Building a Muzzleloader - Fitting Barrel and Tang to Stock

More of this Course • Page One: Intro • Page Two: Fitting the Buttplate • Page Three: Fitting the Lock • Page Four: Fitting Barrel to Tang • Page Five: Fitting Barrel and Tang to Stock • Page Six: Installing Trigger Assembly • Page Seven: Polishing and Fitting the Nose Cap • Page Eight: Polishing and Fitting the Trigger Guard • Page Nine: Fitting the Sights • Page Ten: Inletting for Wedge Pin Plates • Page Eleven: Sanding the Stock - Initial Sanding • Page Twelve: Final Sanding & Patchbox • Page Thirteen: Staining the Stock • Page Fourteen: Polishing and Bluing • Page Fifteen: Finishing the Stock • Page Sixteen: The Tools I Used • Page Seventeen: Conclusion

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I'll tell much of the story with photographs, so each page may be a bit slow to load. Click on any photo for a larger image.

After fitting the barrel to the tang, my next step was fitting it into the stock. The barrel and tang should be fitted and inletted as a unit, not separately, to ensure proper fit.

I started by carefully sanding the barrel channel in the stock. In doing this, I removed the frazzles of wood left behind by the inletting machinery, and removed enough wood from the sides of the channel to allow the barrel to seat without binding.

I used a wood sanding block to ensure that I didn't round the edges where the stock and barrel will meet. The goal is fairly uniform contact along the full length of the stock.

The tang fit well enough depth-wise, but the inletting around the tang was overcut considerably -- leaving unsightly gaps between the wood and tang. There was nothing I could do about this other than to attempt to fill the void with some type of epoxy or similar material, which would probably have looked just as bad or worse. I decided I'd just have to live with it, and if I find later that it bugs me too much, I can always fill it with bedding compound later.

Here's what the top of the stock looked like when I started. Notice the frazzly wood in and below the barrel channel, left behind by the machinery used to inlet it (this is easily visible if you click the picture above and view the larger image).

The inletting was deep, making the top of the tang set down below the surrounding wood, but that would be worked down later. Since the barrel and tang came in-the-white (unblued), and the top surface of the tang was very rough, I would leave it in place while I sanded the stock, to keep the surfaces even and to sand and polish the tang without rounding the edges. I would also install the barrel during this process, to avoid rounding the forward edge of the tang.

After I'd achieved a proper fit and installed the trigger (so I could screw the tang down tight -- the tang bolts to the trigger assembly) and nipple, I installed the lock for final fitting to the barrel, and found that it was just about perfect. The forward side of the drum (which CVA calls a bolster) binds on the lockplate somewhat, but that's not a problem -- and any marring of the drum can be polished out prior to bluing.

I also had to fit the tenon into its dovetail slot in the bottom of the barrel. This was a simple operation -- I simply faced the bottom of the male dovetail to even it, then slowly removed material with a file until the fit was nice and snug, then drove it in with a hammer and brass drift. I checked fit before facing, to make sure I had enough material to do so. (No larger image available)

This pic shows the fit of the tang in the stock before I did any sanding. It also illustrates the proper fit of the lockplate to the side of the barrel, and shows that the hammer and nipple are properly aligned.

Here's a shot of the tang during an initial sanding with 100 and 120 grit sandpaper. As you can see, the wood is getting worked down to match the top of the tang, and the mill marks are being sanded off of the tang.

This shows the final fit and polish of the tang. Most of the mill marks have been polished out during the sanding of the stock -- there's just a little bit left, on the left side of the tang at the rear. I like the shape of the stock at this stage, so I'll most likely leave it alone, rather than working things down further.
I still don't like the gaposis around the tang (especially to the right, by the nipple -- yow!), but I can't help that.

Next page - Installing the Trigger Assembly.

- Russ Chastain

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