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Got to spend 5 hours at the mill today. Yippee! Worked on the Flobert breech and made a 'blank-seating die' for the Stevens Favorite. I've finished the mill work on the breech. Now it's on to drilling, hand filing, and finishing.

Really glad I made this practice piece. Order of  operations seems straight forward, but there are a couple of places where 'out of order' snuck up on me. Didn't cause me to have to restart, but it did create extra work and some gymnastics.

I didn't get any 'work' pictures, but I'll post pictures of the completed, (for today anyway), pieces when I get them loaded on the computer.


Paul

I promised pictures of "chips" and here they are:
This is a 1.25" round bar mounted in the lathe and turned to 1.007" to match the breech diameter of the existing "Teutonic" Flobert.


This is the finished (turned) billet parted off and in my hand.


This is what happens when you THINK you have the work-piece held tightly in the soft jaws. No real harm done because damage was in area that is going to be milled away. However, since soft jaws clearly weren't going to work, I had to make some work-holding jaws.


The work-holding jaws being fabricated. They consists of two pieces of 1/2" aluminum clamped in the vise with a 3/4" piece of wood between them. (3/4" will be milled out of the round billet). Using a 1" mill, I milled/drilled down through the wood, but not out the bottom of the aluminum. That left a shelf for the work-piece to register against.


The work-holding jaws made.


Empty jaws before seating work-piece.


The billet in the work-holding jaws.


Milling 0.750x1.600 slot in the billet.


The milling finished.


A square 3/4" billet setting between the "wings" of the breech block.


This is a practice piece. Helps with determining proper order of operations, and things like "can't use soft jaws". Also, I haven't been "on the machines" for a long time, so this practice piece helps get back in the proper mindset for machine work. There's lots left to do with this breech block; drill firing pin hole, drill holes for screwing ears to "action", drill and tap firing pin retaining screw, round sharp edges, and "finish", but this is a pretty good start.


Paul

Addressed to my dad when he was still enlisted. Apparently, as part of getting to go to Officer Candidate School, he had to "explain" his "foreign relations" and therefore provide his dad's naturalization evidence.

There's a bit of 'news' for me here. First, I thought my granddad immigrated in 1910, not 1902. Second, I thought he came through Ellis Island, not Baltimore, Maryland. Third, I didn't know when he became an American citizen. Turns out, February, 1945. I had no clue about what ship he arrived on. Now I'll have to look up the SS Chimmitz (sp). (Actually SS Chemnitz.)


Paul

Ahh...

Apologies to the southern hemisphere. All downhill for you guys from here.

Paul

My paternal grandfather emigrated from Croatia in 1910. I'm not sure when my paternal grandmother's parents emigrated from Croatia. My Granddad was a great guy. Kind of the male counterpart to Big Mama. Again because my Dad was the youngest of 7, I didn't get to know my Granddad as well as I would have liked. He was quite a guy. Came to America without speaking a word of English. First job was in a library in New York City. That didn't last. :laugh: He ended up in the large Croatian community in Chicago where he went to work for my grandmother's dad driving a beer wagon like those horse-drawn Budweiser ones you see on TV. When he married my grandmother, they moved to Oklahoma City, where he went to work for the Ford Motor Company. Family legend has it that he was responsible for the "running board". When he retired from Ford, he opened a cobbler/watch repair shop in a spare room in his house. He and I spent our time in there, or in his barn. I would always leave his house with an armload of "stuff". Much to my parent's disapproval.

Neither family, my mother's or my Dad's, were happy when they got married. Dad's family was Croatian Catholic (my Dad was an alter boy for many years); mother was Baptist AND DIVORCED! Almost polar opposites! Nevertheless, both families liked each other's spouse... or never let on otherwise.

My mother, all Irish, was the spittin' image of Maureen O'Hara. I kid you not. Red haired, blue eyed "Colleen". (Her name was Mary Kathleen.) My Dad, all Croatian, was a VERY handsome fellow. Jet hair and hazel eyes. Was locally known for his singing voice; Oklahoma Golden Gloves champion in his weight class (Welter weight if I remember correctly). He set several state athletic records in Track and Field, and football. (His dad wouldn't let him go swimming until he learned how to swim. :laugh:) He was a sparring partner of Rocky Marciano. (I have some Marciano memorabilia from those days.) My mother didn't like my Dad boxing, so that didn't survive the marriage. (Best, probably.) He worked as assistant manager of a Piggly Wiggly where he met my mother. After they married, he went to work at Tinker Air Force Base making bomb sights. He then got drafted into the Korean War. He spent 32 years in the Army, ending up as a Colonel. I THINK he was a 'spook' in his later years in the Army because he had some very 'interesting' postings. Like the US embassy in Ethiopia for one - where he hob nobbed with Hailie Selassie. (That, not family legend, as I visited him there in Addis Ababa, and was party to some of that hob nobbing.)

So, genetically but not culturally, Irish and Croatian, I am. I don't 'claim' either, although I think there are culturally genetic remnants! My mother was known for her temper, and my siblings and I seemed to have inherited some of that. Also, Croatians aren't exactly known for their mellow dispositions. Family legend has it that my Grandfather and his brother HAD to emigrate because my great grandfather killed some guys that were "cat calling" my great grandmother - and was thereafter HUNG!

My paternal Grandfather - Ivan Pavl Skvorc, AKA "Thithic" - LEFT Croatia, and apparently had no regrets. He wouldn't allow his children to speak Croatian, even though both he and my grandmother did around the home. I think that by the time my mother was born, most of the Irish had worn away from the McKenzie clan. Most of the immigrants of that era LOVED America, and wanted their children to be AMERICANS! Not Irish-Americans or Croatian-Americans. Having lived "over seas" for many years, I can say unequivocally that I'm an American through and through.

However... :grin: My daughters are named Erin Kathleen and Caitlin Marie...


Paul

Recently spent at Sportsman's Warehouse. The box in the upper left is 6.5 Creedmore. It was $47 out of the whole, and that was the cheapest box of Creedmore ammo! Most were between $65 and $80 - FOR TWENTY ROUNDS!


Paul

This thing will be mostly for my grandkids. They'll have to put up with the smoke. Builds character. :D

Paul

Hmm... I have a 1:9 twist, .223 caliber barrel liner 'left over' from when I made the 10/22 from the 80% receiver. (The barrel liner maker would not sell just 1 liner.) That liner fits almost perfectly in 8mm Mauser milsurp take-off bbls.

Consider this:
1) I put that liner in one of the MANY 8mm milsurp take-off bbls I have;
2) Chamber it for either the .22 TCM or the 5.7x28;
3) Stick that bbl on one of the two RB actions I have that are waiting for bbls;
4) Use Pyrodex RS BLACK POWDER substitute behind a Lyman gas-checked 53-grain cast bullet, for which I have the mold;
5) And get 1050 f/s muzzle velocity with that .22 caliber cast bullet without having to wildcat the TCM or 5.7x28 case up to .25 caliber. (In other words, not have to buy a custom reamer.) Furthermore, while staying well within the pressure specs of the RB, I could get a jacketed bullet up to .22 RF magnum velocities - (2k-ish).

Hmm...

Paul

Those of you that have been here at THL for a while will know how I have railed against the ammunition manufacturing industry since the insanity that followed Barrack Hussein Obama's election. That industry learned, (AND FULLY EXPLOIT TO THIS DAY), that they could CUT PRODUCTION, thereby creating a FALSE sense of scarcity, then INCREASE PRICES, and actually INCREASE PROFITS! Let me repeat that more succinctly for emphasis:

REDUCE PRODUCTION and INCREASE PROFITS.

The proof of which is patently obvious to all except their shills and stupid sycophants.

This morning I accidentally strayed to one of the national "news" agencies, where they were discussing the new business tactic of "dynamic pricing". This approach to pricing services is not new per se, but it is now sweeping through industries heretofore that had at least some semblance of an ethical compass. In the East, (isn't that where all greed originates in this country), restaurants are now varying the prices on their menus depending on what day it is, what time of day it is, and WHERE YOU WANT TO SIT! BOWLING ALLIES are charging up to FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS PER LANE depending in the time of day and day of the week! Movie theaters are now charging extra for "prime seating". The list goes on. Greed simply knows NO boundary.

I'm not just ranting because it's late in the long Alaskan winter. Humanity cannot continue on this trajectory and survive on this planet.

Are you right with The Creator...

Because The End is near.


Paul

Perlina Webber Mckenzie, my maternal grandmother. AKA "Big Mamma". EVERYONE but her kids, called her that. She died a day before her 100th birthday.

Her folks emigrated from Ireland in the 1870s after the Potato Famine that struck Ireland. She married my grandfather, Oscar Murphy whose parents also emigrated from Ireland. I knew my maternal great grandfather, Henry McKenzie, the man in the picture, but not well as my mother was the youngest of seven children. He was already in his 90s when my folks got married. He made it to 100. His life was hard. These folks were genuine pioneers of the American West. They migrated seasonally from Oklahoma to Texas, fought (losing battles) with Indians, were raided by Jayhawkers from Kansas, and much more. The story is, (and backed up by a newspaper article that I have never seen), that Henry killed one of the last grizzly bears in Oklahoma. WITH A KNIFE!

Big Mamma 'ruled the roost'. Her sons were still afraid of her when she was in her 90s. :laugh: It was funny to watch these grown, fairly gnarly men, acquiesce to her. Seems consistent with Irish women, or so I have heard in recent years. She knew more about the plants of the American West than any of my botany professors. She could make "stuff' from them that you would find hard to believe. "Cough medicine" was honey and whiskey. She probably used more than a gallon of Merthiolate  and Mercurichrome on me in my 'wonder years'. I never saw her hit any of us grandkids, but she could pinch your arm 'til you yelped! She was a staunch Baptist, but this was before the fanatics got hold of that denomination. She didn't wear her religion on everyone's nose. I loved that woman.

Paul

PS - I forgot to mention that Big Mama married an Irishman - Oscar Murphy. Immigrants tended, (and still do), to marry within their culture. Mostly because that's who they 'hang around with.'

Paul

The original barrel on the Stevens Model 15 is chambered for the 32 Long Colt, so I went looking for ammo. (Fat chance, right!) What I found was a guy that makes"reloadable" .32 LC cases. Sorta. What he makes is a brass sleeve into which you load a .22 RF BLANK or nail gun cartridge and a .311-.312 bullet,:mad: in the mouth. The 'blank' is offset so that the centerfire firing pin hits the rim of the blank, and that propels the bullet. Interesting solution. If I remember correctly, the cases are $3.50 each. That's not terrible, and I think probably fairly 'doable'. Here's an interesting note: OF COURSE you can't mail ammo unless you use UPS AND pay a HAZMAT fee. However, no such constraints on blanks! I just bought 100 rounds off of Amazon. I can make my own 'sleeves', but at $3.50 each, i might have to buy a few of them.

This doesn't negate the. 25 caliber project, but it does mean I might be shooting the Favorite sooner than later. I also just bought a .22 RF barrel for it, but I have to get a .22 ejector for it. The 32 Long Colt ejector doesn't work.

Paul

I have been distracted by another project. One everyone here will be keenly interested in, but I don't want to reveal the details now. When it gets 'locked in', I'll post what it's about here. I promise it will be interesting.

That said, I've got some machining I have to do for some repair work for the next few days. As soon as I can get started on this project, I'll post here.

Paul

I think HB has it right.

Paul

I'm guessing that he forgot the decimal point, and the actual assuming price is $345.00. Which would be a great price!

Paul

I had a substantial response, but because I do a lot of these on my phone, it went "into the ether". :angry:

I was cleaning my fort and found some 32 Smith and Wesson Long cases. Hmm... I wonder what one of these would look like necked down to .25? The answer is: Pretty much the same as the necked-up TCM case does. The TCM cases are easier to get. Not that that matters much, as I probably have a lifetime's supply (300) in hand.

I also discovered a bullet-maker called "Bear Creek Bullets". They make swaged, solid lead, coated, bullets for mostly obsolete cartridges. They make one 90-grain bullet in .258 caliber. That's heavier than I want, but at least they have them, and a significant number of people really like their bullets, so I'll probably get some. Everyone claims zero leading after thousands if shots. We'll see.

I think I have a pretty clear picture of the internal ballistics of the thing I want. Looks like it's time to start 'making chips'.

Paul

PS - For $.02, I'd put this whole thing on an AR.

Paul