doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Round Block Webley's, how strong?

Yes. Those three actions have sharp corners in their mortises. Ballard usually gets dinged pretty hard for it, but the other two are generally considered "good engineering and design concepts".

I understand the rationale behind the radiused corners, but I don't seem them in these actions and I could probably find quite a few others as well.

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Same theory as with the standing breech on a break open gun. Early designs had a sharp corner, it was soon discovered that adding a slight radius, a significant amount of strength was gained and it reduced the incidents of cracks forming at that point. I certainly agree with you on that point LRF. I have been toying with building a Gibbs action and added the radius to my design as well. I do think the round block Webleys actually hold up better than the model projects.

Okay. I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around Sharps, Ballard and Winchester being derelicts is all. They seem to be pretty good at that they did and still do in some cases.

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The difference between good enough and a better design. Yes all of those actions and many others held up just fine for BP pressure. There were some failures along the way. A better design can reduce the number of failures. When designing from scratch many decisions must be made along the way, most involving some type of comprise. The designers job is to come up with something strong enough, yet still economical to manufacture. It is not that the Sharpes, 1885 etc were bad designs, but improvements can be made.

Ya think? I'm wondering now, what falling block and tilting block actions have radiused corners. None of the Sharps do (74, 78s, 75s, 77s), Winchester doesn't nor did Browning (now there's a derelict, right? ). My various Martinis from different makers didn't. I'm pretty sure I would have seen it in Henrys and Wessons if it was there, but maybe I missed it.

I don't own a Ruger #1 or #3. What are their mortises like? Rugers are pretty modern and not exactly black powder guns by any stretch.

I can't name even one action that I know for sure has radiused corners. Is there one? (Other than the Webley of course)

at least one, the Steve Earle long rang Wesson. It just makes more sense and is a very small and easy to accomplish change which is beneficial.