need help with drilling out a CVA breech plug

[gunshot98]

I have a CVA inline ML that a man brought in and he had drilled the breech plug, and messed it up big time. I've got it down to the threads. Can i take a tap the size of the plug and carefully retrace the threads? What would yall do?

[MaLar]

If you have it down to the threads you should be able to grab a thread and pull it out.
You may get it all you may get part. And yes you can run a tap of the right size and type probably a bottoming tap. It might and probably is metric. Good luck with that. I'd take it to a machinist.

LaMar

[nhrifle]

My boss and mentor at the gun shop where I work part time handed me a similar project a few months back. The customer had fired her Omega and stored it uncleaned, consequently the breech plug seized into the threads and he (my boss) was unable to budge it. Now, he is not a trained machinist though he does try, and I cringed when he told me what he had done. He chucked the barrel into his lathe and drilled out the breech plug with a drill that JUST cleared the threads, but went too far and drilled about .200" of the rifling beyond the plug abutment. Took me a day of careful boring but I squared the drilled hole, chased the threads and threaded up to the new shoulder, and making a threaded insert that would restore proper depth of the plug. It actually turned out well and the rifle shoots fine.

You should be fine with retapping the threads, just be sure to use plenty of quality cutting fluid so you don't gall the threads.

[bob208]

first try to pull them out or use a pick to get them started them pull them out. if you have to go the tap route use a bottom tap as it will push the junk out . a regular starting or plug tap will jam in the and break.

[jonas302]

Gun shop labor can't be that cheap to do all that work to a CVA isn't the barrel damaged from rust also?

[gunshot98]

doesn't look that bad. I know it should but im thankful it isn't. This thing has a beautiful stock. Just trying to save it.

[oldred]

Gun shop labor can't be that cheap to do all that work to a CVA isn't the barrel damaged from rust also?


The tap idea will work just fine if the hole is centered and drilled close enough to the treads, I have found a spiral flute tap to work MUCH better for this than a straight flute, not exactly sure why it works better but it does and noticeably so.


Just a little rant here and I'm not talking about the OP's rifle but I just don't understand, I'm not a gunsmith but I have a small machine shop here at my farm and every year just before ML hunting season someone will bring in a ML to have the breech plug removed, happens every year without fail! These guys who bring these things in will gripe and growl about not being able to get that plug out but most of the time don't even seemed concerned about the sewer pipe bore, most are by that point too far gone to be worth the effort to remove the plug anyway! When I ask about cleaning (as if I didn't already know!) I get the same response from almost everyone of them, "I clean it every time I shoot it"! :roll: Not saying lack of proper cleaning is always the cause, as apparently the OP's bore was not neglected, but it's a shame so many ML rifles are ruined because people simply don't clean them properly and very often not at all.

[zuke]

get a bolt that is a little too big to put in. Thread pitch doesn't matter.
Grind that bolt tiangular so you have 3 sharp point's.Hammer that bolt into threaded area and begin to unscrew it. It will grab the remaiming thread's and pull them out.
I've done it plenty of time's with snapped of stainless steel screw's, just used a socket cap bolt ground like that.
It's a poor man's easy out.

[oldred]

That bolt trick may work just fine in most cases but I seriously doubt it will for one of those breech plugs, the reason is those threads are seriously rusted and literally fused together. I have drilled them straight through on a lathe and used a good quality easy out but I have had zero success doing this. Even when bored well centered and all the way to the edge of the threads the remaining material will often be so stuck to the barrel threads that it will come out only in pieces, normally with most other threaded assemblies the remaining thread will sort of curl out once it can be broken loose.

[zuke]

Try soaking in Ed's Red. I had to have brake work done on my 87 Geo Tracker. It was the original part's so I used a plastic bottle to squirt some Ed's red on it a couple time's a day for a week, the mechanic said all the bolt's came out amazingly easy!