Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

[maillemaker]

Hi All,

I just recently purchased an authentic 1863 Enfield and a Euroarms as well.

The barrel bands on the Euroarms do not clamp together tightly under the stock as they do on the original. Also the screw head and threads stick out on either side of the band on the Euroarms. This makes for a very rough feeling when you slide your hand along the bottom of the rifle, not to mention looking in-authentic.

Does anyone know if better replacement barrel bands are available for the Euroarms musket?

Thanks from the Fresh Fish,

[john duffer]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

http://www.lodgewood.com/

Lodgewood is a good place to start.

[maillemaker]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Thanks John, I have emailed them and will see what they say.

What I'd really like to do is have that John Watts fellow over at Blockade Runner do a full de-farb on it. Probably cheaper and easier in the long run. I just got into muskets and want to do an authentic impression even though I'm mostly going to be doing N-SSA shooting. I understand de-farbing muskets presents some kind of inspection problem for them but you can work around it as I understand it.

Thanks again,

[Todd Watts]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

It's "Todd" Watts. He don't know what he's doing most of the time. Actually, the originals' bands very often do not clamp together tightly and did not when new. Those that do today are doing so based on 150 years of wood shrinkage and constant crushing of the bands and barrel. On the modern bands, especially the Baddely bands used by Euroarms, if they clam all the way together you dern-near cannot get the rammer in/out. The Palmer bands like most originals had and Armi Sport still offers are better and have the "keeper" on the threaded shank of the screws to minimize that rough feel. While possible to put onto the Baddely band screws, it is not something I typically do because it is a lot of trouble and they fall off just like they often did in the CW as soldiers over-rotated the screws a turn or 2 too many so finding screws without keepers is as common as finding them with keepers. Something else to consider is that once fitted to clam all the way closed, when the wood shrinks the bands become loose and can only be re-snugged by lining the insides of the bands with tape shims or filing the bands to allow them to close tighter, which causes the rammer to become stuck once again until the bands are again filed to allow the rammer to slide in. In short, don't worry about it too much. If you want Palmers put on, they can be obtained and fitted to the Euroarms, or typically what I do is just file the Baddely to mimic the Palmers' tab.

[Brandon Ledvina]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Lodgewood is a good place to start

Once I had a swivel fall off on my Eruroarms Springfield and wanted to get it re-attached at en event. When they said they didn't have the equipment along they mentioned that they could sell me a new center band. I bought a new one and walked out of their tent noticing the band was the wrong size. I'm not sure if it was for a Armisport or if Euroarms had changed the size on the new ones but it was a big difference. When I walked back in and said it was the wrong size they mentioned that I could put some plastic under the band to make it fit better. Not only would that be unauthentic but not good when you are putting plastic on a barrel that can get very hot. I ended up getting my money back and taking my old band.

I have some other stories about them but it seems like for all the good things you hear you hear you hear something bad. Just be careful if ordering barrel bands from them.

[maillemaker]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Hi Todd,

Sorry for screwing up your name.

I'm not sure what sort of bands these are on the original P53:

http://www.forth-armoury.com/temp/1853/1863/1863_enfield.htm

I don't have any pictures right now looking at the belly of the rifle, but I will take some tonight side-by-side with my Euroarms.

I guess it's possible that the wood shrank enough to allow them to close but that would be a large amount of shrinkage if so.

I'll post some pictures tonight.

[maillemaker]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Here are pictures showing the Euroarms on the right and the original on the left. Pardon my belt, I used it to hold the slings out of the way. I notice also that the barrel on the original is slightly larger in OD than the Euroarms. But it is also a smoothbore.

http://www.forth-armoury.com/temp/1853/comparison/comparison.htm

Steve

[Todd Watts]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Those are the Baddley bands on both. That particular one was made with bands that were sized large enough to close completely aorund the trimmer original guns. You probably have noticed that the Euroclub is a good bit heftier than the original. Ah, lawyers. Gotta' love 'emwhen they make barrels so thick that you could detonate a nuke in the breech and not chance a rupture. There is nothing that can solve that particular problem with the Euros. I could rasp the wood enough to get the bands to close, or almost close, but I'd need to grind the bands' rammer cups out and probably have to seriously grind a divot in the screws to allow you to use the rammer.

[maillemaker]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to design "new" Baddley bands for the Euroarms that would fit together well at the bottom yet still accommodate the larger barrels/stocks?

Do Armisports have the same problem?

[Todd Watts]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Armis have the same "problem" if you want to consider it a problem. Again, the only reason you see the Palmers/Baddeleys meet together on originals is the result of 150 years of wood shrinkage coupled with crush from many years of tightening them harder and harder to accomodate crush and shrinkage. Once they reach the point that they connect, when wood shrinks or crushes there is no way to make the bands snug tighter without lining them with tape or filing the mated sufcaces to allow even more crush.

[maillemaker]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Hi Todd,

I bow to your knowledge of these things, but I do still wonder if originals, when new, had as large a gap on their bands as my Euroarms does? For the wood to have shrunk that much I would have expected to see other wood/metal mismatches, as with the fit of the lock, the barrel, and the butt plate, but I do not see that on m original piece.

My uneducated impression is that the wood-to-metal fit is just much better with the original piece, even allowing for 150 years of age. For example, on the rear-most barrel band, the side of the band that faces towards the muzzle is more rounded, while the side of the band that bottoms against the shoulder in the stock has been flattened. Thus the band is definitely not reversible and follows and enhances the natural contour of the stock, something the reproduction bands on my Euroarms do not do.

[lwtaggart]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Before using some sort of plastic tape or anything plastic as filler to take up the space around the bands, I would attempt using brass shim stock. Its quite easy to work with. You should be able to pick this up at just about any machine shop.

George Taggart

[Jimmayo]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

Before using some sort of plastic tape or anything plastic as filler to take up the space around the bands, I would attempt using brass shim stock. Its quite easy to work with. You should be able to pick this up at just about any machine shop.

George Taggart

Cork is also easy to use.

[Todd Watts]

Re: Replacement barrel bands for Euroarms P/53?

They hand-fitted guns back then and thus you would get a closer tolerance fit than the mass-produced repros feel necessary to do today. But this fit would vary gun to gun and assembler to assembler. The flattened Baddely band is common but not universal. I worked on a couple of originals with those bands this past year that were smoth-rounded on both sides, but have also come across some that were flattened on 1 side like yours. As Tim Prince and Craig Barry told me years ago when coaching me through the de-farb beginnings "the only absolute in the Enfields is there are no absolutes". But, for the original assembler to have hand-fitted each band to mate like you are wanting in 1861 would mean that today you would be able to slide a sheet of paper between the band and wood or barrel when completely tightened and be able to pull them off with ease. These bands are being used to tightly pinch the wood and barrel together with torque from a screw. This crushes the wood all around the band and even crushes the barrel into its channel. Over time the wood fibers conform more and more to that crush making it necessary to tighten the screw more and more and finally to even file the band to allow more crush or shim its interior to allow more gripping surface. The lock is not crushing outward around its inlet so there is less shrinkage noted there. However, look at the lock's depth in its inlet and the brass washers on originals and you can see that there is some crush shrinkage evident there from the lock screws being tightened. The locks were not tightened in as much as barrel bands so there is less crush that you find under bands, but it is there. Look at the buttplate fit as well to see how much wood shrinkage a stock may have experienced. The plates are typically several thousandths of an inch wider than the wood in many areas. On the toes they never fitted perfectly as far as I can tell, but they certainly fitted closer than they do today. The toe will shrink more noticeably than the heel just because there is less wood there which allows fibers to have shrunk more rapidly and dried out faster than the thicker heel and sides. Wood fibers shrink across the grain, never with it. So lengths have not changed at all, but widths/thicknesses always shrink with age. English walnut like the Enfield uses, and to a similar extend American walnut like the US models use are fairly resilient woods from rot and shrinkage but they do shrink. Beech is really bad about it and these fibers tend to separate as they shrink at different rates all through the stock. If you ever get to study an original beech stock like the Lorenzs' or Geribaldis' you will quickly notice a lot of lengthwise cracks that run deep. It is odd that with the gigantic American Chestnuts that grew all over North America's east the US military never adopted that superb wood for its stocks. It and black locust are about as good as we have for stocks, but for some reason walnut was chosen as our "go-to" wood for guns.