mowery 58 brass fore end

O

oldschool1911

Inactive
I have a Mowery 58 Texas Carbine traditional side lock made in 1976. It had never been fired until I bought it to use as a hog killer. It's a great rifle, but it likes to bend or break the pin that goes through the brass fore end and the underside of the barrel that holds the the fore end in place. It will bend or break that pin after only a few shots. I have tried brass pins, old nails, and drill bits, all fail. I am not shooting all that heavy a load, either, 90 g of ff black under a 440 g REAL bullet.

Right now I have the fore end held in place with a leather wrapping. Authentic, maybe, but annoying also.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to keep the pin from breaking? I can send pics if it will help. -Ken
 
The bolt idea would be good but the pin is quite small diameter, less than 1/8 inch.

I owned a rifle very similar to this one in 1976, but it had a large brass screw on either side of the forend, those worked better but as I recall they also kept coming unscrewed.

I think the idea for the pin was borrowed from rifles that had wooden forends, but those were much lighter in weight and had a lot more friction against the barrel to help hold them when the gun recoiled.

Ah me. And it is such a nice rifle in every other way. -Ken
 
oldschool1911 said:
I think the idea for the pin was borrowed from rifles that had wooden forends, but those were much lighter in weight and had a lot more friction against the barrel to help hold them when the gun recoiled.
Click to expand...

Perhaps if the forend were bedded to fill in any gap, it would provide enough support to relieve some of the pressure off of the pin.
Is there any room for it to be lined with thin leather or some other material, even if it's a modern, conventional bedding material?
 
It would be hard to line it since the loading rod slides through it. Maybe on the sides there is enough room but then the problem is how to get the material to stick and not move around and get in the way or come out.

I thought of using a barrel band but am not all that familiar with them. It would need a thin one that would conform to the shape of this gun when tightened. I did look around a bit but all I have found so far are thick heavy duty ones that would not do very well if at all, even if they could be reshaped they would not fit unless a lot of modification was done.

The problem seems to me to be that the pin goes into the forend, exits on the side toward the barrel, and then spans an unsupported distance before it goes into the hole drilled through the barrel. Maybe if the pin was supported all the way to the barrel it would not come to mischief. Just a guess, any comments from somebody who knows more about such things? -Ken
 
If there's enough room, drill the pin lug to fit a larger diameter pin, the do the same with the forend.
 
How about a pic? I would like to see this Mowrey. It sounds different than mine.

mowrey02.jpg


MowreyLock1.jpg
 
There was one that was for sale recently that was just as described in the OP. Instead of a wooden fore stock it had an angular shaped fore stock that was made of solid brass. IIRC the fore stock was relatively flat on the bottom and sides, and not rounded like the traditional wooden fore stock that madcratebuilder's Mowrey rifle has.
The flat bottomed brass fore stock looked like it would be very stable if bench resting it.
 
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