Silly question- lowering scope rail
for all those that have had their scope rails lowered (and subsequent side-cocker mod), what is the best way to go about this? I’m hoping to make a M1913 rail to stretch the entire length of the main body- hopefully this will help to further strengthen the main body. did anyone fill in the old bolt handle cutout, or did you just leave that area alone? how did you secure the new rail to the main body? Screws? Really good epoxy? Both? I really don’t want to re-invent the wheel. I’m still going to design a completely new body, but I need something to shoot and fiddle with in the meantime. Thanks again for any help!!
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Thats good reasoning.
I never really thought about putting pressure on the barrel while cocking, but then again Ive never bent a barrel doing it either. I use a silicone valve lube on the o-rings, and its been working better than anything else so far.
I can see the concern with a .257 caliber machined down to .310
There isn’t a lot of strength left there. Machine in a lead for slugs, and its even worse.
Yes still have to open an close breech to load.
The reason for his setup is to take the load off of the breech. The breech hangs off the smallest part of the barrel. When you start using HEAVY hammer springs it puts a lot of pressure on the end of the smallest part of the barrel when cocking.
Also with this setup I can use a aluminum breech because there is no load on it like when cocking. Just slides back and forth.
That is why I’m going to build a new .308 the same way.
I will post a pic later of the breech area. My tophat is extra long so there is minimal gap between barrel and tophat.
Nope it not my breech being warped. Im on the 3rd breech in this rifle, and every attempt at a longer cock handle resulted in problems. The lightest possible handle is key, but every one came apart and pulled one of the screws out of the breech. So it led me away from extended handles.
I have Dupuytrens syndrome, in both hands, and it even affects my thumbs.
The handles were an attempt to ease the cocking effort with a heavy spring.
The cocking was easy, but the results were all over the chart.
With a normal spring, same effect. The 2nd and 3rd handles broke with a normal spring after a few hundred shots. I tested the hell out of it, but finally just went back to a knob.
Dyotats handle sounds like the correct build. Hollow with a plastic cap. The less weight off-center, the better.
I did not know thats how it was made.
but… don’t you have to move both the hammer to cock, then push the breech forward to load? Or did I miss something again?
Well that’s like saying the breech is the off centerred piece. I am with Dyotat on this one cause I have heard about your gun shooting left or right due to cocking hammer being one way or another, maybe the breech is wrarpped.
We will see. I have about 2000 slugs through it with no problems. Shoots real good. The hammer is the bulk of the weight and the handle is hollow with a hollow cap. It only has .002″ clearance on the barrel and is guided at the front of the hammer on the smaller part of the barrel also.
I’m going to build a .308 here sortly the same way with a 32″ 1-14 4 grove barrel that I had made.
I’m not a fan of the bolt on the hammer. That extra weight off center just sounds like trouble in the making, its going to try and rotate the hammer off the barrel axis on impact.
Since that hammer is barrel riding, that force is applied to the barrel.
I just said that with no such hammer in my inventory, however I have seen the extended handles on the breech break and fly apart on the shot, and they weren’t moving near as far as the hammer will. The extended breech handles tended to cause flyers horizontally on my rifle too. So thats my opinion for what its worth.
Not a diss to Dyotat. His stuff is amazing. But its my opinion nonetheless. 😉
I was thinking of milling the rail off, slotting it, or dovetailing it on the mill. so tht I can attach a mill spec scope rail. Then using both screws, and epoxy, or possibley having it tig welded in place. Especially siince it will be slightly higher, above the frame tube.
A few short beads of tig weld should do the trick without building up too much heat.
Then slotting the frame for the bolt, but futher foward, and putting the bolt in the hammer instead of the breach.
Similar to what Dyotat is doing with the .257.
Mike
There is a large gap between mounting points, and that gap covers the weakest part of the frame. If you use screws only, theres a lot of surface area not really secured and the flexing can still exist to a large extent.
Bonding full length fully secures the rail, and removes the possibility of that movement. Think of double-rifles for example. Both barrels are soldered together, not bolted.
Might not be the best example, but you get the idea.
Why not drill and tap holes to screw the rail into the frame and use some red loctite on it?
Actually if you look at the photo, my breech knob is the same distance from the end of the breech, only on the side.
Just remove your breech, drill/tap for the knob then mill the slot.
Don’t forget to put a grub-screw in the original hole, flush with the surface or deeper. The wall thickness from the bottom of the hole to the inside of the breech is very thin. Wouldn’t want that to blow air up toward your eye.
The only real brain-work would be if you wanted to mill the locking slots too. But I’m not a fan of locking the breech, so the knob centered in the slot works best for me.
Milling a slot in the 1911 rail for gluing might be a good idea. I cant see how it would be bad unless you someday need to remove the rail, then it might be bad. 😉
The hole that secures the endcap is the same distance from the end on both my talon and condor frames. So either endcap would fit both frame types.
sweet! awesome info guys!! what are your thoughts on cutting a recess on the M1913 rail for the body rib so that the rail has more “tooth” for the epoxy to stick to? Another silly question: does an TSS end cap thread onto a condor frame? AF’s website says the TSS frame is 22 1/8″, and the Condor is 22.5″. Just wondering if there’s any other differences.
So to get this breech knob thing straight, all I’d have to do for the side cocker is to close the breech, and mark the breech 90 degrees on the side and drill the new hole? then machine out the cocking slot? why was I making so much harder in the past?! 🙄
Love the way the grip adapter has been channeled to accept the frame, so as to stiffen it. Very clever!
Mike
Somebody on this forum, I forget who, fixed a breech that the bolt hole stripped out of. The idea was pretty damn good IMO.
He bored thru the side of the breech and screwed in a brass insert that was threaded 10/32 on the inside. He had to bore out the brass on the inside of the breech after it was mounted, but the end result was slick as hell.
He was able to use very heavy springs with his blodnob valve after that, and never had a knob pull out again.
Pablouks bro, Langnessen, made his own breech side cock mod that is super strong and looks very good. Im sure you can find the thread somewhere if you search for it.
This forums Yellow Ninja cut the rail off and did the side-cock mod. For some reason after he cut the frame he abandoned the project and sent me the frame for free.
I had given him some carbon tubing, so he offered the frame. Its one of the very old talon frames.
Basically he cut the rail off with a hacksaw, cut a slot in the side with an end-mill, closed the breech and marked the spot for the bolt handle. Drilled/tapped and it was done.
Thats the only photo I have from that side.
A 15-shot group with the red-dot sight, at 30 yards.
He mounted a tri-rail onto the remaining dovetail and was going to mount night-vision sights on it. NV stuff is mounted very high to begin with, so that was his idea for lowering the mount.
When I got the frame I bought trigger parts and springs from AF. I already had some 12″ barrels laying about, my favorite on in this gun is a .20 cal. Everything else needed I had laying around and then JFK offered me the grip adapter… how the hell could I say no? I guess I said the right things in my comments about it, and a few weeks later it was in my mailbox. Shweeeet!!! I got the front and back grip online for pretty cheap.
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Yes, if you mount the rail this low, one of Tony’s TTAngle adapters would be a great idea. Without raising the scope back up I cant crush my cheekbone enough to see thru the scope.
To be honest, I have gotten used to the trajectories with a raised scope and probably wont lower it on mine.
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Actually machined the barrel to .375″ on my new .25 and .257 barrel. That is why I can use the .308 valve with a different stem.
My .308 is at .430″ and the barrel flexes when cocking. Just move a little but I don’t like it.