Gunsmithing Welding the recoil lug

[BClean]

Gentlemen, I hope to get some help from the GS department of this great forum. I own a socalled hunting match rifle in .222 Rem build by Krico in Germany. This rifle used to shoot sub .3 moa @100 m. It has a wooden stock to it and is about 40 years old. It has served well as a trainer and varmint rifle. Recently groups started to open up. I checked scope, scope mount and action bolts and found everything to be ok. Finally I removed the barreled action and noticed that the barrel had contact with the front end of the stock and showed signs of movement between stock and action around the area of the action screws. I decided to free float the barrel and apply glas bedding using devcon titanium with McLube release agent. I will not do bedding for the entire action but only the recoil lug, tang and around the action screws.

Problem is the recoil lug having a little groove measuring 3x2 mm on each side just a 1/4" above its lower end. In order to enable disassembly after curing of the resin I need to close these grooves to prevent the resin from fiiling them up. My first intention was to just TIG welding and filing those grooves to fill them up and make everything nice and straight. Now my concerns are about to much heat building up throughout the welding process changing the degree of hardness, thus my question. Can I TIG weld the recoil lug without any risk of destroying its specific hardness or should I rather fill the grooves up with a filler material such as gets used in car body repair. If using filler do I risk any interference with the devcon curing process? If so are there other methods that have been applied and prooven to work out?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards Bernhard

 

[iceng]

You can fill the voids with dubbin wax or kids plasticine. Do your bedding work, then clean it out. Razor blades help give smooth crisp corners and surfaces.

 

[BClean]

I thought of plumbers kit but I am concerned it could be too soft to keep up when the recoil lug will be pushed down into its recess in the stock. I fear even slight pressure onto those materials could lead to a mechanical bloc once the resin will be cured.

 

[Edds]

You can fill them with the epoxy you are using for bedding.

 

[KAIFS]

is that a 600 model? if so, I would love to buy your plastic bolt shroud if you ever decide to part it out .
Those indeed are nice rifles, have a pair of 700 (LA) in 6.5x55

 

[BClean]

Basically it is a model 600, in this case particularily a model 640. These model 640s are based upon the model 600 equipped with a heavy varmint type match crowned barrel and a very fine adjustable 2 station match trigger. I own two of those rifles chambered in .222 Rem and .243 Win.

For the time being I need these plastic shrouds unless I got my recoil lug destroyed ?. If this should happen, I'll let you know.

I did some research and now tend towards not tig welding in order to avoid suboptimal metalurgical consequences. So the remaining question appears to be whether or not other than epoxy itself will be stabil enough to guarantee absolutely no mechanical lock. Edds, thank you for your proposal, must be the best way to go. So I will mix up a tiny amount of devcon and close the rcesses in the lug, let it sit over night, then apply release agent and do the bedding thereafter. That must be the safest way and I will go for it. Thanks to all for your contribution and sorry for my poor english.

Regards Bernhard

edit: @KAIFS If you need the plastic shroud you can buy them on egun Germany. Search for "Krico 600, Krico 700 Verschlusskappe / Krico Schlösschen Abschluss Kappe" They are sold for 48,90€ plus shipping. Usually they ship within EU, don't know whether you can persuade them to ship to US as well. If I can assist, let me know.

 

[KAIFS]

Basically it is a model 600, in this case particularily a model 640. These model 640s are based upon the model 600 equipped with a heavy varmint type match crowned barrel and a very fine adjustable 2 station match trigger. I own two of those rifles chambered in .222 Rem and .243 Win.

For the time being I need these plastic shrouds unless I got my recoil lug destroyed ?. If this should happen, I'll let you know.

I did some research and now tend towards not tig welding in order to avoid suboptimal metalurgical consequences. So the remaining question appears to be whether or not other than epoxy itself will be stabil enough to guarantee absolutely no mechanical lock. Edds, thank you for your proposal, must be the best way to go. So I will mix up a tiny amount of devcon and close the rcesses in the lug, let it sit over night, then apply release agent and do the bedding thereafter. That must be the safest way and I will go for it. Thanks to all for your contribution and sorry for my poor english.

Regards Bernhard

edit: @KAIFS If you need the plastic shroud you can buy them on egun Germany. Search for "Krico 600, Krico 700 Verschlusskappe / Krico Schlösschen Abschluss Kappe" They are sold for 48,90€ plus shipping. Usually they ship within EU, don't know whether you can persuade them to ship to US as well. If I can assist, let me know.

I have tried for that CNC aluminum painted shroud twice in the past 3 years, he would not ship to US ...

 

[LRI]

Gentlemen, I hope to get some help from the GS department of this great forum. I own a socalled hunting match rifle in .222 Rem build by Krico in Germany. This rifle used to shoot sub .3 moa @100 m. It has a wooden stock to it and is about 40 years old. It has served well as a trainer and varmint rifle. Recently groups started to open up. I checked scope, scope mount and action bolts and found everything to be ok. Finally I removed the barreled action and noticed that the barrel had contact with the front end of the stock and showed signs of movement between stock and action around the area of the action screws. I decided to free float the barrel and apply glas bedding using devcon titanium with McLube release agent. I will not do bedding for the entire action but only the recoil lug, tang and around the action screws.

Problem is the recoil lug having a little groove measuring 3x2 mm on each side just a 1/4" above its lower end. In order to enable disassembly after curing of the resin I need to close these grooves to prevent the resin from fiiling them up. My first intention was to just TIG welding and filing those grooves to fill them up and make everything nice and straight. Now my concerns are about to much heat building up throughout the welding process changing the degree of hardness, thus my question. Can I TIG weld the recoil lug without any risk of destroying its specific hardness or should I rather fill the grooves up with a filler material such as gets used in car body repair. If using filler do I risk any interference with the devcon curing process? If so are there other methods that have been applied and prooven to work out?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards Bernhard

I guess with enough effort put into it you could weld it without having it turn to butter on you. As many have suggested though, the easier path is to just plug up the features with clay or wax.

A long time ago I had a rifle come through here that someone had literally mig welded the lug to the receiver. I had considerable work before me to unring that bell. The action was not something the owner was willing to let go of. I did quite a bit of small/forensic welding on that action/lug and was able to restore it without murdering the heat treat. The bill this gent was handed reflected that effort as it was not the easiest thing to do.

Good luck.

 

[BClean]

Thank you Chad for your advice which obviously is based on experience. Seems there is no real risk in using clay or wax. Nevertheless I will mix a tiny amount of devcon titanium just to get a good feeling as to how it cures and is to be handled. Practice makes the master as we say here. Btw thank you for your clear statement in another thread concerning the best release agent. This is why I decided to use the McLube stuff.

@KAIFS As I said...if you need support, let me know. If they cannot ship, I can

 

[HansenCustom]

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