She's fully operational again. The higher grade CM is FANTASTIC to work with. With that low grad walnut I had about half a dozen serious cracks, this one has had zero. The wood is nice and strong and curls off the blade very nicely.
The @#$ lock mortise was precut on this one. They didn't have one in stock that was left uncut. And inevitably in the fiddling to make it match up properly I had to expand the sides of the cut, AGAIN creating gaps around the lock. They're not as bad as the first attempt, but they still annoy me. I would like to have the barrel 100% in place and THEN put the lock's plate against the wood exactly where I want it, scribe around it and cut the hole myself.
Still left to be done is some work on the ramrod channel and of course trimming and sanding the stock. But I'm going to take it shooting as it is this weekend weather permitting.
I bored a hole for the central lock bolt through the back of the plug's tang, as pictured. I've never seen this done before but I've found most ML'rs to be far too loose and wiggly. Relying solely on pins and a wood screw to restrain the barrel strikes me as a bad idea, so with this design they are strictly backup. The main bolt locks the barrel, lock and stock together.
Instead of a regular sideplate I'm going to go with the washer-type things I've seen on other poorboy style mountain rifles. I'm toying with idea of not putting a buttplate on at all, but if I do use one it will be very simple like a trade gun style. I really hate crescent-shaped buttplates.
I've also got an idea for a "gutter drain" to keep water from running down the stock's lip along the barrel back into the lock.
