A friend brought over his Harrington and Richardson M4 Survival rifle like the one below for me to clean up for him (inherited from his grandfather), and I was really impressed with the little rifle.

On this rifle there is a key slot in the shank of the threaded barrel and when the witness marks are lined up on the barrel and receiver, a screw can be tightened by hand into the receiver and locks the barrel in place by way of the key slot.

This was my first time working with a takedown rifle of any sort and I was wondering if some of you gunsmiths could answer a few questions for me.

- Could this design be transfered to something like a Mauser or Remington?

- If so, what pressures could the design withstand, and what would be the weakest point?

- If the design is possible on a larger scale, is there anything other than bolt face diameters and feeding issues that would preclude building a switch barrel rifle?



Thanks for your time,

Pretty basic! can't see how it would hold up to any repeatable accuracy standards...but I don't see a 6-24 variable on it anyway...

Is that one in 22 Hornet?

Jeffery used a similar setup on their takedown Mausers. The barrel screwed all the way in with un-interrupted threads and was held in place by a screw on the right side of the receiver ring. I have some great photos of one in 333 Jeffery.

I'd love to see those photos...

D Humbarger - Yep, it's a 22 Hornet.

Magnum Hunter 1 - I am also interested in see those pictures

Thanks for the responses guys!

To my knowledge all of the big name makers, Holland & Holland, W.J. Jeffreys, Westley Richards and Daniel Fraser made takedown rifles of this design. It was a full thread barrel with a locking screw in receiver ring. Locking screws were all on the right side with the exception of Frasier which was on the left.
A newer take on this was the Kifaru Rambling Rifle. I have pictures of all.

James

quote:

Originally posted by J Bennett:
I have pictures of all.

James

I would love to see them.

OK guys, I'll try to upload them now. Forgive me if I can't get it to work.
<a href="http://s35.photobucket.com/albums/d164/RDMerrill/Jeffery/?action=view¤t=CopyofDSC00441.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d164/RDMerrill/Jeffery/CopyofDSC00441.jpg" border="0" alt="Jeffery 5"></a>

quote:

photobucket

Let me try this again.

another

and another

one more

How are those????????????

Awesome! Thank you very much, I really appreciate it... Now I am seriously thinking about trying something like this.

W J Jefferys

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Westley Richards

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H&H - Mauser

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Daniel Frasier - Kifaru

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Gentlemen and Lady's

I apologize for the double photos. When it comes to this type of work I am computer illiterate. I don't know how to correct.

As you can see a lot of makers used this type of system.
Hope you enjoy.

James

Here's a nice 1910 at pugs
http://www.pugsguns.com/findItem.action?id=1949

I wonder how an interrupted thread, like a Savage 99 would work on a TD bolt action rifle. IIRC, as you all know, they mill the thread off of two ninety-degree arcs and matching on the barrel. That allows you to just stick the barrel in and turn ninety-degrees. On a bolt rifle you could put some sort of set screw into one of the non-threaded sections and lock it in.
Duane, would this work properly?

Rich

I want one case colored like that H&H? in the worst way.

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
Here is newer H&H system. It allows you to remove the barreled action less the bottom metal which remains with the stock. The take-down screw is an over-sized screw on the front of the magazine. It holds the front of the action down. The rear of the action is held down by a lip over the tang at the top of the wrist. I don't think it would be too hard to cut the tang of a mauser just in front of the rear action screw and modify it to do this and you wouldn't have to cut the stock.

To remove the barreled action - turn the take-down screw with a coin, pull up on the barrel, and separate. To install the barreled action - slide the rear of the tang under the keeper at the tang, rotate into the stock, secure with the take-down screw using a coin.

I have a copy of one of these on a 1909 Argy in 6mm rem. Shoots about .75moa taking down between shots. Very good system

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
I have a very good friend that graduated from the gunsmith school in Trinidad, Colorado. He told me that the interrupted thread method is fine until it wears loose. I'm not a gunsmith but I respect his opinion.

Me too. Just take a look at any older Winchester TD rifle with any amount of wear and you'll see what he meant. OTOH older Marlins remain tighter for a much longer time and I believe it's because of their square threads and full-thread takedown design.
Regards, Joe

Interesting note on the Jeffery that I posted photos of, the magazine box has no metal in the front. There is actualy a cutout of the whole front end of the box. There is a flat piece of metal attached to the front mortise in the stock itself for protection from the bullets. It always seemed a little odd to me on a rifle like a Jeffery.

The Waffenfabrik Mauser Oberndorf is the color case hardened receiver.

How did they do that without warping it into a pretzel shape??

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:
The Waffenfabrik Mauser Oberndorf is the color case hardened receiver.

How did they do that without warping it into a pretzel shape??

Several smiths offer color-case service with no apparent warpage, at least on some actions. There are several ways of 'case-coloring' steel, not all of them require a red heat and I know of several smiths who have fabbed filler blocks & jigs to prevent any large warpage. Remember, all actions used to be case-hardened 100-150 yrs ago!

Here's a pic of a little Greener Martini Cadet with one of the several Francotte-type full-thread takedown designs. The lever serves to tighten the split receiver ring around the barrel threads while the barrel shoulder bottoms out on the front receiver face and the 'stop' pin in the forearm (not shown) bottoms out in its frame channel (shown). The little TD Greener is under construction and will be cased with one bbl in 224 Maxi and the other in 357 Maximum.

I've fired the 224 bbl with a small 6x scope and early results ranged from 3/4 MOA to 2 MOA depending on the bullet used, IMO about normal for a new bbl with a wide range of bullets. The Martini design is known for its superior accuracy and this may be one reason why it shoots well; I hope to improve it somewhat after final bedding and load development but it weighs only 5.5 lbs wet so it's kinda hard to hold steady on the bags....

I've seen one bolt rifle with a split ring but IIRC the tightening bolts were on the bottom and not intended to be seen.

The CPA Stevens and some of the original Stevens SS rifles used a full-thread TD design similar to some of the various Mausers shown, except the Stevens large-headed clamp screw enters the receiver ring from the bottom.
Regards, Joe

Hello Joe

Very Nice work.

Some time ago I visited on Geoff Slee, in Victoria, Australia. He does very nice stocks for these and other rifles.

However during the course of our conversation he showed me some of his personal rifles, which icluded a pair of Takedown Martinis (on the small BSA actions, using the same method you have phototograhed here) that he'd done for his boys.

They were in 22 Hornet. His coment on the pair (which were absoluety gorgeous) was that they had developed accuracy issues very quickly and he attributed this to the takedown feature. He thought that the very soft steel used in the recivers of these actions was at fault and opined that if he did it again he'd have the threads hard chromed or otherwise treated.

Cheers

Thanks for the good words Tentman, but the TD work isn't mine except for the barrels. I had thought about the loose/soft thread issue but hadn't considered hard-chroming, thanks for the idea! My approach to the issue was to cut the barrel threads with as smooth a surface finish as possible and as snug as possible and then to burnish both the threads and the barrel/receiver shoulders by repeatedly socking the barrel(s) into the receiver shoulder with considerable force, until no more impact 'draw' was noted. I also found it necessary to fab & harden a new, thicker spacer washer for the TD lever so as to get a better grip on the threads after burnishing.

I plan to do at least one more of these but will put the lever on the other side of the action for increased lever travel. I don't know if Greener did the conversion or not, but many of these that I've seen have had the lever on the other side and I think it's a better location.
Regards, Joe