doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Help with C.G. Bonehill Ejectors (Westley style)

Here's the link Steve posted in another thread. I had a chat with Peter Nagel the other day, he says he is able to weld cracked V springs.

http://www.restorativewelding.com/Welcome.html

Regards
Ken

Sorry for the confusion, but the spring is not cracked, but very tired. I suspect from being stored with the ejectors cocked for years at a time.

Jpari, the serial numbers are nowhere on the outside. This includes the tang as well as the water table, flats, or forend iron. The gun is older that the Birmingham requirements for choke designations which started in 1921 or 1925 I believe.

2-pieper I am not sure if the springs are side specific, I know the Midway video noted something about this particularly but I don't remember at the moment. I will look again, and if they are not, I will do what you are suggesting.

ElGarro Thanks for the advice, I will keep this in mind.

So far the best bet seems to be to see if I can just ever so slightly bend the contacting arm outwards, increasing the strength. I will get home and do some more inspecting and experimenting with the system.

Thanks for all the advice everyone!

Fox18, a few thoughts. Springs should not get "tired" from sitting stressed for a long time. Note that steel bridges do not fall down after a few years. A spring which has yielded (proper name for getting tired) was most likely improperly heat treated (hardened and tempered). Springs are more likely to crack or break than to yield.

IMO, the spring should be annealed before any attempt to bend it/reshape it (bending equal yielding it further). I'd recommend against trying to redo this spring to save money. Spring making can be done at a relatively low tech level, but needs a bit of supervised experience for best/quickest results. If you want to learn to make springs, get some files, spring stock, and a heat source and get after it. Save this spring for in case you decide spring making is not your cup 'o tea. Mechanically inclined people usually find spring making not particularly difficult - a tad time consuming, yes.

DDA

Thanks for the info.

I will have to get out the magnifying glass and some bettr lighting and give it an extremely thorough check, looking for cracks.

I consider myself more toward mechanically inclined than most and have experience with working with metal, so I feel fairly confident making one. I will make several practice ones before hand of course. Redoing this spring was to never save money, but to save the trouble of making a new one. If I have to do it though, I most definitely will.

Thanks for the great advice!

A nice source of Spring Steel is old, leg-hold Traps. I bought a large box of them at auction several years ago. Literally years worth of spring material. Due to the variety of the sizes of their component parts, it's easy to select a piece close to the size you need. After cutting off the sized piece you need, annealing, and "having at it" with a large Bastard File makes initial shaping go fairly guickly. You can shift a lot of metal with one in a very short time.

Regards
Ken

Are the swivels OK?

Changed my screen name to Sharps45-70 from Fox18 to better match my CGN account. Hopefully no confusion there.

Gunman, what do you mean when you say "swivels"?

Ken, thanks for the advice. I will keep my eye out. This would have to be annealed then cut out with a dremel or something, correct?

What I would do is disable the ejector function if possible and use the gun as is. Aren't you Canadians just like us Americans. What is mean is we go deep into the bush shoot twice and always eat what we shoot. Englishmen have rather crude description of this activity referring to it as "rough shooting". Unless you are shooting doves or participate in driven game shoot ejectors aren't really necessary. As a bonus we don't have to bend over and pick up empties. We pick up empties because we are good nature respecting fellas.

You can cut the piece initially with a high-speed carbide cutter, making it somewhat oversize. Then you can anneal it and go at it with the file. You can also initially shape with a grinding wheel, as long as you don't let it get too hot. It also helps if your vise has a flat spot for hammering, as many of the trap parts have a bend to'em.

Regards
Ken

The swivel is the small toggle that connects between the spring and the kicker.