REPLACEMENT GUN SCREW SETS.

[Mike Stahle]

Thinking about replacing a few buggered up gun screws.
Have any of you guys ever done this yourselves?
What is involved in doing it right?
Or is this something better left to a gunsmith?

Thanks,

Mike :)

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=25504/Product/_S020_REPLACEMENT_GUN_SCREW_SET

http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=173145

[Mike Stahle]

Alright,
I'm thinking I better take this Silence as a
“folks don’t try this at home” situation. :)

[Harry Collins]

Mike,

I ordered a set and was able to fit screw to index. I did have trouble filing the screw down flush and even. Just the other day there was a post on this forum with a thanks for the advice to pean the original buggered screw. Was told it works better than one would think.

Harry

[David Borrowman]

I ordered some and they would start but wouldn't go in very far. I emailed my GS and he said this is common. Usually have to "adjust" the threads on the screw with a die, or on the gun with a tap. Then have to file them down to size and to get them to index properly.

[Mike Stahle]

Mike,

I ordered a set and was able to fit screw to index. I did have trouble filing the screw down flush and even. Just the other day there was a post on this forum with a thanks for the advice to pean the original buggered screw. Was told it works better than one would think.

Harry

Thanks Harry,
Going to plead stupidity here. :vconfused:
What is “penning the original buggered screw?”

Mike :)

[C Roger Giles]

I would not get any notions about tapping out the screw hole as the frame has been case hardened and it is so darn hard you will probably break your tap.

Much easier to work with the screw. That filing the screw down flush is a mistake, big time!

Rog

[E Robert Fabian]

Mike, find a drift punch that has a face the same size or smaller and set on top of buggerd screw and tap punch with hammer. A buggerd screw has all the origanal metal still there your just moving it back where it belongs.

[Harry Collins]

Roger,

You are correct, however in the case of the screws from Galazans they are about 1/8 to 1/4 inch proud of the hole and that is after you file above the threads to get them to index. That's about as clear as mud, but the best as I can explain it.

Harry

[Jack Cronkhite]

Mike: I posted about returning a buggered head back to "decent". Not perfect, but decent.

I turned the screw into the receiver and gently tapped it with a small hammer but I like the idea of using the drift punch hammer combo a bit better. I was gentle but it could have been possible to miss the screw and hit the frame, although, as I said, the tapping was very gentle. It did not take much to move the majority of the metal back to position. Frankly, I was very surprised.

The gun is a "worthless" piece that should have found the scrap heap but I got foolish - only in time, not money. Been at it for many months, mostly soaking to remove rust. It was completey seized in every possible way with rust. Most screw heads were buggered so I tried the pening with the worst one and it is no longer the worst one.

Cheers,
Jack

[Mike Stahle]

Thanks guys,
I think I’ll give the drift punch idea a try.
The screws are not really that bad overall.
There are a couple that have little burrs that are like Velcro and want to snag on everything and anything including my fingers.

[Jack Cronkhite]

Mike: Those little burs are the result of someone using undersized wedge screw drivers. If you do play with gun screws and do not already have "hollow ground" turn screw tips, they are well worth the investment. A good set will have the right tip to completely fill the length of the slot and completely fill the width. Unless that is done, one risks twisting the driver out of the screw under torque and there's your bur. Do it a couple more times and you have the really buggered screws we have all seen.
Also, since you only have annoying tiny burs, a brass punch or maybe even a hard nylon punch might fix it for you with minimal likelihood of causing damage anywhere else.

Tap gently !!

Cheers,
Jack

[Bob Roberts]

I once had the opportunity to watch Jack Haugh reshape and restore a horribly mangled and burred flintlock top jaw screw using just a hammer to move the metal back into it's original form. He was using just a small ball peen hammer with a head which was not much over about 1 1/2" to 2" long on a sort of slender handle 8" to 12" in length. He did also have laid out a few round slightly concave shaped hardened drifts, but I did not see him employ them. While I watched the metal slowly, sort of magically, move back into place he explained that you really could not do this with a bigger hammer, but that the secret was in multitude of patient blows from a hammer with just enough weight to coax along a little metal with each hit. He also made the point that the strikes were actually directed at just enough of an angle to move the material in the direction desired. The screw was secured in a very substantial vise with safe lead jaws which meant that all of the energy of the medium sharp blows was delivered and concentrated at the small point of impact, and that no energy was lost to any movement of the screw itself. To prove this point, he at one point when adjusting it in the vise handed me the screw so I could feel the heat that had built up in the area just being worked. At another point, although he did not need to do it with that screw, he said that another trick to keep in mind when rebuilding old screws was to sometimes take the time to file up or grind a piece of steel into a small blade of a thickness to be snug in the screw slot which could be slipped sideways into the slot and rest firmly on its bottom. One end of the blade should be contoured to the radius of the dome of the screw, and the other be large enough for your other hand to hold and move the blade in the screw slot while working the hammer. The purpose of this tool is to prevent metal from being moved into the slot where it later might only be removed by filing which would mean the loss of original metal. His final comment was that if a screw was to have the engraving restored it was probably a good idea to anneal it before raising the cuts so that the graver tool would not hit hard and soft spots while working the design around the head of the restored screw.