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Gunsmithing Removing rail with heat, damage reciver?

Peter83

Sergeant of the Hide
Full Member
Minuteman
Mar 25, 2019
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Hi guys. I am trying to remove a top rail on a tikka tac a1. The rail need som heat cause of the loctite on the screws. While i am heating the rail, the reciver also gets pretty hot. How much heat can the reciver take before it takes any damage?

Best regards
 
Hi guys. I am trying to remove a top rail on a tikka tac a1. The rail need som heat cause of the loctite on the screws. While i am heating the rail, the reciver also gets pretty hot. How much heat can the reciver take before it takes any damage?

Best regards
Use a hot clothes iron. Wool setting should be around 300ish. High setting can be 350-over 400.

I wouldn't put it in an oven but steel wise color temps don't start til above 350°. Keep it below that and you won't have troubles.
 
Use a hot clothes iron. Wool setting should be around 300ish. High setting can be 350-over 400.

I wouldn't put it in an oven but steel wise color temps don't start til above 350°. Keep it below that and you won't have troubles.

When it got hottest, i used a grinder to take some om the height of the rail, cause the screws sits so deep in the holes that i couldent reach them with my bit. The rail on the Tac a1 is high, so its not like the recivere was directly beneath it, but it still got pretty hot cause of the heat transfeer from the rail. You think that kinda temp you mention can be reached that way`?
 
boil it in water no harming anything that way
 
Hi guys. I am trying to remove a top rail on a tikka tac a1. The rail need som heat cause of the loctite on the screws. While i am heating the rail, the reciver also gets pretty hot. How much heat can the reciver take before it takes any damage?

Best regards
A lot more than what you can do to it with a small butane torch lighter or heat gun.

What are you using to heat the screws?
 
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A lot more than what you can do to it with a small butane torch lighter or heat gun.

What are you using to heat the screws?

Thanks :) I used a torch that can be screwed on to gas canisteres, and a heat gun. It also produced some heat when i had to grind the rail a bit down, since the screws were in too deep for my bits to reach. It was to hot for the touch, but after i read what you guys said i dont think i can have got it hot enough too cause any damage, i hope.
 
The hot water works well for rockset.

I dont think works on loctite.

If you can find an old school soldering iron (strait no trigger) and changeable tips you can easily concentrate heat on the screw.

I think I like blue loctite on scopes / rails just fine, none have came loose for me.
 
I removed the rail from my Sako TRG. I used a heat gun with a reducer tip (to restrict the heat to a small area) on the screws and rail. The rail seemed to be held on with some kind of epoxy and to remove that I used Klean Strip Strip-X Stripper (use in a well ventilated area) and a plastic scrapper, just take it slow and easy.
 
There are a lot of ways to remove the difficult screw, application of heat is in the algorithm somewhere, depending on the firearm and the risk to harm of said firearm versus trashing the fastener. My general Rule-of-Thumb is risk trashing the least expensive part OR the part that is most easily replaceable, as they are not necessarily the same!

I don't like torch flames as a first line heat approach due to the risk of discoloration of surrounding metal surfaces or wood finishes. For this OP instance I would suggest a modified soldering iron tip that matches the screw head dimensions (mostly size #6-10 for firearms). All heat applications will transfer / conduct heat to adjacent metals depending on their heat "sink" capacity. Just a simple video to demonstrate, without heat heat sink effects, how a soldering gun can melt solder with a similar heat degradation point of red loctite, at a fastener distance which is commonly encountered.

Instead of direct soldering iron-fastener heat application and intermediary hex driver fastener bit e.g. hex, torx, phillips head , can be secured to the fastener and THEN heat the intermediary bit to reduce risk of heat damage to adjacent hardware.....of course it takes greater patience for the heat transfer to occur, that's when you ask of Job's divine intervention.


PSA - it's not easy to apply heat and document with support hand iPhone. Also, the magnet holding the fastener is a handy manner in which to apply a liquid fastener adhesive of choice, either aerobic / anaerobic requirements prior to installation.



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Steel starts to temper (soften) at 400-450 degrees F. It's a temperature and time soak issue from that point on. Most likely it's tempered at ~600 degrees to begin with but I don't know that for a fact, just a guess. You gotta lay quite a bit of heat on to get there.