doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Bottom rib trouble

Here's a sight I didn't want to see. It's my 1960 Beretta Silver Hawk 16 ga. It's just the 4-5" past the lug, but I imagine a full rib relay is in order.

Any recommendations for a place to get it fixed?

MarkII is over North of Des Moines, I just got back a LC with the same problem. He does all my rib work. You can PM him here.

Count on needing a recoloring afterwards. He does Rust Bluing as well.

Regards
Ken

The lug is most assuredly loose as well. Spot repair is sometimes possible. I did one for a board member last year and it held up fine. The full job is a bunch of work/money but it is sometimes required.

Because the repair is hidden you may be able to get by without blueing the tubes. It will take some serious heat to fix the lug and this may force a total reblue. Good luck

bill

About six years ago, the front portion of the bottom rib of my 1914-vintage A-grade Ansley H. Fox 12-gauge "Meat in the Pot" popped loose. I took the gun down to Keith Kearcher and he did a repair. Towards the end of the 2015-16 season, my fiftieth with Meat-in-the-Pot, the back half of the rib came loose. I took the gun with me to Hausemann's Hidden Hollow in June 2016, and dropped it off at Bachelder's in Grand Rapids on my way home. Finally got it back completely relayed and reblued, and have shot a couple of rounds of skeet. Looks beautiful. Hopefully will last another fifty years.

The same thing happened to me a few years ago shooting my 1952 Beretta Model 410. Only worse. I was on a dove shoot and noticed the ejectors quit, but kept shooting till I had a limit. The bottom rib was off for about 12 inches and bent in waves. Like SKB said above, the lug was loose as well.

Mike Orlen took off the rib straightened it out and re-laid it for me. Re-blued as well of course. He kept it a long time, but didn't charge me nearly what the job was worth. I've been regular customer ever since...Geo

I agree with Steve in that the loop is loose also. That is what forced the rib to come loose.

Had the same happen to a 409 16 guage Silver Hawk I owned.

JJ Perrdou at Champlin Arms repaired mine.

Did these Beretta 409's get weak solder when built, poor soldering technique, or is it a design flaw? Can I expect the strength of the repair to be better than the original? It's a very frustrating situation.

my 410 did the same thing my Gunsmith told me he sees a lot of Beretta's with loose ribs
His opinion was the solder doesn't take very well to the barrel steel Beretta used (Titania in my case)

With the "space-age" adhesives that are in use today, in industry, I wonder why soldering of barrels, even hard brazing as is done on Blasers and others, has not begun to give way more to the use of these adhesives. My little inexpensive Yildiz .410 S x S was built, I am told, with the barrels and ribs joined with some type of high strength adhesive, epoxy, or some such. It looks very professional, is colored as to be practically invisible, and has to be much more economical.

I have never done so, but if I ever need to call Briley for any reason again I intend to ask them if they have ever seen a problem with this. They are the sole warranty repair company in the U.S.

I would never rejoin a loose rib that was originally soldered with any type adhesive, but the fact remains that adhesives are used at NASA to hold the heat shielding tiles on the space shuttles, and the temps on the skin reach 2300 degrees. Ya' think double barrels get that hot?

SRH

is a 60 vintage Beretta worth the full barrel redue....I think not.....just a solid patch job under the forend with a little touch up.....

Correct diagnosis. PM sent.

Dave: That is not a difficult fix. As long as the top rib is solid, it would be clamped in place while the bottom rib and loop are relaid. With any luck, it wouldn't require rebluing.

I don't think many of them needed to for a problem to develop. I've witnessed the ribs coming loose, as in being shot off, on 20ga. FN Superposed guns twice in
'hot corners' in SA when it was no hassle to take your own guns down to shoot. Those ribs were soft soldered; neither were mine. I've shot or had the rib come loose on a 101 Winchester trap gun; it didn't fall off, but became detached for some inches forward of the receiver and ended up requiring relaying both side ribs as well to doit correctly on the repairs. Actually may have cost me more than the gun was worth [pretty sure it did, but you know how hard it is to face THAT reality], but it was one of the first 101's and had that small grip like an old FN 20 Superposed that just had a certain 'feel' I'd become fond of & the loose rib bugged me. I still enjoy shooting it and the work was done correctly. Had I some 'glue' like you ref., I would have gladly used it:-)

Presently have a nice French 16 SxS w/a lower loose rib issue, not wholly detached, but needs remedy. Lug is fine, not affected in the least which is surprising & gun remains on face & tight as a tick. Affecting a repair to the lower rib may end up exactly as SKB said. I dunno, yet. Its a bucket list item.

Solder joints are not all equal, material difs., flux, who's doin' it, solder itself.. they all play in the equation. And as far as I know all of them irrespective of any of the aforementioned will fail well before 2300�F.

Short answer to your question: Nope, but they don't need to before the threshold of failure is reached for soldered ribs.

My question was really asked "tongue in cheek". Barrels cannot get nearly that hot from shooting.

I don't believe it is usually a heat issue that causes ribs to come loose. Vibration and corrosion probably have a lot more to do with it. There is no way that shooting causes a set of barrels to get hot enough to melt soft solder, even in SA. I've been there, too, and shot a doublegun exclusively twice, and know how hot they can get. But, I cannot believe it is that hot.

And, I have been through some of the same things you related, with other gun makes, and know all too well how easy it is to get upside down with a gun when you have to get ribs relaid. I managed to sell mine for enough to recoup most of the $$$$, but if I keep messing with these old guns long enough it will prolly happen again.

All my best,

SRH

A pretty common way forend lugs pull loose is by shooting pre-mounted Skeet.
Reefing back on the forend and maintaining a tight mount all the way through the shot concentrates recoil on the lug.

I've seen maybe a dozen forend lugs pulled loose in this way. They take the rib with them.

Quick question...should the lug take all the recoil, or will the jolt be shared with the radius area where the forend iron contacts the receiver?

There should be virtually no recoil force where the forend iron contacts the frame. The gun will of course recoil "Backwards", the tight grip on the forend would thus have a tendency to push it "Forward. If the lug solder gives then it will put forward pressure on the rib. pressure would not be exerted back into the frame nor on the portion of rib between the lug & breech.

OK, makes sense. Thanks.

I think Hal Hare has had 2 if not 3 CSMC 21's pull the lug loose. I can think of a bunch more I've seen at my club, not just 21's.

I don't know if it's the forward, or the backward push of the recoil cycle that does it.

That was my guess as well when I saw the picture but one thing that I do know...and I have it from a good source...is that many of those production guns even though soft soldered were actually hot blued.
I had an early Piotti in here that suffered from that same ailment.

all best

CJ

Seems like a lot of folks have seen this problem. I have had two guns with loose ribs. One a Fox with a loose rib near the forend lug another time loose at the muzzle. These did not require any attention to the lug, which is still fine.

An Ithaca Flues had a sprung bottom rib near the muzzle which a friend (gunsmith school graduate) relayed well.

And my two rib fixes did not require reblueing the barrels.

There's clearly a tendency to put more pressure on the lug when you're shooting a gun with a beavertail than with a splinter--where you're scarcely gripping the forend. Miller's explanation seems to make sense . . . but maybe there's an advantage to a splinter that doesn't often get advertised.

I shot a Browning BSS Side-lock that I just bought for the first time this morning. After four shots the fore-end popped off and won't go back on. Hopefully it is just a snafu that will be solved by more familiarity with the gun, but this thread gives me a bad feeling. I'm looking hard at the bottom rib right now and see nothing wrong. I hope it just needs to be re-cocked or something...Geo

This is all very interesting to me. I cannot imagine gripping a forend of any profile so tightly that you risk recoil pulling the lug loose. The purpose of a beavertail profile is not to help tame recoil, it is to keep your fingers off of hot barrels, IMO. I do not hold my shotguns that tightly at the forend, but espouse to the old .38 Special rock song ............. "Hold On Loosely". The only job my forehand has is to move the muzzles to wherever I want them, not to help attenuate recoil. I use the rear hand a little more for that, holding the gun's grip just tightly enough to control it in recoil. But, I tend to let the gun recoil freely, not attempting to manhandle it. One sensation I notice often, when shooting pairs, is that of the gun recoiling after the first shot and having to be brought back into control before the second shot. It's not nearly as severe as it might sound, but I do notice the gun "moving around" in my hands under recoil.

SRH

Another cause of a loose forend lug is lack of or an improperly fitted barrel check. The lack is most apt to be found on a hammer gun. I have an H Pieper Modified Diana hammer gun which has a loose lug & section of under rib which is no doubt from this cause. It was like that when I acquired it, very cheaply with intentions of practising a bit of re-laying, just never got to it.
Anyway the only thing which stops the rotation of the barrels on this gun is the rear bottom of the forend iron contacting the bottom of the frame bar. If you apply the least amount of force here tremendous forward pressure is placed on the forend lug, far more than could ever be done by gripping the forend against recoil Even with a barrel check if the barrel motion is not halted prior to the forend iron contacting the frame the check is of no value, its just along for the ride.

Miller,

I agree with the barrel check not doing its job and will add that a good many of the guns with a "J" spring latch are fitted way too tight and can cause the lug weld to fail over time. Also the practice of SLAPPING the forend on is abusive to both the lug and the wood.

John

It was my impression loop was usually brazed on these .That said I have seen and relayed. lot of loose ribs on Italian guns Perazzi was a good example with the vented side ribs .These seemed to suffer from a severe lack of solder ,I suppose so as not to get excess unsightly blobs that could be seen through the vents . Beretta's seemed to have plenty but it had not been hot enough to adhere properly ,it did seem to take a lot more heat than normal to un-solder , weather this was "lead free" solder I dont know .

The Pieper was a "Mono-Block" gun even though Pieper did not use that term. The one I have has a steel breech piece & twist barrels. The tubes are threaded & soft soldered about half way into the breech piece. The forend lug & all ribs are soft soldered, there is no brazing on this gun anywhere.

It seems to me that if the purpose of a BT is to protect from hot barrels, then instead of being quite rare on British game guns, they'd be much more common. A very active drive is certainly one place you can heat up your barrels. As for gripping a BT tighter than a splinter, I'm sure not everyone does that. But the BT makes it easier to grip tighter than does a splinter, simply because there's more to grab onto.

I assume you don't think there is a chance that the Brits wouldn't "go for the beavertail" because they didn't invent it. Certainly, they would adopt an upstart "colonial" idea if it were a good one, wouldn't they?

Just what do you think is the purpose of a beavertail, Larry? Recoil attenuation ................ really? Or is there some esoteric purpose to which you ascribe?

SRH

Well Stan . . . the Brits certainly adopted driven shooting, didn't they? And that was invented by the French!

I think the purpose of a beavertail, as much as anything, is to sell shotguns to people who think they need something more substantial to grab onto than the barrels of a sxs. And, back in the day, quite a few American gun writers seemed to prefer BT. That also might explain why the Spanish maker Sarasqueta sent 7 different models of sxs to the American importer Stoeger back in 1961 . . . and all 7 of them are shown in the Stoeger Shooter's Bible with a beavertail. The Spanish didn't invent it either, but they understood the American market--or maybe Stoeger helped them understand it. Similarly, of the various models of sxs imported from SKB in Japan by Ithaca, only one (the 100) had a splinter. Miroku didn't make any of its Browning BSS guns for the American market with a splinter (other than the sidelock).

In short, the purpose of a beavertail is whatever the buyer thinks it is. And if he thinks he needs one, he will demonstrate that belief by buying a gun with a beavertail. If you want to know why . . . well, I guess you'd need to ask. Me, I think they're unnecessary, add weight, and just plain don't look as good. But there was very clearly a period of time, post-WWII, when the American public thought--for whatever reason, and probably not because they were worried about hot barrels (that being a fairly rare thing, especially on a hunting gun)--that beavertails belonged on sxs.

This late production 12 ga. SKB 200E started life with a beavertail. I was lucky enough to find a factory splinter forend and with the forend swap and changing the factory ventilated rubber pad to a microcell the gun's weight dropped from 6 lbs. 14 oz. to just under 6 1/2 pounds. Me likey much better!

Exactly. Which gets us right back to where we started when I said ....



Notice the IMO part of that statement? You are the one who took "what I think it is" to task. Either the purpose is what the buyer thinks it is, or it is what YOU think it is, which is "to sell shotguns to people who think they need something more substantial .........". Which is it, Larry? Maybe you should make your mind up, or stop nitpicking other's opinions.

SRH

Well Stan, you followed that with a discussion about the purpose NOT being attenuating recoil . . . which I never said it was. The reason more people are likely to apply more pressure to a BT vs a splinter seems pretty simple to me: because there's more to grab. Whether they SHOULD grab on hard is another issue. But it's quite clear that they can, and that some will.

You're ONE gun buyer and I'm ONE gun buyer. So we're clearly both entitled to opinions about the advantages we might see in a BT. But while a BT will protect your hand from hot barrels, how big of an issue is that for the majority of American sxs shooters? The sxs isn't a terribly popular target gun, other than at sxs shoots. For most owners, it's a hunting gun. And there simply aren't too many situations in which you're going to get your barrels hot enough to burn your fingers while hunting. IMO, of course.

IMHO, forend lug failure is a byproduct of the force people use to close (and open) the gun, not from shooting.

The bigger the hunk of wood, the more concentrated is the stress on the lug during ham handed operation.

Grasp mostly barrel with a splinter, less force transmitted through the lug.

Snap action guns just need to go 'click' to seat the bolt.

And why does a gun need to be held against the upper thigh, and yanked open forcibly?

People tear things up the way they use them, it's not the design or assembly most of the time causing the trouble.

Here's the difference, Larry, and is the last thing I will have to say about it. What I said was qualified as being my opinion, and in being interesting hearing what others were saying. You came back and took issue with what was my opinion. I never claimed anything that I said was inerrant. But, as you so often do, you have to have the last say and try to point out the error in others' opinions.

But, I am so unimpressed with your "knowledge", professor, that I am going to cut the rest of your class............and go let my ugly BSS beavertail keep my dainty little fingers off the hot barrels, like IMO it was intended to do.

Preach on.

SRH

Well Stan, I'm glad to hear your dainty little fingers are safe and sound, thanks to that beavertail. But then you could always buy yourself a glove, which would not only protect your dainty digits from hot barrels, but would also protect the barrels from frequent contact with a sweaty hand if you happen to be shooting a gun with a splinter.

This, is, unfortunately, true.

I have seen many people open and close their conventional double guns and O/Us hard enough to make me shudder. Those guys should have been running pump guns.


Best,
Ted

No way.
Do a force diagram.

EVERY lug I have seen ripped loose was in the arms of someone that shoots their shotgun like a rifle.
The separation comes during the shot. Not on closing.

Like you are going to crumple a rib by closing it. Sure.

And I do agree there is no reason to slam a shotgun closed like you are cracking a whip. Whether you lift the stock to the barrels or vice versa.

I'd even agree that certain barrel materials hold the lug better than others. Certain surface finishes.

But ultimately, you are plasticizing lead solder, and it starts to flow due to recoil forces.
Just like a high heel dimpling a vinyl floor.

The cost of fix probably exceeds value of the gun, so I would not go there. You're very lucky right now Jaqua's Fine Guns has several new 16ga B.C. Mirokus listed. These come as Lightning or White Lightning with 26" or 28" Inv. Choke barrels. The 26" "Uplands" may even have straight grip stocks. Very nice guns that will go thousands of rounds before anything needs attention. I hope that helps. Good Luck.

Yea, thanks. I'll just toss it in the dumpster.

Gosh no, you sell it to someone who is not a member of this BBS.

Ok, I looked at blown up enhanced pics of the barrels. It looks like it has to be fixed before it's used or sold. Sorry.

Just a quick followup....one of the member gunsmiths fixed up my Beretta for less than the cost of a flat of target shells. Kudos to Mark II for the fix and SKB (Steve) for the offer of fixing it.

Cool. I did hope if you threw it in the dumpster, you could tell me when and where.


Best,
Ted

Ha!

It does now feel like a new gun. It's never felt this snug and smooth.

Glad that Mark got you fixed up, Dave. I'll be shooting pheasants with him shortly, either with the A Grade I just received for field test, or with an original Sterlingworth ejector 16 that Mark put together for me. I've already established that the pheasants don't much care for the one I got from Mark.

Sounds like fun, Larry. I've been having decent hunting in the northern IA areas (that you know) where I can make day trips. I also have a milk run of spots from Parkersburg to Sheffield, but that's an overnighter that I haven't been able to fit in yet. Hopefully the big snow will hold off for a few weeks!

I'm too far north for day trips, Dave. Too bad in one sense. But that's the price I pay in return for being able to shoot grouse and woodcock almost within walking distance of my house.

Larry,
I'd say you live in paradise.
Karl

YOu could convert it to ribless in the Alex Martin fashio, or even fit it with a quick detachable carbon fiber top rib and thus kill several birds with one stone:

1- you would save weight up forward
2- eliminate the hidden rust trap between the ribs
3- stronger loop to barrels connection

Atlernatively you can eliminate just the bottom rib as in some Darnes.