doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Welding Up Hook on Barrels

Sliver,

First, I apologize. I thought I was talking to a fellow Foxist named "Silvers."

I suppose, ideally, you might want 100% contact of barrels and face. And you might want most of your contact at 3 o'clock. But by the time I undertake to put a Fox back on face, the barrel flats will have contacted the watertable and there's enough slop that the bolt can't hold them in contact during firing. So the first my first move is to set them up and back, contacting at top, not at bottom. As I fit, I strive for 90+% contact across pin/hook, but with interference at the top of the breech. I'm not good enough to fit with 100% contact, and don't know enough to say it's desireable. The relief at bottom provides for compensating movement as the gun wears, allowing the rotary bolt to do its job of snugging the barrels deeper into the face.

I have a couple old graded Foxes with virtually no wear and smoking and shooting them shows me where, and how much, contact I should strive for. Maybe a pro will chime in and save me.....maybe not.

best, Mike

Mike,

Now I see why one wants to match the top of the breech first so that the underbites pull the barrels towards the watertable as the breech space may increase with wear. Thanks for your explanation.
Serban

Hey Sliver:

Don't worry about hijacking this thread. I started it and I'm learning a lot. Let's keep the conversation going. No need to ask forgiveness as far as I'm concerned.

Yo Mike Campbell, fellow Foxist SILVERS here. No need to apologize. Most everything you write makes sense even though you only claim to be a wood guy.

Hey, if you get a chance some day how about weighing the barrels on Anna and letting me know. Just the barrels, not the forend. I'm trying to sort out 32" barrel weights and profiles. I've seen them from 3-8 to 4-2. Thanks. Frank

Post deleted by Run With The Fox

The gun I am trying to work on is a beaten up ManuFrance Ideal. I don't think there is much case hardening in the pin or the hook. THe action was obviously case hardened in the factory, but it does not show it anymore. Maybe the pin was case hardened, too with the action...
I don't think the hook was case hardened.
The steel on the hook should be mild steel from the beggining of last century. Is it OK to use a mild steel rod? I am not the one to do the TIG welding, one of my hunting buddies is. He should know...
I also checked the other two guns I had had brought back on face and most weld was built into the lower half of the hook. If somebody is interested I can post some pics to the best of my abilities.

On older guns, chopper lump barrels were of quite mild steel. Since the lump is of the exact same material as the tubes (one forging) the hook and bites will be soft. I don't know of any way to case harden a spot such as the hook and they are of too low a carbon content to take heat treat. Dovetailed lumps could be case hardened prior to assembly if they were soft soldered. Since it seems to be common practice to braze the barrels and lump of a dovetaile assembly, any case would be annealed. all in, I doubt you will find a hard hook on an older gun. One would hope the pin was, in fact, harder than the hook unless the pin was threaded and intended to be replaced.

IMO, the hook/pin wear comes from cycling the gun open and closed. There should be very little movement between the hook and pin during firing. Has anyone heard of hook/pin wear data comparing open/close cycles with firing to cycles without firing? I agree with Chuck that you need to preserve the front lips of the hook inlet to maintain vertical alignment. However, if the pin is worn, you may change that alignment slightly with filing of the weld metal to set water table clearance. The gap between barrels and water table is necessary to give the action bar room to flex upward during firing. If the barrels are in contact with the water table, the action bar flex load is transfered to the hook/ pin, to the bolts/bites, and to the barrel breech and face. That load is sufficient to move all the mating surfaces relative to each other and that will quickly produce off-face.

I apologize for my confusion about terminology. I mistakenly thought that metal was being added to the pin rather than the hook. Somehow my brain switched "hook" with "loop".

If the pin were readily removable, it would be no trick to weld it up and turn it back to the required diameter. The hook would still have to be hand fitted or very, very carefully machined to get both vertical and horizontal locations.

Mild steel should do it- Rocketman is right- brazing is at a higher temperature than soldering, and any case in the parent metal would be annealed. Only "bad news" TIG job I ever heard of on a fine shotgun- years ago a Grand Rapids area Gunsmith(?) with a fair reputation as a pistolsmith- attempted to rebuild apparently worn sears on a friend's Parker ejector grade 20- his father-in-law owned a machine shop and had a TIG welder- a Miller 300 GoldStar if memory serves, and he did just that- BUT- forgot that sears are hardened- forgot to check hardness, anneal, weld at controlled temperature and then have the sears re-hardened- the shotgun ended up with Mr. DelGrego- I won't repeat his reported remarks to my friend who inherited that Parker about "rookie gunsmiths"- but any form of welding goes to the old saying "90 percent of a successful weld job is in the preparation"!! I suggested 1/16 mild steel silicon killed (S-3) and 100% Argon shielding gas for a more fluid puddle, and lower open arc amperage for the 1/16th" dia. filler rod- possible 3/32" dia. would work too-using the rod dia. to thousands theorm for amperage (as a starting point) 1/16th DC straight polarity start on your scrap piece to test- 65 to 70 amps- 3/32" 85 to 90, and use a 2% thoria tungsten and grind to a blunt tip- not a sharp pencil tip- TIG tips for your buddy, who most likely knows all this. TIG welding is to SMAW- stick welding, say a farmer welding a rusty drag tooth with 6013- as brain surgery is to trimming your toenails- there isn't any known metal that can't be properly welded with TIG- now I have to get involved with this spray welding process and learn the ins and outs of that- just as the compressed air plasma arc cutting torch is replacing the old tried and true "gas axe" aka- oxy-acetylene- RWTF