making a simple round hole bigger!!!

OK, my son confiscated my first auction bought gun when I was 17. A Italian double barrel percussion 20 ga. The gun shoots fine and is real cute but it has always been a wall hanger. Never had a ramrod in it although the hole is in the stock and you can see where the collar was attached to barrel spacer. The lug that fastens barrels to stock only has a little hole in it and thus eliminating a ram rod to slide in all the way. So I says to myself if jail birds can hacksaw themselves out of prison surely I can make the hole bigger with a file. Don't have a drill bit long enough and if I did I would not want to chance breaking lug free from barrels. Well, 6 months have gone by and working at it 30 minutes or so at a time because it can drive you nuts and I am half way big enough!! Why did I start this????

Dermil Tools are perfect for this

Dremel? It might, although a carbide burr is advisable for steel. I don't know the length of the piece of steel you are trying to bore larger, but if it is at all long, you would need the Dremel tool to be closer to the barrels than its diameter permits.

The simplest method would be to use the best possible file. What you need is a chainsaw file, round without taper. Fit a wooden handle, and if necessary cut a flat on one side of the handle to let it lie parallel to the barrels. Hold the ends of the barrels with your left hand and right knee, and for the side of the hole furthest from the barrels, when it is difficult to press upwards, tension the file by a loop of stout cord attached to something in the room.

You can buy an extra long drill on eBay, by doing a search like this, to rule out the kinds you don't want: extra long drill -wood -masonry -concrete . A hand turned drill would be best, but if you need an electric one, there are two things which prevent the drill snatching.

One is keeping it aligned, which you can do with a piece of tubing taped to the barrels as a guide. The other is to have the barrels in a stable vice, and hold the drill with both hands, and with the left elbow resting on something solid, so that it doesn't try to move forward and dig in. Alternatively you could use a tapered tungsten carbide burr, which has so many teeth that it won't dig in like that. The shank is usually ¼in. diameter, so epoxy it into a piece of steel tube with that bore.

you can make drill bits longer by silver soldering or welding rod extensions on, or even getting a commercial extension that has a socket and set screws into which you put your diameter drill shank. or, you could buy a really long drill bit. i've done all of the above.

worst case scenario, you can sell the gun to me for a few bux.

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Originally Posted by justashooter

you can make drill bits longer by silver soldering or welding rod extensions on, or even getting a commercial extension that has a socket and set screws into which you put your diameter drill shank. or, you could buy a really long drill bit. i've done all of the above.

worst case scenario, you can sell the gun to me for a few bux.

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a couple of times if it was mine I would have given it to you! I have it all clamped up and I have dremels and I do have some long shank bits but I don't want to bugger or (as we would say "bubba did it"). I will triumph! But I don't know how long this gonna go on.

First, I'd figure out if I needed to do anything to the lug. Are you sure it wasn't set up for a steel rod instead of wooden one?

Second, if I still felt the need to open up the lug I'd remove the barrels from the gun first and then work on the lug.

And, yes, a Dremel or similar is best for this although a file should work fine if you have the right one (or two). One coarse and one fine.

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Originally Posted by nekshot

a couple of times if it was mine I would have given it to you! I have it all clamped up and I have dremels and I do have some long shank bits but I don't want to bugger or (as we would say "bubba did it"). I will triumph! But I don't know how long this gonna go on.

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I was assuming (correctly?) that you meant the lug that secures the forend to the barrels, and that the wood therefore had to be removed. One word of warning: don't use too long a bit of any kind in the Dremel, in an effort to get the angle right. I once tried to spin a four-inch length of 3/32 inch tempered piano wire in mine, and it immediately bend over at 90 degrees and stayed bent, under centrifugal force, with a noise and vibration like the bit of the Bible where God gets really angry. I couldn't have bent it that way by hand, and if it had fractured I mightn't be here.

Dremils are more forgiving with their lower rpms. Purchasing at work bought a bunch of mounted wheels cheap a few years back ( a die cast and tool room go thru a lot of them quickly) These had an aluminum shaft. in the slower rpm grinders dremils foredooms they did good. In a pencil grinder or the dotcos that were 80,000 - 100,000 rpms they would bend 90* and set up a vibration the would destroy your wrist. Watch the old guys in the shop, when they mount a point in the grinder they start it UNDER the bench top and dress it there first to true it up. This way if the point let go it was shielded from them. I have a bunch off cheap mounted wheels, rawhides, and or felt bobs let go over my years in the trade.

Put masking tape on the barrels and use a round chainsaw file or rat tail. You can control the amount you remove and go slower. Also if you can't make the hole big enough for the ramrod, you can taper the ramrod to fit what you have within reason.

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Originally Posted by Ballistics in Scotland

Dremel?


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Stupid auto correct

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Originally Posted by Geezer in NH

Stupid auto correct

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Well at least it didn't make you say "drivel". I apologise if anyone thought I was criticising, of course. It is petty to criticise any spelling that gets its job done, but in this case it might have sent someone off searching where he would find only antihistamine tablets.

Whoa up there. I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how at 17 years of age, you have a son who can confiscate one of your guns. Not saying it didn't happen, but my experience was loosing my first Winchester 22. As I recall, I was over 40, well maybe 50, and my son was over 17.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Use a counter-bore with a cut diameter the size you want the finished hole.
Make/turn a pilot for the c'bore the diameter of the current hole.
It will follow the pilot and cut the hole to the proper size, even with an extension.
:mrgreen:

Why isn't he doing it instead of you?? Good learning experience for a teenager or young adult.