Tech Topics

A Cure for Dented Shotgun Ribs Are you old enough to remember the slot-car craze? At its height, there was at least one emporium with a big, fancy race track catering to fans of the mini-speedsters in almost everyone’s home town. Rabid racing fans would purchase anew slot racer and proceed immediately to dismantle it in the process of making it perform better—just like so many gun owners do with anew handgun, rifle, or shotgun right out of the box.

Then, of course, they bring it to you in a plastic bag for reassembly. (May the gods of gunsmithing bless them.) When souping up slot cars, it was considered mandatory to pull the gear from the shaft of the tiny That area is raised slightly, the dent raiser moved to the opposite side of the damage and that area raised. When the jaws will fit directly under the dent, it is raised a little above the top line of the rib and allowed to flex back to alignment when the tool is removed.

Below right, top and bottom: These are before and after views of the damaged rib. No evidence of the damage could be seen after the repair was completed. electric motor, take the motor out of its housing, and rewind the armature to gain more rpms. There was a tool appropriately called a "gear puller" to make that particular part of the task a snap. It was basically a thumb screw threaded through a crescent-shaped casting.

Prongs on the bottom of the casting fit under the gear, the thumb screw was turned in against the motor shaft, and the gear came off without damage. Recently, someone named Murray has taken the gear-puller concept and applied it to removing dents in shotgun ribs. We saw Murray’s Vent Rib Tool in Brownells latest catalog and ordered one to try out on a dented rib on a Remington trap gun.

Instead of a thumb screw and crescent jaws, the tool uses along set screw and two parallel jaws tensioned at the top with an E-ring and a brass bar. The jaws are spread open by applying finger pressure at their upper end. If the rib is dented severely, there may not be enough room to insert the jaws between it and the barrel. That’s the way things were with the Remington. In this or any similar case, the jaws must be initially positioned under the rib to the right or left of the depression.

The set screw is turned out until the brass bar will slide between the topmost parts of the jaws. Both pads of the bar must rest evenly on the rib with the area to be raised located between them. The set screw is then turned down just enough to hold the bar and jaws in place. After being sure the jaws aren’t angled in or out under the rib, the set screw is turned down to raise the adjacent area just a little. The tool is repositioned to the opposite side of the dent, and that area is also raised only a little.

The purpose of this initial raising is to provide enough clearance for the jaws to go directly under the dent. Once that’s possible, the dent is raised to a position very slightly above the rib line. (Most ribs

will flex back down after the tool is removed, leaving the rib straight.) As you can see from the before and after photos, the result shows no sign of the dent or any damage from the tool itself. Get the Lead Out There comes a time in the life of every handgun barrel when it’s time to set aside harsh chemicals and reach for a Lewis Lead Remover. We believe the tool has long been unequaled for removing lead buildup and restoring the accuracy of the bore.

Evidently, the Lewis clan came to the conclusion that what has worked so well in pistol barrels for over 50 years could work just as well in shotgun barrels, so they’ve gone and made one for scatterguns. As it turns out, it not only gets rid of lead fouling but also removes plastic-wad residue. Like the handgun model, the shotgun version of the Lewis Lead Remover uses specially woven brass patches.

They’re much larger than the pistol patches with which It uses larger bronze screens than the handgun model, is available in all popular gauges, and works equally well in removing lead buildup as well as plastic-wad residue. you’re acquainted, and accomplish the same task of cleaning out a bore without damaging it. The new system threads into shotgun cleaning rods with a 5/16-27 female thread.

It features a proprietary cone and rubber tip that correctly tensions the patch against the bore for maximum cleaning efficiency. Models are available from Brownells for all common gauges. Something Old and Something New for Bolt Beauty Purists call it "damascening." Not being so pure, we choose to call it "bolt jeweling." Reduced to a crude definition, it is the practice of mildly abrading the surface of a bolt body with a series of overlapping concentric circles. Why?

To enhance the bolt’s appearance and slick up its movement somewhat in the receiver. For years, the means of working the jeweling paste into the bolt has varied from one ‘smith to another. Some use erasers from common lead pencils. Some use short lengths of wooden dowel or nylon rod. Most, perhaps, use small, circular wire brushes.

All use some sort of jeweling fixture on a drill press or drilling/ milling machine to ensure their work is aligned and therefore attractive in finished form. (A bolt body with unevenly matched and overlapping circles wandering all over its surface looks very amateurish.) But there’s a problem with the use of wire brushes. Unless their bristles are restricted, it’s difficult to apply the same amount of downward pressure when forming each circle. The more pressure, the more the bristles will spread.

The result is often a mechanically straight line that appears to be anything but straight due to the differences in circle circumference. Therefore, for forming perfect circles, a milling/drilling machine with precise vertical control is better than a standard drill press with a hand-operated lever for lowering the jeweling tool. But not every gunsmith owns a drilling/milling machine.

If you don’t, an old reliable fixture and a newly discovered jeweling tool, in combination, can deliver the same quality work on a drill press. The fixture we use in our shop was made by Wilcox All-Pro Tools & Supply It’s currently out of production, but is expected to be available again by the time you read this. In the photos here, the fixture has been set up with a phony bolt body of cold-rolled steel, because we had no bolts in need of glamorizing as this was written.

The fixture comes with clear and complete instructions for its use which will not be repeated here, but it works something like a lathe. You clamp it to the drill-press table where it stays during the entire jeweling operation. All lateral and rotational movement of the workpiece is accomplished in precision increments with the fixture. What about the previously mentioned downward pressure and irregular circles? Avoiding those is where the new jeweling tool from New England Custom Gun Service enters the picture.

We spotted it last year at the company’s booth at the NRA show in Houston. Actually, it was called to our attention by Detrich Apel, a world-famous master gunmaker, who, in our opinion, is unequaled in his skills among the artisans who have earned that lofty title. The $22 tool resembles a centerfire cartridge case with an extremely long neck. The head of the "case" is threaded to accept a machined brass rod wearing 1/4-20 threads at its slotted end.

The purpose of the rod is to feed out the jeweling tip housed in the case neck. And the tip itself is where the greatest advantage of the tool lies. The tip looks like a pencil eraser, made of a material called Polycord.