you're trying to solder doesn't move. Then you don't have to resort to efforts to keep the opposite rib cool. It really isn't hard to wire it and you'll move forward with confidence when you solder.

My thought on the whole subject is that it's possible there could be significant rust under the rib that eventually caused this problem. It could even be to the level that you might want to assess the safety of the barrels due to extreme rust. Probably not. But I'd want to know.

Heck, everyone seems to be concerned about bore pitting from a safety perspective and I've only seen one gun that I'd worry about and it had 1/8" diameter pits halfway thru the chamber walls (on the inside of the chamber). Yet when indications like a loose rib and corrosion creeping out from under a rib show themselves, a lot of people will choose to deny the potential for serious problems under the ribs because the repair is expensive. So, they go for the quick fix.

The one thing that I took away from Andy ____witz when Bruce had his fathers Win 21 redone on Shotgun Journal, was that Andy wouldn't do a quick fix on this kind of problem (Bruce's fathers gun had a loose rib) because he'd run across a number of guns that were damaged so much he wouldn't re-lay the ribs and have the guns resold to some poor unknowing sucker.

Well said, Chuck. And timely.

Great info Chuck. I'm now wondering if anyone here has encountered an otherwise nice condition gun that has had severe corrosion between the ribs. So far, I've gone by the largely circumstantial evidence of how bad the loose area looks and the overall condition of the gun. If it looks like it has been loose for some time and has the appearance of a gun that was "put away wet" or used in a salt marsh, etc., I would opt for rib removal for a closer look. Maybe that's not enough. Any thoughts?