At a recent auction, I ended up buying a H&R 1873 action and barrel. My original plan was to unscrew the barrel and use it on an original trapdoor that I crushed the barrel (another story) . Anyway, when I got the H&R home I thought why not just drop this in the stock (cut just in front of the rear band) you have and make life a little easier for yourself. The H&R is what I'm guessing is from a deluxe model carbine as it is silver plated (barrel too) and has what I think is cast in place engraving and a two digit sn. However there are no threaded holes on the barrel for the rear sight and since the plan for this is a hunting gun, I think an aperture sight would be preferred in any case considering my old eyes. So how does one mount a aperture sight on a trapdoor? I could not find my original tang screw so I made a new one and left the head of said screw tall, maybe an inch above the tang. At the present I am thinking of just filing a notch in the top of this screw to get an idea of how tall an aperture sight would need to be. Can a tang sight be screwed to the wood and still be repeatable? I do have one that was made for a TC Hawken that could be used if screwing to the wood would work okay. Now I have find the rear band from original and also make up forend extension to make it look right.
Also, are the H&R actions any stronger than the originals? I'm pretty sure the breech block and receiver are cast and probably of an alloy that is a bit tougher. I am also thinking the barrel is probably a better grade of steel too. I do not plan to make this an elephant gun or anything like that as I will only be chasing whitetails with it but just wonder if they are stronger. If they are stout enough for deer, I'm thinking of the 12-15gr Unique loads for it. Thanks for your comments and I'll try to get some pictures up in the next few days.