My Highwall project... complete!

There are about a half dozen different sets of drawings out there, and all have their own failings, mostly due to folks guessing at what the actual dimensions were supposed to be, rather than having those drawings from original sources.
One of the values in the Campbell books is that the author has been heavily involved in researching actual Winchester drawings to get some of those mystery dimensions sorted. Most of the original factory stuff was chucked, but there was some stuff saved, though it mostly got piled in bins at random.

Anyways, if you contact the ASSRA Librarian, they can sell you a set of drawings for around $10US, while other copies on larger paper will cost more. There are many other sources, both online and in various book, too.

For the most part, if you cannot look at the cross sectional drawing and say to yourself that you can do it, having detailed dimensions isn't going to help all that much. There is a lot that has to be figured out, fitted, estimated, and just made to look right.
 
If you guys have dimensions I can scratch something clean looking up with autoCAD for plans (my full time job doesn't always keep me full time busy)...

Not sure if a .dwg file can be converted easily over for CAM, I think some of the solid works programs will do that though.
 
yes, fragmented and incomplete definately describes any drawings ive been able to find... i think, aside from people making guesses, one of the issues is that several of these parts started out as forgings. Which becomes a whole extra set of original drawings to find.

Campbell is doing an excellent job of digging up info from the source, but from what ive seen(second book only), theres still lots of holes.

ive put about 700 hours into this project in the last year and a half. Its been alot of fun and is pushing me in alot of areas! Right now, my drawings are largely chicken scratched, raw musings of a machinist's mind. I am working on getting them done up in cad, but my priority is in finishing these guns so arts and crafts have fallen behind...

im not sure what i want to do with the drawings once their done, somehow after putting this kind of time into sorting things out, just giving it away willy nilly seems an insult.

Ultimately, i hope to get my permits in order and sell some of these, but im nowhere near there yet!

we'll see how things go...
 
leelad said:
Campbell is doing an excellent job of digging up info from the source, but from what ive seen(second book only), theres still lots of holes.
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There is always going to be lots of holes, and at best, a complete set of drawings is going to be based upon a lot of conjecture.

The sources Campbell is digging through were essentially bins of papers that were allowed to be pulled out by those with an eye to salvaging some of the Company History, before the rest went in to the incinerator. The probability of ever coming up with more than a selection of drawings is pretty slim. He does mention that there were rumors of private collectors maybe having even more documents, some of which may surface. Or not.

But, one can hope.

Given that Campbell says that the actual measured angle of the breech block varied between 3 and 7 degrees, while the Drawing found later says that the angle is 'supposed ' to be 5 degrees, it does put the state of manufacturing technology into rather a more accurate light.

Winchester made their parts in batches, each set of machines was set up using 'Master" parts that were carefully built to actual drawing specs, and the likelihood that any of the guys outside the toolroom ever having seen the actual drawings is pretty slim. IIRC, in the Second Book, he documents a drawer of these 'set-up' masters that was salvaged and "Collected" by someone, which was supposed to have been one of several sets for this Model.

For thos truly interested, IIRC, Boulder River Foundry, the in-house foundry used by one of the makers of repro Sharps' Rifles, sells a set of investment castings to build a complete action. These are the ones that the Shiloh High Wall are built from, quite good stuff, but still a huge project to finish. There have been several other sellers of castings that have come and gone, and each had their own version of the drawings to go with, or they just left you to your devices to sort yourself out a set of workable dimensions rather than supplying a set of accurate toleranced blueprints.
 
Ok I had a busy weekend, so here's an update today...

Probably the biggest deviation I made from factory were the finger levers. I wanted to do something a bit shorter for prone shooting and something that would leave me some freedom to choose my own grip (although the lazy S is quite comfy). Oh yes, and I wanted to use Aluminum Bronze...
https://flic.kr/p/Jc6SL4

https://flic.kr/p/27R6ti2

https://flic.kr/p/27R6fUV
I got into some tool making for this project, here I made a form cutter to profile the radii on the levers... (I wish I had a better pic of the tool, but its not overly exciting...)
https://flic.kr/p/KH8dsu
One down, One to go!
https://flic.kr/p/256iPcL
I've used machines as much as possible for this project but there's still a crap load of had work/polishing required!
https://flic.kr/p/27LuRGf
At this point I started getting excited! I'm going from a box full of parts to something resembling an action!
https://flic.kr/p/27R5Z7T
I'm also going to use a draw bolt for the but stock. Making the pillar round allows me to just drill a hole in the stock instead of slotting it all the way from the end. The pillar stays in the stock and installs with a screw top and bottom... super slick!
https://flic.kr/p/26tqYqg

https://flic.kr/p/27R5Jjg
I didn't sleep well that night!... soo exciting!
https://flic.kr/p/27R5C4v
 
Man this is a ###y project. I'm not feeling the aluminum bronze but that's just a personal opinion - damn nice either way. I look forward to the completed rifles, nice work.
 
Thanks! I'm getting more and more excited to see these things done! I hope to shoot a ram with one this fall...

The next step was to round the receivers which involved making form tools.
I was a little bit sceptical about using flame hardened 4140 to cut 4140 but it actually works quite well!
https://flic.kr/p/27Tvzja
I got a bit carried away making my but socket tool but ill have it forever!
https://flic.kr/p/26whxr6
Soo ###y!
https://flic.kr/p/259ab2w
I don't have great pics of the contouring process but here's the gist of it...
https://flic.kr/p/26N93Wj

https://flic.kr/p/KKQ8Rw
One receiver fresh off the machine, one hand polished to 500grit... (I had sore fingers!)
https://flic.kr/p/Jf1rwD

https://flic.kr/p/27TRAUV

https://flic.kr/p/2598NGQ

https://flic.kr/p/JeZKW6

https://flic.kr/p/2598o89
And a pair of assembled recievers...
https://flic.kr/p/2598bSJ

https://flic.kr/p/JeZ8fa

https://flic.kr/p/27PjH7m

https://flic.kr/p/2597BbL
More to come!...
 
All I can say is wow! Montana Vintage Arms sells the 1885 winchester action copy for about 1600.00 USD
But building a gun yourself, from scratch must be very rewarding. I can not wait to see the wood and barrel on...what caliber are you going to make it?
 
thanks guys! its been a huge proccess and its forcing me to learn stuff i never would have just working for industry! But i love it and its what i want to do. As Ron Smith(my barrel source) told me when i showed him what im up to, "with enough patience and perserverance, you can piss a hole through a rock!"

NVshooter: im curious, what specifically makes this a dream build for you? mean, i agree! but so far theres not much unique about it besides being a tight new highwall action. what would you do with an action to turn it into your dream rifle?

trevj: thanks! thats high praise coming from a man as knowlegable as your self! in regards to making progress, see above quote! im not special, just stubborn haha!

cdnrokon: I bought my main spring from MVA. I was pleased. I,ve seen a couple pics of their recievers in the white and searching forums ppl seem to think theyll make nice rifles. but i havent found much info on guys shooting them. Are they popular? are they working well? feel free to point me to threads or reviews!

One of these will be chambered in 30-303 british and the other one will be a .410 shotgun.
more to come!
 
leelad said:
NVshooter: im curious, what specifically makes this a dream build for you? mean, i agree! but so far theres not much unique about it besides being a tight new highwall action.
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I just love the falling block design. It is so pure. It is also simple and strong but "pure" describes it best for me, so it has that going for it. What makes it a "dream build" is that I have never seen one built from scratch. Seeing it come together, piece by piece, especially the actual manufacturing of parts out of blocks of metal, well I just find that extremely fascinating, exciting and satisfying. I am a detailed kind of guy so I really appreciate all of the fine work you are doing in addition to the power tool work. Once, when my wife asked what I liked about watching English soccer, I told her, "when two well-skilled and finely-tuned clubs are doing what they do best, it is almost like watching a classical ballet, each player knowing exactly where the others will be any any particular time, more of a single organism than a bunch of individual players". Your work brings that to mind, so thanks for sharing.

leelad said:
...what would you do with an action to turn it into your dream rifle?
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I have a couple favourite cartridges; 220 Swift and 7x57. I would chamber one action for one, and the other action for the other. I would spend way more than I should on the most fantastic pieces of walnut I could get my hands on, have the stocks made to fit me, do the finishing myself, assemble them, and then take them out to my personal shooting spot with my wife and a bottle of wine, where we would each shoot them and then toast to their beauty and accuracy. Oh, and of course post pics of the finished product on CGN for all the good folks who gave me encouragement along the way...and if they were interested and able to, invite them to come and shoot them. :) The guns would become family heirlooms to (hopefully) be passed down for generations to come.
 
leelad said:
cdnrokon: I bought my main spring from MVA. I was pleased. I,ve seen a couple pics of their recievers in the white and searching forums ppl seem to think theyll make nice rifles. but i havent found much info on guys shooting them. Are they popular? are they working well? feel free to point me to threads or reviews!
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I don't think that there are that many people using the MVA actions yet, but there are a few that I know of in the states. One of the top single shot rifle builders, Steven Durren, told me that the MVA actions he's worked on have been very high quality. It makes sense because MVA generally makes excellent stuff.
 
Great work, I'm a huge fan of the highwall, I have one in 30-40 krag and Ron Smith just rebarrelled one for me in 6.5x59R, Not as cool as yours, To be able to say I built this from scratch is awesome, What calibers will they be?
 
leelad said:
trevj: thanks! thats high praise coming from a man as knowlegable as your self! in regards to making progress, see above quote! im not special, just stubborn haha!
Click to expand...

Man, however you get it done, doesn't much matter. Results count a bunch, and you are getting them.

I really do understand exactly what you mean about having to force yourself to learn new things. It really makes it a lot easier to learn to make that machine sing and dance to your tune, if you have a project that you have a attachment to, and gives you a feeling of accomplishment!
 
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