I have a 95 Winchester that had a Providence Tool Co. replica of the Lyman 21 receiver sight on it. The forward part of the sight is mounted to the rifle by removing the finger lever pin stop screw and replacing it with the sight screw. Mine was modified from original by having the existing hole for the lever pin stop screw drilled out and tapped with Provodence Tool tap supplied with the sight. It is kind of an orphan 11-36 pitch. I have removed the sight and installed a Redfield 102-E receiver sight. Anyone know where I might find an 11-36 machine screw to fill the hole for the lever pin stop screw? Or maybe just have to make one in the lathe?
1895 Winchester Screw Availability
- Thread starter Mike Webb
- Start date
Ayup!
Winchester used some bastard screw sizes in their old guns. Good for making sure you had to buy parts from them, for one reason, and they could make them whatever size they wanted, as they were making thousands of those screws in a run, at the Factory, for another. They were not the only maker that did so.
The Campbell books on the Winchester Single Shot have reproductions of some of the few original Model 1885 Drawings that have survived, and in one, the screw thread is very clearly called out as a 35 and a 1/2 pitch thread!
fingers284
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Actually the reason all the gun manuf. of the time used screws that differ from regular/common screw size is that they were all vying for military contracts with their respective models and designs and Militaries around the world didnt want their purchases to be easily repairable if captured by an enemy. The militaries specified non common screws/bolts.
Where did you get that bit of wisdom from?
It makes a good story, but I'll stick with what I have read. Funny thing about that too, is I keep hearing it (the odd size/pitch screw issues) about old single shot's that really were not Military contenders in that era. Mostly by dint of being WAY too expensive!
Having been in the Military, one soon learns that if someone can make it, someone can make the repair parts. If they really want the parts, they will pay what they must.
In reality, back in that era, there really were no concisely defined standard that were being decided upon as "THE" one to use, so they did what they pleased. With both tool-rooms and production facilities in-house, they had no motivation to stick to what the other folks wanted.
If you think Guns have it bad that way, you should see the parts lists that used to come with sewing machines. THERE was a dog's breakfast of odd fractions and decimals, odd pitches, and so on.
The orphan stuff was intentional for sure. Had to make screws to hold forend on for a Remington 141 pump rifle. Thread size listed as 7/32-36 pitch. Don't know why they used fractions for OD when others would have called it a number 11. All this would be fine if spare parts were still in stock from the manufacturers. British guns are even worse with Whitworth 55 degree, British Association 47.5 degree etc. British pipe threads even have a 19 pitch, won't cut that on a lathe unless you have an older British machine. Only ever found a 19 pitch on an old Colchester lathe.
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
In a half century of reading gun books I'm not sure where that came from could have been from The Winchester Book or the Marlin bible from Col Brophy or Dunlaps "Gunsmithing" book or any of the 4 "Kinks" books from Brownells or even Guy Letards bedside machinist readers or even from 15 yrs of "Artillerist magazine"....but if your saying an infantryman in a mud & water filled trench in WW1 or a Marine in some Borneo jungle or beach head is gonna whip out his nail file & create a .130x49 screw to duplicate one he needs for that german or jap pistol he found in the mud....well, I guess you know more than I do.
But just so i do know, where did you read that military procurement did not ever specify no common exchangeable parts to be used.
- Location
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Is no help to OP, but thought some might want to see this for "weird-to-us" thread sizes - 26 1/3 tpi - not kidding - is listed in several places!!! Go here: https://rifleman.org.uk/EnfieldThread-table.html
I think this "hot link" is okay on CGN - nothing that I saw there being offered for sale. If I screwed up by not disabling this link, "mea culpa", "apologies" and all that stuff ...
I think this "hot link" is okay on CGN - nothing that I saw there being offered for sale. If I screwed up by not disabling this link, "mea culpa", "apologies" and all that stuff ...
Problem solved. A guy on the Winchester Collector Forum informed me proper size is 11-36 for the screw. FYI Arthur Pirkle has a number of small books covering different Winchester models that include thread sizes for different screws. They are still available and reasonably priced.
Read all those too, except Artillerist. Didn't come away with the same impressions. And since you dragged Lautard and his books into this, go read about the screw cutting metal lathe that was built and used in a Japanese POW camp.
In your example of a dude in a trench, whipping out a file and making what was supposedly needed, no, that is not at all how it would work. Same dude that could not make a standard size thread, if his OWN weapon went down, would also not be making an oddball one for the other side's equipment! If there was one laying around to be picked up and used, there are better than average odds that the last guy to use it died before he had a chance to take that 'one' magical screw out of it! Or there would be others laying around to pick through for parts. In the real world, that stuff was scrounged up after the battles, and routed back to various depots, whether it was to be used as scrap metal, or to be refurbed to re-use, as the Russians and their near neighbors were quite fond of doing when they could get the large numbers to make it worthwhile. That wasn't done out in a muddy hole.
Where did you ever see an actual Military procurement that DID specify that no exchangeable parts were to be used? Seen a fair few that specified how many spares of what parts were to be provided, but never one that said "No parts to be able to be interchanged with any off those darned commie's rifles!" or anything similar.
So, still calling that theory horse poo. And I'll still stick with that the Manufacturers had no reasons to make their parts interchangeable with any others, so they did what they pleased, designing the screws to fit where they were needed, instead of designing the guns to use off the shelf screws, and it ensured that any part that were bought, were, generally, bought from or through them.
They made their own parts and tooling in house, they were not making hardware store nuts and bolt, and they had no need to please anyone but themselves (and their shareholders!).
Man, they made those guys work for their schilling a week!
LOL! I'm trying to figure out how they got the gear train set up to cut that, and the best I can figure, is that the lathe used had a fair bastard of a lead screw pitch. Or some pretty funky gears. Or both. Fractions math....fun...not. I spent a few minutes counting on my fingers, until my lips got tired, and gave it up. Maybe another time, LOL!
On the brighter side, the toolroom guys made large diameter masters, for the thread cutting machines to follow, so it wasn't like guys were setting lathes up for these bastard threads all the time. At the factory, anyways. I would pretty much bet that the gun plumbers at the unit level, likely has a wee drawer full of the correct taps and dies, buried beneath the parts cabinet, if they did not simply trade out any weapons that were beyond a quick parts swap repair at the unit level.
From back in the days I was fixing Brit bikes, I gained a real appreciation for the Cycle engineering Institute (CEI) threads! It was like Orca Winfrey handing stuff out! "YOU get 20tpi, and YOU get 20tpi, EVERYBODY gets 20TPI!" 20 TPI on everything!
