doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fitting barrels to a Sterlingworth. Not a fun task

Today I thought it would be a good day to fit a set of 32" orphan extractor barrels to a ejector Sterlingworth. Being too ambitious I wanted to convert them to to ejectors as well. That was my mistake. Fitting them to my gun was fairly easy. So I had a set of 30" and 32" barrels fit to my Sterlingworth but one was ejector and one was extractor so I had to convert the new barrels to ejector. Never did that before and wont again I expect.

Then I had to pull the ejector out of a 85 year old set of barrels. The screw retaining the slide spring was locked in solid. After repeated soak, heat, tappings tries it released on the seventh try. Another five minutes to get the ejector retention screw out. A few minutes to clean out the hole which the ejector slides in and I thought I was in good shape.

Over to the scrap ejector barrels, to pull out the ejectors. First I measured to make sure the width of the small pins were the same on the ejectors and extractors and they were almost perfect. Same screw slide spring was stuck twice as bad. Another 30 plus minutes before it gave up. Then the small screw holding ejectors in preventing over travel was another pain in the butt. But out it came after a while.

Good to go I thought. I was until I was 1/4" from seating. I had failed to notice the ejector barrel face was different from the extractor barrel face. Choice time alter the ejector or alter the barrels. I figured it was better to alter the barrels but did not have the equipment or skill to do it.

So off to a friend who has a small machine shop. After he laughed at me for too long, he decided to help. Only took him about 20 minutes to get me straight. Back home for a little file work and honing to make everything perfect it was back to fitting my ejectors. Got them to seat properly but had a lot of drag. So a little marking with a magic marker to find the high spots, then a little smoothing and repeat until they were smooth as glass. But I knew I had to touch up the face of the ejectors and then the shell rims would have to be re-cut. That took another hour to get them done.

Then I was not looking forward to fitting a new fore end to the barrels. I had three ejector fore end to work with and found one which almost fit perfectly. But the ejectors were a mess. After cleaning them, removing rust and 80 years of crude and dirt they worked well. They were strong and well timed.

It took all day, not the three hours I was hoping for. And without my friend, his machine shop and help this project would be back on the bench for who knows how long. So if anyone wants to try this I suggest you send it out to someone who has the equipment and skill to do the job. Whatever they charge you it is worth it in my books. Also I have decided again to not try these type of projects ever again. But I have said that before. Perhaps this time it will stick. Perhaps not.

Congratulation, Jon. Now, you can begin to forget about the work and frustrations involved and enjoy the gun some.

You and I will each have a Sterlingworth Ejector with 30" and 32" barrels when mine gets back from having the 32" set fitted. I have done a set, but these had been buggered up by an inexperienced 'smith who nearly ruined the hook. It needed tig welding, then fitting, so I sent them off to be done. My gun was one that I reworked the non-original buttstock on, to make it more faithful to the original Fox design. Here is is with the 30" set on it.



Hope you enjoy yours after all the work.

SRH

Dove crushers supreme!

Nice work guys.

Stan, it's your fault that I tried this. I knew of your gun and thought it would be a cool thing to have for late season dove. Then a set of 32" barrels came along and I had to try it. Well it's done but next time, if there is a next time, I am sending this type of job out. Much harder than I expected. I would have been done in about an hour, if I left the second set of barrels as extractors. Funny thing is that I am not that fond of ejectors anyways. Just wanted the gun to be uniform.

Oh, I know somebody that will likely take it off your hands if the ejectors are a bother. Wouldn't I be the cat's meow with a composed pair of 32" Sterly Ejectors?

I gave my 'smith instructions to spend as much time as needed to get a very high percentage of contact between the barrels and the breech face, because I will be using some pretty heavy loads in that set of barrels from time to time ...............think crows, pigeons and ducks. I'll do a smoke test on them when they get back to see how well he did. Mine have never been blued, but are an old set of original Fox barrels that had never been fitted to a gun. I told him to send them back in the white for me to shoot some to see how well they settle in before I spend any more on them.

My fault, eh? Heh, heh, heh .............misery loves company, doncha' know.

SRH

Fitting barrels to any gun is not what i would call fun.

The most important thing is to go slow and careful. An oil lamp is a must or at least some prussian blue.

I look forward to the day I find the time to attempt some of the projects I see others here do.

Well done

Well done! You'll have to post a picture or two. Stan, the picture of yours looks fantastic. Thanks for sharing.

Stan.....the amount of work required to fit a set of NOS Fox barrels is huge. I have done two sets, one on a vintage B grade gun and the other on a kit from forging. Not a job for the faint of heart or the new guy. I have pity for both you and the guy who tried and failed to fit them. Best of luck with your project. Those32" barrels seem to be in demand these days. Enjoy them.

Jon, what else were you going to do yesterday? Sounds like you filled the hours of the day perfectly!