LUCKYDAWG13
Member
this advice was past on to me by Curator and is the way I'm going to do it but I'm giving my barrel 1 or 2 more weeks of soak time in Kroil
the barrel has been on for over 150 years I'm in no rush
Having removed many musket breech plugs, I want to pass along some tips. If you don't have a barrel vise, you can make do with a sturdy bench vise and a couple of hardwood blocks. Oak or Elm work best but any non splitting hard wood will do. Carve a channel to roughly fit the barrel in two blocks. Obviously this should be slightly undersize. Find some powdered rosin (Sporting goods stores have it for baseball pitchers) Before clamping the barrel in the blocks, dust the inside of the channel with the rosin to make a non-slip surface. I often use a large pipe wrench on the plug itself but first protect the sides of the breech plug with 1/8" thick, 1/2" wide aluminum strips so I don't damage it. Sometimes I add a 3 foot pipe to the wrench handle for additional leverage. Make sure everything is secure before applying major force. It will come loose eventually. Sometimes another week of soaking in penetrating oil is also necessary. If the gun is still loaded, the powder charge can be picked out with an awl, and any projectile will be easily pushed out the breech end.
Should you find a plug of cement in your barrel once you remove the breech plug, don't try to force it out the muzzle. Find a 3/8 masonry drill and drill down the center of the plug. Once you've drilled through, the plug can be broken apart with a hardened punch and hammer and removed in pieces with no damage to the barrel. You may find the bore corroded where the plug was.
Good luck with your project!
the barrel has been on for over 150 years I'm in no rush
Having removed many musket breech plugs, I want to pass along some tips. If you don't have a barrel vise, you can make do with a sturdy bench vise and a couple of hardwood blocks. Oak or Elm work best but any non splitting hard wood will do. Carve a channel to roughly fit the barrel in two blocks. Obviously this should be slightly undersize. Find some powdered rosin (Sporting goods stores have it for baseball pitchers) Before clamping the barrel in the blocks, dust the inside of the channel with the rosin to make a non-slip surface. I often use a large pipe wrench on the plug itself but first protect the sides of the breech plug with 1/8" thick, 1/2" wide aluminum strips so I don't damage it. Sometimes I add a 3 foot pipe to the wrench handle for additional leverage. Make sure everything is secure before applying major force. It will come loose eventually. Sometimes another week of soaking in penetrating oil is also necessary. If the gun is still loaded, the powder charge can be picked out with an awl, and any projectile will be easily pushed out the breech end.
Should you find a plug of cement in your barrel once you remove the breech plug, don't try to force it out the muzzle. Find a 3/8 masonry drill and drill down the center of the plug. Once you've drilled through, the plug can be broken apart with a hardened punch and hammer and removed in pieces with no damage to the barrel. You may find the bore corroded where the plug was.
Good luck with your project!
The breech isn't an interlocking one if made back then, and it is possible that it will come loose. That's assuming that since it was made it wasn't unbreeched in the past, and messed with in some way that has made unbreeching a problem now. I'm surprised the grease gun technique didn't work as that's a pretty tried and true method. Sorry to hear that. If you haven't really tried it, or if the fitting didn't work look at refreshing the threads, and try again. If doing it the manual way...., First, you need to mark the barrel where the breech plug and barrel meet, so that when you return the plug you have it aligned exactly at the same spot where it was when you began the unbreeching. I've never done it without a barrel vice, and I used a very large, high quality adjustable wrench, with a steel bar welded to the handle for more leverage, to open the breech on a couple vintage British muskets, and a couple repro Bess. Good luck.
