Barrel fitting

[Blackhawker]

Forgive me if this is the onethousand and first posting asking about barrel fitting.  I read over the FAQ and found quite a bit on barrel fitting however, being new to the H&R single shots as well as being admittedly somewhat limited in my gunsmithing skills, I thought I'd ask for some advice from all of you pro's before I go and try to fire some rounds from a barrel that doesn't fit correctly and shouldn't be fired. 

I recently purchased a 38-55 TC barrel in which I would like to use on my CR-45 frame.  The barrel (when mounted) seems to lock up properly with very limited gap at the top (between frame and barrel chamber face).  I have not measured the gap but it appears to be the same amount of gap as the original 45 Colt barrel that came with the frame.  Here is the problem:  When the barrel is mounted without the fore-end attached, there is quite a bit of lateral movement from side to side but doesn't seem to move vertically.  When I install the fore-end, the movement is gone and everything seems to be as tight as can be.  This is not the case when I mount the original 45 Colt barrel.  Without the fore-end, there is no lateral movement.

My guess is that even though the movement appears to be gone after installing the fore-end, this in only due to the plastic spacer making things tighter which would probably wear out quickly, if not break should the barrel be fired like this.  Is this correct thinking thus far?

More to the point, does this barrel have potential to be fitted correctly on my CR-45 frame or is it a lost cause?  In the FAQ's, there is something mentioned about shims.  With my limited gunsmithing skills/knowledge, my guess is that some of these barrels can be shimmed in order to fit tighter....am I reading this correctly?

Any of your comments or advice are more than welcome and very much appreciated.
Thanks!
Blackhawker

[quickdtoo]

The forend will mask a loose barrel, best advice is check the latch engagement per the barrel fitting info, if it looks good, shoot it, but a poorly fitted barrel may not be very accurate due to not locking up consistently in the same position each time it's locked up but it may shoot good enough for you. The only way to correct a loose barrel is shim it per the FAQs, the factory won't do that, they'd replace the barrel if it was factory fitted originally.

Tim

[Blackhawker]

Once again, thanks Tim!
I'll have to go back over the barrel fitting info (latch engagement and shimming).  I'm not sure of my skills and I think I'd rather have a friend of mine (a gunsmith) look it over and possibly do the shimming if it needs it.  I kind of figured that the forend was masking the fit and that anything loose is subject to poor accuracy.  My first concern, however, is safety....followed directly after by accuracy. 

Being a 38-55 barrel, I figured sending this back to the factory is out of the question.  I certainly don't want to give up a TC barrel if I can get it to work out for me.  This one appears mint too!

Thanks agian for your help Tim!
Blackhawker

[JerryKo]

Blackhawker,

One thing you might be overlooking or not looking at correctly is the barrel release lever by the hammer.  With the factory fitted barrel you should notice when you close the action the lever is nearly all the way up.  Compare it to nearly the same as having the action open.  I had some "oversized" barrels that felt like they locked up, had a small amount of gap between frame and barrel, but had the lateral movement because it wasn't locking fully up.  The lever I mentioned was very low in the frame.  It was because of this that it had inconsistent lockup and play.  Sometimes you could wiggle the barrel and press it closed at the same time, and feel it lock a little tighter and remove the lateral play.  But this was because it was too big and didn't require a shim, but instead I removed a little from the latch shelf of the lug(directly under the extractor/ejector) and I got nice full lock up.  So again the position of the barrel release lever can tell you if your barrel is too big or small, and if you need to file or shim.  Hope my mouthful of words are making sense.  My wife's the teacher.  You should be aware of the what to's and not to's before doing any filing though.  

Oh ,..since it fully locked up it also eliminated the barrel and frame gap.


Jerry

[Blackhawker]

Jerry,
Thanks for the info.  I hadn't looked at the release lever so maybe that will tell me the real story.  I'll have to take a look at it when I get home tonight and see.  What you're saying makes complete sense and I guess I just didn't think of that.  Being that there was wiggle (looseness) I just automatically thought the barrel fit was too small, not too big and not properly locking up.  I do recall, however, that when I close the action that the lock makes a nice "crack" noise which I thought sounded like a good lock-up but I didn't look at the lever.

Thanks again Jerry!

[Blackhawker]

I went home and checked the lock-up and the release lever position.  Everything seems OK so I think this is more of an underlug problem.  However, I did look at the face of the lock area on the barrel where the release fits.  It looks to me like it is worn only on one side which suggests that maybe it didn't fit correctly on the previous owners rifle.    Hard to say...

[JerryKo]

Sounds like a shim job.  I had a 25-06ultra that had a rechamber/rebore to 338-06 (I bought it that way) and it showed uneven wear on the latch when I got it.  It shot darned near perfect so I never fooled with it.  Good luck with yours.


Jerry