HOW TO CRACK A STOCK

[Jerry Harlow]

My 1878 10 lifter had 2 5/8" chambers and I debated whether to shoot the longer shells like one would in 12 gauge or to get the chambers lengthened. Finally I sent the barrels to Mike Orlen who within a week had them back to me with lengthened chambers and lengthened forcing cones. Very good work.

Since it is a number two frame I wondered what would happen now with my heavy loads. Would the lengthened chambers cause the barrels, which are not the greatest, to take my hand off? Well I put up the turkey targets and with low pressure but heavy 1 1/2 ounces of sixes right and fours left, I took two shots at targets. Great! The barrels held and my hand was still there! Dead turkeys at thirty-five steps! Took the gun inside to discover that the loads had cracked both sides of the recently refinished stock head (I had soaked all of the oil out of it so I did not expect this). It appears the locks cracked both sides and there is no crack internally in the stock. Was taking it after geese Saturday but now it needs to be fixed again. The stock is tight and with no internal cracks and everything fits perfectly. Have you seen this?

Not a happy day.

[Dean Romig]

That is sad.





.

[Dean H Hanson]

Wow, that is beyond disappointing..

[chris dawe]

Jerry there was movement or potential for it somewhere in the head inletting ,giving the receiver the opportunity to come back under recoil ,you'll see sometimes in old wood that the top tang screw can turn past its original timing ,that's a sign ,too much finish around the edges can give a false indication that everything it tight and even start a crack during reassembly before you even see it ,those are just a couple thoughts ...it's always an idea to glass the head ,on a hard used gun it can give a nice tight fit where you cant see.

get some thinned epoxy into those cracks ,glass the head and touch up your finish .

Good luck!

[George Stanton]

Any old gun that I am going to shoot a lot, or shoot heavy loads, I bed with epoxy. It doesn't show on the outside but it helps prevent damage.

I would consider 1 1/2 ounces heavy, even in an old 10.

[Carl Erickson Jr]

Did you coat the inside of the stock with a dilute cynoacrylate glue? I do that to seal all of the little cracks in the stock after it has had the oil removed. I believe that epoxy will not get into the little cracks.

[Jerry Harlow]

I know the 1.5 ounce loads are heavy but the gun will barely throw a killing pattern at 35 with them and with 1.25 ounces a turkey can stand there and keep looking at you for some reason. There is only .030 choke in each barrel. I had shot over two boxes of one ounce loads through it in dove season with no problem. The reason I soaked out the oil was there was a small crack in the right side to start with. So I am also thinking that there had to be movement somewhere, even though all screws time correctly and there is no finish build up. But with the crack visible on the right side I quit using it until it could be repaired last year. So it may have been built up finish that made the locks start the crack upon assembly before it was shot.

[John Campbell]

In order to understand what happened here, and in many other attempts to revive classic double guns, certain truths must be accepted and allowed for:

1) Wood is a natural product of carbon-based life. It is not immortal. It also dries out with age. This cannot be changed.

2) The wood used in the gunstocks of old doubles is often more than 100 years old, as it was formed into a stock. Not including the time it took to grow. Some of that wood is Black Walnut, which was barely suitable going in.

3) The wood used in old gunstocks has been subjected to perhaps thousands of impact shocks. There is a limit to the number of such shocks each piece can withstand under the circumstances of its age and treatment.

4) The wood of old gunstocks is often oil soaked. This weakens the wood. Attempts to “remove” this oil most often make the wood more brittle and less able to resist shock. Leaving the oil in is bad, too. It’s Catch 22.

5) Shock loading such old wood to more than its limits often results in failure. Why? Because the wood is old. It’s been abused. And has reached a threshold in its application past which it cannot continue to hold up. And it splits, cracks and fails.

6) The design of old doubles provides a number to “wedge Points” that work to split the stocks. The top tang and rear curves of the lockplates are only a few. They drive back into old, brittle shrunken wood with every shot. There are few ways around this.

7) Moral: You can draw out oil and refinish old stocks. You can glass bed the stock head. But don’t expect such stocks to be as strong as they were when new. It’s still OLD wood. Respect that. Use light loads and be glad they still hold up for now.

[Jerry Harlow]

Once repaired, I'm retiring it from turkey hunting as I did when I saw the original crack. Just wanted to say I had killed one with it. I have a set of 12 ga. barrels for it that are IC and IC that will get the one ounce like last fall. If I shoot the 10s it will be no more than 1 1/8 oz. from now on.

[Steve Huffman]

Kinda like our bones ! When we were young fall down get up nothing wrong , later in life brake and fall down and not get up .

[Bruce Day]

In order to understand what happened here, and in many other attempts to revive classic double guns, certain truths must be accepted and allowed for:

1) Wood is a natural product of carbon-based life. It is not immortal. It also dries out with age. This cannot be changed.

2) The wood used in the gunstocks of old doubles is often more than 100 years old, as it was formed into a stock. Not including the time it took to grow. Some of that wood is Black Walnut, which was barely suitable going in.

3) The wood used in old gunstocks has been subjected to perhaps thousands of impact shocks. There is a limit to the number of such shocks each piece can withstand under the circumstances of its age and treatment.

4) The wood of old gunstocks is often oil soaked. This weakens the wood. Attempts to “remove” this oil most often make the wood more brittle and less able to resist shock. Leaving the oil in is bad, too. It’s Catch 22.

5) Shock loading such old wood to more than its limits often results in failure. Why? Because the wood is old. It’s been abused. And has reached a threshold in its application past which it cannot continue to hold up. And it splits, cracks and fails.

6) The design of old doubles provides a number to “wedge Points” that work to split the stocks. The top tang and rear curves of the lockplates are only a few. They drive back into old, brittle shrunken wood with every shot. There are few ways around this.

7) Moral: You can draw out oil and refinish old stocks. You can glass bed the stock head. But don’t expect such stocks to be as strong as they were when new. It’s still OLD wood. Respect that. Use light loads and be glad they still hold up for now.


Interesting views. I'll be sure to break the news gently to my old P 16 with not cracked , not oil soaked black walnut stock that has had over 80,000 rounds through it. No more 1 1/8 loads ..... until next fall pheasant season.

[greg conomos]

I think Kensal's comments are not meant to be applied to every single gun stock ever made but rather most, or even many, of them. I could be wrong.

It's probably fair to say that once a stock has been oil soaked, there's no returning to its former strength. If a stock has never seen 'oil soak' or other abuse, and it was a good piece of wood to begin with, it's probably still close to its original strength.

When you consider all the wood that's 'inletted' out of the head of a stock, it's a miracle any of them hold up as well as they do.

[Jerry Harlow]

All one has to do is disassemble both a hammer gun and a hammerless to understand the weakness of the hammer compared to the nearly twice as thick hammerless. I was spoiled in my thinking by the latter.

[charlie cleveland]

jerry i hate that your stock broke...in all these old guns im like you i use heavy loads..i ve only ever had but one broke stock in shooting these old guns it was a 1894 remington double barrel hammerless.. was shooting doves and i thought the old gun had doubled on me butonly one shell had fired..it broke the stock..i glued it back to gether and then put a tape around her and shes holing up fine...charlie

[chris dawe]

Did you coat the inside of the stock with a dilute cynoacrylate glue? I do that to seal all of the little cracks in the stock after it has had the oil removed. I believe that epoxy will not get into the little cracks.

On the contrary Carl ,epoxy can be thinned ...I've worked on a couple bad ones in the past .

[Eric Estes]

For stabilizing old, clean, dried out, punky wood which is better? The super thin cyanoacrylate or thinned epoxy? I have used the thin cyanoacrylate and it soaks up like water and seems to go real deep, leaving old abused wood like a rock. I have not tried thinned epoxy. I do bed with acraglass after soaking in lots of cyano. I know many luthiers rely on cyano and even finish fretless fingerboards with it. Not sure what folks think of it in the gun world.

[chris dawe]

My original reply was to thin epoxy to get into the crack ,it will be stronger than super glue

[John Dallas]

How do you thin epoxy? Lacquer thinner?

[Eric Estes]

Interesting article.
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/thinning-west-system-epoxy/

[William Davis]

CA glue will penetrate soft punky wood and make it rock hard. Wood turners use it for "splated" bowls. Wood that actually rotten and coming apart. Those natural edge bowls you see, bark on the edges. Squirted with CA before they are turned. I keep it in my shop in 3 viscosity's thin, medium thick, and a special formula intended for toy race car tires that has some elasticity dry. Useful on fly rods tha have to flex.

I don't use it on gunstocks though so thin it seeps into places I might not want, and once on it won't come off no 2nd chances. Total re work save something that's a loss otherwise, it's the stuff to use.

You can get epoxy in different viscosity too. Look at West Systems web site. Others probably as good but West packages and provides technical assistance better than others.

William

[Jeff Christie]

I too live in the past for the most part. The past is Parkers and old classic Chris Crafts and duck boats. All are wood or part wood. Wood boats 50 plus years old won't float without West.

[Gary Carmichael Sr]

Jeff, good morning hope you are well! I had a Pacemaker wooden boat years ago that was totally neglected, all the ribs were cracked, I steamed new sister ribs and used boxes of silicon bronze screws, it brought the boat back but after several seasons on the ocean they started to crack again, so I just used her on inland waters, and had no problem, its all in how hard you use something made of wood, Gary

[Kevin McCormack]

Interesting article.
http://www.westsystem.com/ss/thinning-west-system-epoxy/

Eric, thanks for giving us the site for this article. West Systems is the best I ever used. I got the technical data sheet for mixing and applying a "below the waterline" formula when I built my Barnegat Bay sneakbox in a prior life. The result was an absolutely watertight hull that gave years of good service under the harsh and extreme conditions of marsh gunning.

[Rick Losey]

when I looked for a wood and canvas sailingcanoe to restore- some looked good- an experienced restorer told me "there are always broken ribs" and i found it was true and replaced about 8, three broken right away when a hole was crushed through the side

still working on a Penn Yan cartopper some handy man tried to "fix" by adding strips to the outside, drilling holes in many ribs that were otherwise ok.

wood anything needs care and will need work at some point-

[Jerry Harlow]

I backed off of the 1.5 ounce 10 gauge loads and bought two boxes from RST in 1.25 ounce last year at the Southern. Bought 6s and 4s. So I'm finally getting around to patterning the gun. I learned what I already knew, it is a 35-yard gun maximum with I.M. chokes (.030).

But I looked at my shells and saw black around the primers on the first three I shot. The gun is piercing the primers as the firing pins are like a needle. They are also extremely long if the firing pin is driven out as far as it will go, which I think the primer should not allow since there would be resistance in the metal. I am guessing that is why I cracked the stock on both sides last year, and it had nothing to do with the 1.5 ounces. The firing pin holes are full of black blow-back.

So what to do? Would you just file them down some and remove the sharp point? I shot three boxes of WW reloads (3500 psi) and never had this problem.

[John Campbell]

If these pins are at full protrusion, then you may have the issues you mention with certain ammunition and/or certain primers.

I would have a good double gunsmith slightly shorten (not much) and round the right pin to hemispherical. The left looks better, but might stand a bit of rounding, too.

You might also avoid import primers. These tend to have thinner caps which pierce more easily in older doubles. Cheddites are notorious for this in some guns.

Remember... get a GOOD smith to do this job right.

[George Stanton]

Yes the Cheddites are easily pierced. Just a bit of rounding may solve the problem. An occasional pierced primer is not a big deal. Unlike a box lock gun, there is no direct path to the inside of your locks.

You can shoot 1 1/2 oz loads if you like, but I think you'll break that stock again.

And my 67 year old Chesapeake Deadrise floats just fine without West System.

[Jerry Harlow]

[QUOTE=George Stanton;215856]Yes the Cheddites are easily pierced. Just a bit of rounding may solve the problem. An occasional pierced primer is not a big deal. Unlike a box lock gun, there is no direct path to the inside of your locks.

Thanks for pointing that out. On second look, you are correct. I have seen hammerless stocks broken by pierced primers, so I made an incorrect jump in my reasoning. With only 17 shells left, I will shoot them up and not use any primer from Cheddite ever again. The blowback will not do anything hopefully but to smoke up the firing pins.

Update: Put masking tape over firing pin holes, pushed pins through, took off sharp points with fingernail emery boards. Primed two shells with Winchester 209s, fired, nice round holes in primers, no more sharp points going through hopefully. Now to get a turkey with this outdated contraption.

[Mike Poindexter]

For what its worth, I ordered some 10ga RST's recently that had the same primer piercing problem with my Quality 2 lifter. No problems at all shooting older RST 10's made with Federal hulls. The RST boys know about this, or at least the girl on the phone did, but can't get the Federal hulls anymore and are stuck with Cheddites. I'm going to have to take up reloading for the 10, and cut down my old 3 1/2 inch Federals to 2 7/8. Good thing I have about 4 boxes, all in steel, and only 1 box used. Finding Bismuth 2's will be a challenge.

[Jerry Harlow]

For what its worth, I ordered some 10ga RST's recently that had the same primer piercing problem with my Quality 2 lifter. No problems at all shooting older RST 10's made with Federal hulls. The RST boys know about this, or at least the girl on the phone did, but can't get the Federal hulls anymore and are stuck with Cheddites. I'm going to have to take up reloading for the 10, and cut down my old 3 1/2 inch Federals to 2 7/8. Good thing I have about 4 boxes, all in steel, and only 1 box used. Finding Bismuth 2's will be a challenge.

Thanks for the info. If they know about the primer piercing problem and can only get Cheddites, it would only make sense to deprime the hulls and reprime them with another primer. It may hurt someone's hammerless gun or even the shooter.

[charlie cleveland]

jerry i have a old 10 ga ph 3 frame 32 inch barrels this has been my best turkey and deer gun...it is a twist steel barrel with 32 inch barrels both vfull choke...this gun stock is a little dark around the wrist...it has been fireing the the 2 7/8 ounce load for many years i have even several 12 ga 3 inch and 3 1/2 inch magnums in it with chamber adapters...no cracks in it yet i know lots of the fellas use lite loaded shells but i guess i m one who likes lot of big loads in his turkey hunting load...my favorite loads are2 7/8 inch 10 ga with 1 5/8 ounce and 2 1/4 ounce in the 10 ga 3 1/2 inch magnum and in the 8 ga 2 1/2 ounce of lead...my old guns have been shot a lot and dont think the old guns stocks have been messed with..i even have a old 10 ga g grade that are 3 1/2 inch chambered do not know if it came factory with the long chambers it has stub twist barrels on it killed a few turkey with it shooting 3 1/2 inch shells and 2 1/4 ounce of lead shot..i guess ive been lucky with all my old guns...only stock i ever broke was a remington 1894 12 ga with lite loads on dove..only barrel i ever bo loed up was aset of 28 ga modern set of steel barrels on a remington model 1148.....charlie