Bob,
In my Hepburns the “spring stop” screw makes it easy to remove and install the hammer after the block is removed. Same thing with the Rollers. It doesn’t seem have anything to do with hammer rebound…

Tom K

TomKlinger wrote on Feb 14^th, 2025 at 8:08pm:


Thanks Tom, I’ve only removed the hammer on this gun from the bottom, so I don’t know if it will come out through the bb mortise, but I would assume it will since in your original action the hammer will.

I originally thought it did have something to do with the rebound.  I thought this because the screw is bent, so something had been working on it over the last 130 years.  The thing that still has me baffled, after going through how this action rebounds, is what bent this screw?  The only thing I come up with is the dynamics of the spring when the hammer hits the breech block.  I doesn’t seem that removing the hammer as you do, would bend it.
Bob

Bob, your work, descriptions, and photos are amazing. Very complex action. Thanks.
Think the longer mainspring idea is the better way to go. Eliminates the need for the screw
Chuck

Thanks Chuck.

Vall, in all the photo, with the hammer in what I called the fired position, I am holding the hammer against the closed breech block.  The pictures out of the frame are simulating what was seen in the action.
Bob

Bob, my 2 cents, now might not be the time to reinvent the wheel unless you can fully revert back to dragging 2 sticks on the ground behind the horse, without an issue, if you get my drift. (don't do anything to shake the apple tree now) Your copying so I would keep heading down that road. As I said my 2 cents.

I haven't said much about this fascinating project lately (for which many are grateful), but this has been so out of my understanding that I'm usually dumbstruck anyhow. Sometimes I see what you have going- then you introduce the upcoming problem to solve. The lever went neatly, now a quandry about the frame where it fits- Bob, you are one persistent fellow. 

Like I mentioned, the lever can not be final fitted until the tang is nearly complete in shape and finish.  So, I started that today with the lower end of the action assembly which includes both the frame and tang.

In this first picture you can see the scribed line on the side of the frame.  I had not done it yet but, there will also be a centered line on the bottom on the tang.  These two lines are my boundaries as I round or contour the bottom of the frame. 

In photo 2, I have started the contouring.  This is actually a test area to see what I need to do in order to shape the bottom.  I roughed out the shape with a bench grinder first and then finished with files.  The centering line on the bottom can be seen here.  I believe this shows what it looks like after grinding, and before filing, looks fairly rough yet.

Photo 3, one side is shaped.  Keep in mind this is just a rough shaping.

To some, this may all look pretty rough, but there is still lots of work to do when it comes to all the small refining things that will need to be done once all this rough shaping and fitting is complete, all these refinements will be done as I do all the final shaping.

In this last picture I have the frame bottom rough shaped on both sides.  

From here I will start refining the frame bottom in preparation for the final lever fitting, but this will be a few days away, because I want to finish machining the working end of the lever first.  This includes the extractor kicker, lever spring roller pocket and breech block link pocket and pin hole.
Bob

More on the details of the lever.

The first picture shows cutting the breech block link pocket in the lever.  I ended up with some chatter in the bottom, and I'm not sure yet, how I will deal with that, if I do at all.

This second photo shows the working end of the lever that acts against the extractor.  Then the smaller protrusion, with the small hole as shown in the drawing, will be where the roller bearing for the lever spring will reside.

3 and 4. Cutting the pocket where the roller will fit into and then a better look at it.

Bob