doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Metric screws taps and dies

I am working on a Simpson-Suhl sxs 12g and I mentioned in an earlier post on having some difficulty removing the screws. The result was screws were removed altho the action and all the other metal was saved the screw heads were damaged beyond repair. I believe the action has not been apart since it was made in 1932 and a fine layer of rust formed under the screw heads due to the close fit of the screw heads in the countersink they froze up solid . So.........I need to make new ones and as near as I can measure they are 4M-8 and the nearest tap and die I can find is 4M-7. I can retap the holes and it would work but would like to find the correct tap and die. they are too small to thread on the lathe as there are only a two or three threads on each screw.
Since I know some here do repair work thought perhaps might know where the correct stuff can be gotten. This gun is not great value but is really in nice condition other than the screws and most likely it will have more labor cost than will ever be worth, but I like the gun and the wood survived in good solid condition.

As an after thought if someone in Europe knows of a supplier I would purchase them there as well.

Have you checked on Rutland Tool? Google them. Lots of metric taps and dies.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but there is probably a 98% chance that this all could have been avoided by simply using a better penetrating oil than Kroil and giving it several weeks to soak into the threads, reapplying as necessary. The sprint to the finish line has damaged a LOT of guns.

The end result would be that you would have original screws and threads in your gun, and you would save the time and expense of searching out and buying metric taps and making or buying new screws.

You might get mad at me for pointing this out, but rest assured I made the same mistake of getting in a hurry to finish a project when I first started working on guns. In the grand scheme of things, it usually takes less total time, and a lot less money, to simply wait and let a good penetrating oil work.

Please don't run an M4 tap of different thread pitch into your action screw holes. You will end up with a gun that has been repaired beyond repair.

Try Granger, I needed a very small metric tap for a project and they had several brands to choose from.
Steve

Yep, and another one is Travers.

Find a great welder gunsmith and have him weld up screw heads and file new slots.SKB a regular poster on here can do it among others. Bobby

They may not be standard thread . Back in the day there were may companies in all industries that made their own taps and dies or that had them made to their own thread sizes . Some gunmakers a in the English trade used cycle makers threads , these have now been long abandoned in favour of a "standard" threads . I believe that some American companies used what I have always called sewing machine threads for example that are or are close to your ANC or ANF not common outside the US. Webley used a set of threads specific to them ,some do have equivalents but again many are now obsolete so you can not readily buy taps and dies to suit.

Hi Keith, In your experience which penetrating oils work best?
Thanks, Beagle

rgh25
For Metric and odd size taps and dies,try Victor Machinery Exchange.( www.victornet.com ).You are not likely to be able die thread a screw this short.I watched a German engraver make a screw he lost from one of my guns. He turned a "nut" onto a piece of threaded rod, heat the nut/rod end to bright red and "forge weld" them together.With a file, and rolling the screw on the side of his workbench,he turned the head round,filed a slot,cut it to length,and engraved it to match."Zip,Zip,Zip", just as quick as that, he had a screw with thread all the way to the head.Watching this was worth more to me than the loss or the screw.Maybe the same method will work for you,but you would have to make your own "nut" and threaded rod, with tap&die from VME. If you ID the thread,New England Custom Guns may be able to help you.Good luck.
Mike

Rutland was recently snarffed up by MSI (or similar). I'd surely try welding you the screw heads prior ti making new screws.