Boring tapered hole

[Paulc]

Not expecting the cast chamber to be net size, just close enough to finish with reamer or d bit.

My tooling consists of a manual mini mill, 7x12 mini lathe, drill press and other assorted hand tools; nothing fancy and certainly not as elaborate as alphawolf's shop. 

But then again I'm not a tool and die maker nor a machinist by trade. 

[ALPHAWOLF45]

I keep thinking about casting the breechblock with a perfect chamber and cant imagine it except as a permanent mold - which is way too much work and expense for a one off part. You have the tools sufficient to make the reamer from some tool steel and later harden.
      Tell me if you will.. There is no extractor is there?

[Paulc]

No extractor in the usual sense.
There is a spring loaded block with the nipple behind the breech block with the tapered chamber. When the action is opened the nipple block pushes the cartridge out enough to manually extract it.
   

[ALPHAWOLF45]

(02-24-2020, 03:13 PM)Paulc Wrote: No extractor in the usual sense.
There is a spring loaded block with the nipple behind the breech block with the tapered chamber. When the action is opened the nipple block pushes the cartridge out enough to manually extract it.

OMG I spent an hour looking at that picture..Thanks for sharing Paul , I studied that rifle many years ago and it brings back some foggy memories.. You have undertaken a worthy project.. A combat weapon from the civil war..... Now I wonder..... If a soldier ran out of loaded ammo , could he load powder down the bore and ram a bullet in place if needed?  I built a Maynard  that could be fired that way. Just keep reusing the same brass cartridge case.



 Firearms are small machines , very fun to work on.
 Please carry on and share this adventure with us.
  Steven

[Paulc]

They actually sell a shortened case with just the round belt so you can load loose powder and a bullet/ ball.

[ALPHAWOLF45]

There is nothing going on at any forum that I read that is as interesting to me as this Burnside project. What caliber bullet does it require and weight? How many grains of powder?  I am trying to figure out if it could knock down a 50 pound steel ram at 500 yards.. Maybe I could work up 'nuff ambition to try to build one myself.
 Have a good'un
 Steven

Edit to say I enlarged the cartridge that you showed and see that it is .54 caliber . Unusual size , barrel sources will be limited. But if bullet is about 450 grains and shoved by at least 65 grains of black powder you can have a reach out and get'm weapon. Could be competitive in black powder cartridge matches and definitely unusual.

[Paulc]

The traditional recommendation is for a 360 gr bullet and 45 gr of black powder.
Bullet diameter around .558" . Ready cast ones from S&S firearms are listed as .54 cal.

[Paulc]

Still working on the drawings. 
Have most of them finished, doing custom screws now. Need those for the existing holes in the receiver which are oddball threads, close to SAE but a tad looser.

Also researching casting as I'm thinking of casting the lever parts, trigger and breech block parts from silicon bronze. Should be plenty strong since this is a black powder gun.
Probably try lost wax investment casting as I've done lost foam aluminum casting in the past.