How does Teague do it?

[Rob85]

Kids got me up really early this morning and in my boredom I came across this YouTube video about choke installation in shotguns and it kinda had me shaking my head.

I don't want to detract from any gunsmiths and their skills but this doesn't look like a good job to me. The man is using a hand/machine reamer in a woodworking bit brace with a socket attachment, the barrel is weeble wobbling about as he turns and also spins in his vise while he threads.

Surely the big boys in the choke world don't do things like this do they?

 

[matone]

Lots of people call themselves gunsmiths!!!!!

[TIGHTCHOKE]

Contact Teague and ask them, very helpful people.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, heath Robinson springs to mind, but it does look to work on fitting threaded chokes 

[Smokersmith]

No … you're right.

They don't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jaymo]

Even us ‘home tinkerers’ have a set of ‘C’ clip pliers to hand 

[martinj]

Very interesting to an ex toolroom fitter (me.) I always wondered about concentricity issues, now I see the use of the bronze "pilot" takes care of that.

I wouldn't want that fella squeezing up my "steelium" barrels in a vice like that. It may be OK for the "riot gun" in the vid which had a barrel like a cast iron drain pipe. I notice there was no mention of re-proofing the barrels.

Edited August 5, 2020 by martinj

[Rob85]

1 minute ago, martinj said:

Very interesting to an ex toolroom fitter (me.) I always wondered about concentricity issues, now I see the use of the bronze "pilot" takes care of that.

I wouldn't want that fella squeezing up my "steelium" barrels in a vice like that. It may be OK for the "riot gun in the vid. I notice there was no mention of re-proofing the barrels.

I spent a part of my fitting apprenticeship in the toolroom so you have my utmost respect sir!

So to line up in the bore they use a brass pilot/lead that fits tight at the muzzle and the reamer follows that, okay but as it follows along surely that reamer could start to wander off into the rhubarb as the bore is opening up the further the reamer goes up barrel? 

To me I would have expected that reamer to have some sort of threaded central lead that could be held central at the chamber end as well as possibly a turned bushing for somewhere along the barrel to go with that brass lead, even when marking out by hand I was taught that it takes 3 points to make an accurate straight line

[martinj]

I guess that with his setup anything could happen BUT if the "pilot" is a tight-ish fit in the bore and there is no play, the reamer will follow the centre line of the bore. The bore itself will centralise the reamer, maybe that's your third point. I'm not saying that it was a professional job, far from it.

(A straight line is the shortest distance between two points)

[The Heron]

As an engineer I don't think I will be letting him near any of my shotguns, I spoke to the md of teauge at the shooting show two years ago and I remember him telling me about the intricate and accurate way they made the chokes and how they fitted them to shotguns and it wasn't like that. 

[udderlyoffroad]

18 minutes ago, Rob85 said:

So to line up in the bore they use a brass pilot/lead that fits tight at the muzzle and the reamer follows that, okay but as it follows along surely that reamer could start to wander off into the rhubarb as the bore is opening up the further the reamer goes up barrel? 

You're thinking of a tapered reamer?  This appears to be a parallel reamer.

I do wonder precisely how concentric it needs to be - You obviously want the reamer to get you to the required ID within tol, so you have the maximum amount of 'meat' available for the tap but if it's a blonde one off, I doubt the shot will notice.  That's not to say 'do as the video suggests' - far from it.  But what is the concentricity tolerance you're shooting for, compared to what a real machinist does everyday on non gun-plumbing jobs?

 

2 minutes ago, The Heron said:

As an engineer I don't think I will be letting him near any of my shotguns

Same.

The chap making the video won't be getting the gig for any video production work either.  I felt mildly motion-sick.

So how do the 'professionals' do it?  I would have imagined holding the barrel in a four-jaw on a lathe, indicating it in using the ID, reamer in the tailstock, then reaming in a slow gear or turning the chuck by hand.

 

44 minutes ago, martinj said:

I notice there was no mention of re-proofing the barrels.

They're in the US, not a signatory to CIP.  Not required.  Also debatable what benefit a re-proof is, following that procedure, other than covering your backside.

[enfieldspares]

Teague is now, apparenty, part of the Westley Richards business. Who are very very good at what they do. And to kill that perennial old chestnut alteration of a fixed choke does NOT require reproof.

Edited August 5, 2020 by enfieldspares

[Bobba]

I am not an engineer so would you explain to me please the difference between alteration of a fixed choke and converting fixed chokes to multi chokes. I ask because when Nigel Teague (pre retirement) converted by fixed choke Miroku 20 bore to multi choke it was certainly reproofed. Many thanks.

[Lloyd90]

It was rough and ready, but at the end it seemed to have worked. 

 

I wonder what it shoots like?

 

I asked Teague about turning a fixed choke pump into a multi, the money they wanted was a lot more than I paid for the gun and they wouldn't do any thread they would only do it for their special "thin wall" chokes, that you could only buy off them at a massive cost. 

I recently sold the gun instead. 

[udderlyoffroad]

1 hour ago, Bobba said:

when Nigel Teague (pre retirement) converted by fixed choke Miroku 20 bore to multi choke it was certainly reproofed. Many thanks.

Insurance requirement, likely as not.

[enfieldspares]

1 hour ago, Bobba said:

I am not an engineer so would you explain to me please the difference between alteration of a fixed choke and converting fixed chokes to multi chokes. I ask because when Nigel Teague (pre retirement) converted by fixed choke Miroku 20 bore to multi choke it was certainly reproofed. Many thanks.

Gunmakers' convenience I suspect is really at the bottom of it all. Yes converting a fixed choke gun to use screw in multichokes would require re-proof. Always has done. Honing fixed chokes doesn't. As said it is probably gunmakers' convenience as most of the Guardians of these Proof Houses would have been gunmakers themselves and would not have wanted "back in the day" the hassle of a re-proof involved if simply altering or even regulating fixed chokes. So the rules were framed to so as not require re-proof.

Edited August 5, 2020 by enfieldspares

[Bobba]

enfieldspares - understood, many thanks.

[Gordon R]

Looking down the barrel, the step from the original bore to the choke tube looked a lot bigger than I would have imagined.