doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com single shot action castings on ebay

I don't know what odd combinations of terms I was putting
into ebay's search engine on Sunday, but this came up

Westley Richards 1897 action casting

The seller has a few others listed as well. I think if Whitey were alive he would have either jumped on these or talked me into getting one.

I don't think I have the expertise to tackle projects like this, but if someone here does, I wish you the best and hope you will post pictures.

I do not know the seller. I am only doing this because I hope to be of service to the forum and hope that the members here will share any knowledge they have about them.

The seller is Rodney Storie. His castings have been available from several different sources over the years. They are generally of good quality and, in most cases, include drawings.

The Borchardt kit includes waterjet cut flat parts, simplifying the machining for this action.

I believe Rodney recently retired from teaching, and mentioned he might be getting back into casting again. Not sure if these are newly cast, or some he had stored away from before he stopped casting?

I wonder is he going to do the Jeffrey or the Webley 1902 falling blocks ?

Bonny, send him a PM. Talk to him on the phone, really a nice guy. I talked to him earlier this week.

Years ago I bought one of Rodney Stories Farquharson casting sets. I was na�ve enough to believe that if in the golden years of yesterday a man with a hand file and good window light could create an action then I was surely up to the task. What I forgot in that assessment is that talent, supervision and a multi-year apprenticeship were also required to produce that action.

After working on the casting set for a while and coming to nothing good, I took a single shot metalsmithing class offered by Trinidad State Junior College in Colorado. I had a very talented and patient instructor. About 7 years later after mostly 2 week long summer courses I finished the action, barreled it and am now close to finishing the stock. Then lots of metal polishing (again!).

The things that I learned along the way are:
1. It is not a job for an amateur unless you have a pet metalsmith to guide you
2. The hardest part was fitting the breech block because of the
taper involved. I was making no satisfactory headway so my instructor arranged for the mortise to be cut by an EDM wire technique and a new breech block to fit done the same way. The new wire cut mortise and breech block represented a huge break through for me.
3. You really need a vertical mill and a lathe. A drill press is not sufficient.
4. A surface grinder is very helpful.
5. I needed professional help make a firing pin that would work with some redesign of that part.
6. You need to know how to make springs because the cast parts do not have the carbon content to make a spring.
7. You need a professional on tap to bail you out when things go wrong.
8. Fitting the two piece trigger assembly is a nightmare. Any play at all between the two pieces will result in a non functional action. When assembled the two pieces of the trigger must be absolutely rigid.

All of that said, I now have a handsome and fully functional Farquharson rifle. The first time I was able to cock the action and pull the trigger and hear "click" I almost cried. It took a very long time to get to that stage but it felt so satisfying. I would do it all over again if only for the things that I learned and friendships that I made along the way. On the other hand for a lot less money and hassle one could buy a superb out of the box Fraser action from Steve Earle.

Do not let me discourage any of you who might be tempted to give an casting set all of you attention for a long while. The results can be very rewarding, but be honest with yourself about what it takes.

Antonio

It seems like he's reengaged in the casting service. I wonder if he'll consider a partial machined option. That could be huge if the castings had a few true holes, a mortise and maybe a reference surface to get things going.

Antonio, thanks for that story. That is absolutely fabulous. Congratulations on accomplishing your Farquharson! That's just great!

Antonio,
I suspect a shaper( a 7" would be sufficient) would have been a lot of help with the mortise and breech block, as well as the EDM.
Mike

Well said Antonio. Its amazing the amount of people out there who have zero skills, don't work at a trade/craft, are not metal workers, probably could not bang a nail into the wall straight or change a sparkplug in their car, yet they decide they can precision build a firearm and jump into a project head-long and i would imagine once the initial gusto disappears so does the project.

I served an apprenticeship and work as a fitter, i don't think its a trade that exists in America, but i could be mistaken in that. The first year of my apprenticeship was filing metal parts to fit each other to a tolerance of 0.02mm, and often better. You had to reach a satisfactory level of work before you could progress to milling machine work.

I did make a breech block for a Westley richards falling block a few years ago. Nothing particularly difficult, but it took the best part of two days to get it right. So i know not to rush into projects blind.