H&R Fore end spacer project

[SEK_22Hornet]

Well, it warmed up enough for me to get out to the shop this afternoon - here are a few more photos. I just had to face off the back to the right length and drill the mounting holes, so I didn't take any photos of my set ups. The one installed show it on my Buffalo Classic 45-70. Need to sit down and sand it and polish it next, I guess.

 

[SEK_22Hornet]

Well, the weather was a lot warmer today, so I made time to get into the shop to work on my first batch of brass spacers. Doing a batch of 5 right now. The steps I am following are -
1 - Cut the brass and mill to a 1,25 x 1.25 x .75" blank.
2 - Lay out the hole location for the mounting holes.
3 - Spot drill the hole locations from the receiver side of the blank.
4 - Drill through with a .159 (#21) drill bit
5 - Counterbore the holes to a depth of .625" using a 5/16" drill.
6 - Mill the receiver radius.
7 - Mill the barrel channel
8 - Mill the bottom radius

I made it through #6 today. I'll have a little clean up to do on the mounting holes, such as milling the counterbore to final depth with a 5/16 end mill and enlarging them to the .169 final diameter. After that clean up and polish.

Here are some photos of what I got done today -

 

[dulltool17]

Great job, Dan!

H&R Topper was my first shotgun- always thought that plastic spacer looked cheesey (of course I got the gut for $25, so I did get what I paid for)

Brass always looks right on guns with a vintage flavor.

Excellent taste!

 

[SEK_22Hornet]

Made it back into the shop today - finished up the fixture to radius the bottom of the spacer and finished up the machining on 5 brass spacers. Had to cut the barrel channel, then radius the bottom. Got one pretty well polished up and installed.

 

[SEK_22Hornet]

I've made it into the shop long enough to finish up the first few spacers. I had a small issue with the fixture plate moving off center - mainly due to hitting it with the spinning cutter by going a little too deep. Managed to get that resolved and finished up some - here are a couple more photos of the finished part. I do realize that I need more fixtures to make make the setup time worthwhile and make the parts more repeatable. Since this is a learning exercise as much as anything, I believe it is a total success - very please with the outcome and have learned a lot about work holding and general milling.