9 replies to this topic

[archangel24]

After deliberating for a while on how to go about this, I chose to do what most modders wouldn't.
With the main weak point of an angel breech being the contact point between the nub and the brass, too much pressure and the wrong glue or just prolonged use and this joint will break leading you to adhere it again.

T da B's solution to this problem involved using a bit of copper and brazing/soldering it to the brass. This requires you to find or order a piece of copper, machining it, and brazing it onto the brass.
Personally that doesn't sit well with me, using fire on brass, I'd rather take my chances with carefully drilling brass and I personally have bad luck with brazing/soldering.
There is an inherent risk of denting the brass with drilling it.

Supplies:
-Longshot
-appropriate brass sizes
-super glue
-drill
-solid steel rod (I used one just shy of 1/8"
-patience
-dremel

Start of with making your angel breech, prep and glue the nub onto the bolt but without it fed through the plunger tube. Drill a hole that is the same size as your steel rod carefully through the bolt starting from the underside towards the plastic nub. Make sure that you keep it aligned correctly and that the brass dart pusher doesn't shift. To aid in this task, you can put spare pieces of brass of the right sizes to take up space between the sheath and the pusher, but make sure they are easily removable.

Once you have the hole drilled, make sure that it went all the way through the brass and through the bottom part of the plastic nub, but no further than the hole for the bar that attaches it to the sled.
Detach the nub from the bolt and the brass bolt should look like this.


Cut the steel rod to length so that it feeds through the nub and the brass but doesn't protrude through the bottom but sits flush. Having a good grinding bit or hand files will help to shape it.
Glue the steel rod piece into the nub and feed it through the bolt like so after reinserting the bolt through the plunger tube.


Super glue is enough to hold the rod in the plastic and the brass. Make sure that when you glue the nub and rod to the bolt, that the glue is contacting the brass and plastic at the top. As well as having some glue on the underside of the bolt filling in the hole and sealing it up, be generous on the outside but take care NOT to get any glue inside of the bolt piece as it will cause unwanted friction on the barrel.


Next cut the barrel, you still do the "half pipe" cut like with ordinary angel breeches but you cut a channel in the middle of the top part of the half pipe section. This channel will allow for the steel rod running through the bolt. In the picture it shows the back of the barrel pushed further forward, in my revised set up (no pictures yet) there is a channel cut on the bottom of the barrel too. This helps feeding but increases intricacy. Just keep checking to make sure it all lines up with the steel rod.



Debur the brass and smooth your cuts carefully, it does not have to be straight but close enough to allow the bolt to sheath over it smoothly without the barrel turning.


Nest the barrel in properly and make sure that the breech can open and close smoothly, if there is friction, widen the channel and adjust the barrel accordingly.
Once you have it all assembled, have fun with your longshot with an angel breech that will never break under normal use, even with massive amounts of stress.

Pros:
-added structural stability
-doesn't require special glue
-no flames or solder involved
-lasts longer than a normal angel breech
-puts all stress on the steel rod (in terms of stress put on the bolt and nub itself) and not the glue

Cons:
-a lot more brass cutting
-risk of ruining half of your breech
-increased time for completion of mod

With my earlier versions of this mod, I had, as stated, only cut one channel. This caused problems with feeding as the barrel was pushed further forward than it normally would be.

My personal one had a doubled up sheath, unnecessary but was to test it. 9/16 sheath with 19/32 over it to give more surface area for the rod to push on.


The rod doesn't have to be perfectly aligned, it just helps with stability, reliability, and ease of cutting the channels.


I take no credit for originality, this was all something that shrub and I had discussed at length on how to do it and he had discussed it with another modder. I just simply thought this deserved to be documented and shared.

Edited by archangel24, 26 July 2013 - 09:28 AM.

[ShaNayNay]

This is a great idea, once I get around to brass breeching my LS I may implement this method.

[DartSlinger]

What springs have you tested with this, and how many shots did you fire?

[archangel24]

@ShaNayNay, thanks let me know how it goes.

@dartslinger, I've put a 3B spring, stock LS spring, recon spring, and a NF spring in my friend's and it has held up. Just for the heck of it when I was first making mine, I opted out on prepping the brass and just glued the nub and rod to it and strength tested with a 15 coil [k26] spring and it held up.
Additionally, in mine, I regularly run it with a stock LS spring, recon spring, and a tripleshot spring, with a unreinforced (as pictured) bolt sled. Fun fact is that I have fired it at least a thousand or so times, with about half of them being dryfires for the heck of it out of impulse. The glue didn't crack, nor did the bolt sled obtain any stress marks that weren't already there.

[LinkMT]

I lost interest when I saw that you needed patience . But really, I'm really liking this method. I'm surprised no one thought of that before.

[archangel24]

I'm surprised no one thought of that before.

Correction, people have thought about it before but the major deterrent is the fact that it requires drilling through brass, which as stated can dent it. Plus, you have a somewhat free floating piece of brass (the pusher) within the sheath and with the gap and lack of support where you are drilling, it makes it a bit difficult.

[He Who Mods]

Wow, this is pretty cool, not only because of its simplicity, but this cuts the cost literally in half for an angel breech. Now, you really only need 17/32" and 9/16" to make the breech since the metal bar pushes the dart instead of a smaller diameter size brass.This is definitely what I am doing to my next LS.

[archangel24]

@HWM In my design it still uses 15/32" or 1/2" for a dart pusher. You probably could get away with skipping the 15/32" or 1/2" dart pusher but I haven't tested it and most likely won't because I prefer the redundant point of contact for the metal rod along with cutting down on deadspace.

Edited by archangel24, 28 July 2013 - 04:01 PM.

[T da B]

Very nice torch-less solution! I didn't think it was possible to achieve long-term structural integrity with the OG nub, but your solution looks solid. I would suspect that the holes must be sized perfectly to prevent the steel rod from rocking back and forth with each prime and possibly cracking the hole-plugging glue and ruining the seal.

Has performance been affected at all with the addition of the rod?

[archangel24]

Performance is comparable to that of a standard angel breech. And yes the hole sizing has to be perfect, I actually had to gradually size up, using a tiny drill bit and switching them out until getting the right size, partly out of caution and partly because they are dulled out at the end from drilling steel on a regular basis.