It came out very nicely and I am very satisfied with his work. His name is Frank Vigneau, in upstate Vermont. The only problem he had was that the extractor is very cruddy and doesn't fit well. He was going to make a new one, but decided not to, since I was up to $450. I am fine with that. It's not his fault the seller put the the wrong spare part in the gun. I know how to fix it, and he gave me a chunk of spring steel for my Lemon Squeezer, so I think I will take a stab at fabricating a new extractor. If that fails, I can take the old one down to a machine shop and have them tig it up in the right places, then I will file it to fit.
Anyway, Frank was nice enough to photograph the process for me.
The chromemoly steel is pretty hard stuff....
He asked what I wanted for a taper. I told him: I need to cut a 3/8 dovetail, I want it light enough to carry around, but heavy enough to absorb some of the 45-70 round recoil, and well balanced. Since the barrel is only 26", to achieve all this, he left it a little heavy, like a target barrel. That is fine by me! I shoot from a rest anyway.
The Remington Rolling Blocks use flat threads 12:1 pitch. Must be a pain to cut.
And there it is!!! Back on my own bench. I spent a couple of hours fiddling with the extractor. The problem is it's two small to make a good bite on the rim of the 45-70, and the angle of the tooth that meets the breech block is wrong. Easy enough to fix.
Next step is the fore end. I already carved a semi Schnabel type out of the original long military wood (yes this images is reversed to keep it similar to the above photo, that is the spring slot from the right hand side). I am very pleased with the shape. As you know, I am not much of a wood worker. The best tip I read in the books and websites on refinishing buttstocks is to use a straight edge to check constantly that you are not leaving either a bulge or a hollow. I photoshopped (GIMPed, really) the image because it is upside down and backwards, but it is finally giving hints of the end of the tunnel.
Once the fore end is done, I need to cut a 3/8ths dove tail for the front sight, drill and tap for the rear sight, fix the extractor, then blue it.
