cflier, a few days ago in response to a question here I mentioned that my gunsmith on Cape Cod, an accomplished and excellent gunsmith of impeccable qualifications, well known throughout the New England area for his outstanding work in building and accurizing custom 1911 .45's as well as excellent work on shotguns, adding screw in choke systems to standard barrelled shotguns, backboring and relieving and lenghtening forcing cones etc. had installed an H&R scope rail on both my Tracker II 12 gauge barrel and a 24" smoothbore 12 gauge barrel with screw in chokes, something that is difficult to have done, read that difficult, not impossible.
He first re-drills the holes in the scope rail and re-sizes the countersink area on the rail to accompdate 8/40 screws instead of the 6/48 screws supplied with the rail. He then locates and drills the corresponding holes in the chamber area of the barrel without drilling through the metal. The holes are squared at the bottom and tapped and then bottom tapped for the corresponding 8/40 screws. He fits and flat files the screws to the proper length to fully engage the threads so they do not bottom out before bringing the scope rail fully against the barrel. The entire area and scope rail is cleaned of any oil and the scope rail is epoxied as well as screwed onto the barrel. Ed advises that the scope rail be left attached to the barrel and not repeatedly removed and replaced.
I believe it was HuntenNut that called my gunsmith and mentioned my name (MSP Ret) and he (Ed Gagnon, Centerville, Mass 1-508-775-2755) said he would be willing to do it for him also if he sent the barrel and the scope rail he wanted mounted.
I do not advise calling Ed on Sunday as he is a good Christian and does not work on Sunday but rather has most of his day taken up with Church, bible study and fellowship meetings.
If you do call I suggest you be polite and not put off by his sometimes rather gruff, New England, Cape Codder manner, and if you are real lucky he may agree to do it for you, (if this is what you are looking for)but be prepared if you catch him on a bad day he may say no. The man does have a heart of GOLD!!! I love him like a brother and if it is safe and possible Ed can do it.
My 12 gauge smoothbore with the addition of a Simmons 30 mm Red Dot sight mounted on Ed's rail now shoots Brenneke 2 3/4" 1 oz. MP slugs into one ragged hole at 50 yards!! And those slugs cost about $4.00 a box!!!
I hope this info helps....<><.... :grin:
