Chuck; You old Rascal, you are just totally sidestepping the whole issue. More guns have gone "Off-Face" from frictional wear in opening & closing an improperly cared for gun than has ever been the case from plastic deformation by shooting.
Now that old "Parts" H grade I mentioned above, it came to me as follows;
All finish gone, bbls badly pitted & a crack showing in left bbl with a lifted flap, stock cracked. From all appaearences it had been "Rode Hard & Put up Wet". I bopught it years ago from an ad in GunWeek, seller said it wouldn't bolt up but all parts were present. When it arrived he had put in a note he had adjusted the hinge & had it working. Well that was a matter of Opinion.
At some point the trigger plate screw had apparently been lost & someone had come up with another & installed it, but it was too long. It projected into the frame beneath the cocking hook & prevented it coming down enough for the bbls to seat & the bolt to engage. This was most likely when the gun was taken out of service. What the seller had done was to back up the ball screw until the front of the bbls could lift enough for the breech to tip down till the bolt would start to engage with lever well right on the taper. There was of course a large gap between frame & bbl flats & the ball screw was not properly seated in the hook.
Upon examining it I saw the problem, removed the plate screw & cut off enough so it flushed with the frame & re-installed it. The bbls then dropped down on the table & with the ball screw still loose as a goose, that doll's head snugged the bbl breechs right up against the standing breech as Tight as Dicks HatBand with the lever some left of center (from bolt wear). In this position I snugged that ball screw up snug, but did not attempt to move the lever back to center as this would have pushed the doll's head back from their contact. Now here My Friend is a gun of about 100 yrs age showing much hard use & plenty of abuse but with a fully functional doll's head which (except for the bbls & with about a pint of epoxy to patch up the stock) could still give Yeomans Service & pull its share of the load in containing the stresses of firing. It was obviously, of course, properly fitted in the first place.
Ps;
Yes, personally I think a well fitted cross bolt (ala Greener) is a better solution than a doll's head, but it is noted that virtually every caveat that applies to the doll's head applies to the cross bolt as well. It is also noted that when D M Lefever left his original company in 1901 & started building the "New Lefever" he himself went with a crossbolt, using it dual purposely as the only bolting. According to his catalog he used a bolt having a dia of 5/16", which should be amply strong for its purpose.
Last edited by 2-piper; 03/01/10 06:30 PM.
