English 16 Gauge Project

[Geppetto]

About 6 or 8 months ago, I won an auction on an english 16 gauge sxs. I am partial to odd/slightly obscure guns and calibers, so I've always been fond of 16 gauges. I grew up shooting my Dads sxs, so I'm fond of them. This gun was an opportunity to get a higher grade gun for cheap, because it needed work. Plus, this gun was too pretty to leave it, and I decided I wanted to get it running again, and go shoot some grouse with it.

Some pictures of the gun and the project in process are here:

http://s724.photobucket.com/user/gregwoswald/slideshow/

130529

130531

The gun was manufactured in England, probably a Birmingham gun maker, gun was labeled and sold by "G. Thorpe Bartram". This has the short 2-9/16" chambers. Seems like this is a pre-ww2 gun, maybe produced in the late 20's or 30's.

The good:
1) Very light gun probably in the 5lb range
2) Beautiful wood
3) Good bores and finish
4) Gun was restored at some point in the past by a skilled smith, judging from the hinge repair and re-blue of the barrels
5) Ejectors work great

The bad:
1) Stock was cracked at the wrist and then pinned/glued in an ugly fashion.
2) At some point, someone lost both sears, the associated pin, and the rear trigger guard screw

So I decided this would be a good project to try my hand at small part fabrication because I did not have to do anything to the original gun, only make new parts. Not having a pattern to work off of, I scoured the internet for any and every picture I could find of an Anson & Deeley boxlock sear, and used those pictures to get a general idea of the part configuration and function. From there I got 4140 stock and started roughing out the parts.

130527

I got the first sear roughed, fitted and function, and then last night duplicated it. I did the vast majority of the work with files or hacksaw, with small areas dremeled that were not conducive to filing.

130533

So at this point I have both parts close to final configuration. Next step I plan on initial clean up, then I'm going to harden the engagement ends of the sears and perform some final polishing to make the parts look like they belong.

After finishing, I'll be doing thorough testing to adjust the trigger pull weight if necessary, and make sure there is good reliability without any safety concerns.

From there I will have to decide what to do with the ugly stock repair and then make a nice slotted screw for the rear of the trigger guard. I sanded off the bulk of the epoxy without hitting the wood and it looks a-lot better at this point.

It will probably end up being a couple months before I have enough time to completely wrap this project, but I'm feeling pretty happy with the progress so far. I'll update the thread when I get a chance and make some more progress. There is some more info on the gun and its possible history on a thread I started at 16ga.com:

http://16ga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16224

Hope you guys enjoy and I'd be glad for any tips/feedback anyone has regarding the gun or project.

Thanks again!

Greg

[elk hunter]

Greg,

I too like the 16 bore. It has been called the Queen of the upland and I agree.

I would have recommended joining the "16 Gauge Society" but you beat me to it. Though not active at this time, I too am a member.

Keep us informed on your progress.

[leebuilder]

Niffty Greg.
cant wait to see it finished. May get to fixing up a shotgun when all the milsurps are fixed.
Like the look of the buttstock will you replace or restore?

[skeettx]

You have done well, Grasshopper :)
Thank you for the report
Mike

[MaryB]

My first shotgun was a Stevens single shot 16, I repaired it and returned it to my dad as a Christmas gift when I was late 20's. He passed away and it has come back to me. Sweet little shotgun to carry.

[Geppetto]

Update: And for the most part - Completion

I finished up the second sear and got the sears adjusted and got both tweaked so they fit within the inletting of the stock. Then I proceeded to harden the sears by heating to orange at the tip and quenched in oil. After quenching I tempered the parts at about 625* in my lead pot. This should be a hardness of around 46 Rockwell C. This might be slightly lower than optimal, but I didn't want to have the parts significantly harder than the mating components. The parts feel slightly less than file hard, which is around 50 Rockwell C. I didn't want to put indents in them or I would have hardness tested them at work.

After hardening I fine ground the surfaces and then polished the contact surface of the sear using medium and fine emery paper, and then going to 600 grit sand paper followed by 9 micron diamond paste for a nice smooth, almost mirror finish on the sears. I then jeweled the bottoms of the sears for fun. Turned out OK. I am hoping, however, that I never see them again (other than another inspection in 100 trigger pulls or so.)

131151

After I completed the sears, I cut and ground the ends of the pin for the sears using the same polishing process:

131152

The top or rear pin is the replacement.

So from there I was able to reassemble the gun. I had to make one or two more small adjustments in the angle of the trigger contact portion of the sears to make sure there was no slack in the triggers. Testing out the triggers, both have a very smooth pull with a nice break. I don't have a pull gauge, so I don't know what they are breaking at. They are slightly less than my other 16 gauge, but not significantly so. Definitely greater than the Timney on my mauser, which was supposedly set at 3.5 lbs. So I am estimating the pull to be in the 4.5 to 5 lb range for both triggers. Sometime I will actually gauge them, but I am not concerned about it for now. They are more than heavy enough to not be a safety concern. So far I have toggled safe and dropped the hammers on snap caps at least 25 times with no malfunction or visible wear on the engagement points.

After re-assembly, I needed to make up a new rear trigger guard bolt. I found an appropriate slotted wood screw and then rounded and polished the head.

131153

If I was more proficient engraving I might have embellished it slightly, but it doesn't look completely out of place and is good enough for me. In the picture you can see the stock damage and repair area. I basically just cleaned off as much epoxy as I could and cleaned out the checkering that I could. I then stained the whole area black to match the original coloration. It looks great from a couple feet away, but will need professional help to get it back to 100%. At this point, I am not going to spend the money to have it restored. The repair seams very mechanically sound and is not offensive anymore cosmetically.

Here is a shot of the Bartram on the shotgun rack:

131154

Now I will have to make a bigger rack since my wife and I have 5 doubles. I took down my other 16 gauge for this picture. The two Remington SPRs (baikals) on the top were wedding presents for my wife and I from my Dad. (side note: I have trulock chokes in those guns, turned them into pheasant machines) The CZ ringneck (20 gauge) on the bottom was a valentines day present for my wife a couple years ago. I need to have the stock shortened on that thing tho, way to long a pull.

All in all I am very happy with the final results. I will need to durability test the sears before I can call it a 100% completed project, but its good enough so far that I'll be going out to shoot some clays to test it out next time I have the opportunity. Time to learn some short 16 reloading skills.

Thanks for the comments, its been a fun project.

Greg