Drum Installed & Lock Inletted:

Before the lock was inletted, the drum was installed into the barrel. Note this is a left handed rifle, so the drum goes on the left side. Installation is very similar to installing a flash liner, except you do not have to file down the liner. 

See Installing a Flash Hole Liner (Photo Album) in the Tips & Aids section for more details of this process. 

Once the drum was installed, it is not necessary to cut away the wood in the lock area for the drum to fit into the stock when the barrel is seated.  Lucky for me, Tyler (11 yrs.)  & Gillian (5 yrs.), my grand daughters,  came to visit that day, so I put them to work. I marked out the area for the drum and Tyler cut away the wood for the drum. Gillian held the stock for Tyler. 

Once the notch was made, we put the barrel back into the stock and then put the pins back into the stock. 

Tyler and Gillian took care of this task very well, too. They were having as much fun as I was just watching them. Both were very eager to learn about how to make rifles and how to use the tools in the shop. 

With the drum installed and the barrel now back into the stock, we can now start inletting the lock. 

First remove all the parts from the lock plate. Position the lock plate under the exposed drum. Clamp it tightly to the stock and trace around the backside of the bolster as best as you can. You may have to take measurements and finish the lines yourself. Cut out the bolster area in the stock. The lock plate when seated into this recess should now lay flat. 

Again trace around the lock plate. (Cut straight down and not at an angle. This will make gaps around your lock plate.) Remove enough wood inletting the lock plate till the bolster lays flat against the side flat of the barrel. This should be tight enough that you can not slide a thin piece of paper between the bolster and the barrel. Check the flatness of the lock plate to the side panel with a machinist's square.

Once the lock plate is inletted, I remove the lock plate and drill my lock plate bolt hole in the rear end of the bolster. In this case I wanted to install a #10 x 32 side plate bolt.  I drilled the hole in the bolter with a #21 bit, outside of the stock. Then reinstalled the lock plate into the stock and used this hole as a template to drill thru the stock, the end of the breech plug and out the other side of the stock.  When done, removed the lock plate and drilled a 13/64" clearance hole thru the stock and the breech plug.

Now the lock plate was reinstalled and a #10 x 32 tap was inserted thru the side plate side of the stock to the inside edge of the lock plate. The lock plate hole was then tapped for the bolt.

With the lock bolt installed, I used a pencil to mark the wood in the inner lock panel recess area thru the bridle, sear and sear spring mounting bolt holes. Remove the lock plate and now you can lay the bridle down and trace around the bridle with the pencil and remove the wood. I do the same thing for the main spring.

Now the lock is installed.

To add the hammer, I will have to take down the top of the wrist area above the lock. For this reason, I drew the rough lines for the lock panel. The area above this line will be rounded toward the breech tang.

Next I used my jig and installed the nipple into the lock. Note the top of the lock area was rounded over.

Now on to the making the trigger.

Hoot AL Rifle Shop

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