Removing Stubborn Screws from an Uberti 1866 Sporting Rifle

AKA, "When I said get out, I wasn't asking."

Earlier this year I bought an Uberti 1866 Sporting Rifle chambered for .38-40 WCF. Uberti build beautiful guns but unfortunately, many of them seem to be assembled by a gorilla who applies 87,000 pound-feet of torque to screws that are slightly harder than cheese.

This rifle is one of them.

I wanted to remove the sideplates from the action to inspect the inside and lubricate it with Ballistol. I also wanted to replace the loading gate cover (AKA ladle) with a stronger, aftermarket piece.

After weeks of soaking in Kroil, I was able to remove the lever screw. However, I still couldn't budge the sideplate screw. Even though I used a properly fitting gunsmith screwdriver bit, all I managed to do was booger the screw head.

A few weeks ago I ordered a set of replacement screws that are properly hardened from VTI Gun Parts. (Part # 220-H.)

So, today I braved the hot, humid Southeastern Pennsylvania weather and went out to my backyard shop so I could use my Grizzly G8689 mini-mill as a drill press.

First, I drilled into the sideplate screw on the end where it screws into the right sideplate. This relieves some pressure on the threads.

Note the use of a center drill for starting the holes. This is important because they are more rigid than twist drill bits and you don't want the bit walking off to the side and damaging the receiver.

Then I flipped over the rifle and drilled into the screw head, and then used a screw extractor held in a tap handle to back it out.

While I had the rifle open I also replaced the lever spring screws. A trick to reduce tension on these so you can move them is to slide the lever springs to the side. This worked for the right hand screw but not the left one. So, back to the mill.

This time I put the screw extractor in the drill chuck and manually rotated it (my mill cannot rotate to the left).

After reassembling the rifle I adjusted the tension on the lever so that it's a little easier to work than before but still holds the lever up.

I won't be disassembling the rifle regularly. Even when fired with black powder cartridges, the .38-40's thin brass seals the chamber very well. Virtually no fouling makes it into the action. (The same goes for .44-40, which I shoot in an 1860 Henry and 1873 Sporting Rifle.) However, I can now easily get into the action should it be needed for repair.

Podcast Episode 1 - Tips for Working From Home

It's hosted on YouTube but is audio-only. Hopefully you find this interesting.

New Workbench

Ever since we decided to move my daughter downstairs and allow me to reclaim my home office, I've been considering putting a workbench in. Although I have a workshop out back, it's not climate controlled. So, it's often uncomfortably warm in the summer, and frigid in the winter. I could really use a space in the house to tinker with stuff and fix things.

So, last week I ordered a Seville Classics UltraHD workbench from Home Depot. (It's also available from Amazon.) It arrived around 7:00 PM last night. I mostly put it together last night and finished up this morning.

It's very solid and went together pretty easily. The frame, pegboard backsplash, drawer, and shelf are all made from steel. The work surface is 1.5" butcher block, well-finished, and heavy. It came with a power strip that has two USB ports and an LED light that's mounted under the top shelf. It came with an assortment of hooks to mount on the pegboard.

The dimensions are 65.6" high x 24" deep x 48" wide. The top of the work surface sits 37" high. It's really the only thing I'd change. Being short I would prefer it to be a few inches lower.

It came with two tools for assembly: a stamped steel wrench and a long Phillips head screwdriver, which is magnetized. That came in handy although I mostly used my drill with suitable screw driver bits. It also came with a few spare screws.

My first project was to clean my 1948-vintage Remington 550-1 .22 autoloader. I put at least 100 rounds through it on our last camping trip, including a bunch of CCI .22 CB Shorts, so it was filthy inside.

Next up will be my Uberti 1866 Yellowboy. Since getting it earlier this year I haven't removed the sideplates. Unfortunately, Uberti has a bad habit of over-torqueing the action screws on their rifles, which combined with their cheese-like hardness means that there's a good chance some will be destroyed in removal. I therefore have hardened replacements on order from VTI Gunparts. After getting the gun apart I also intend to replace the loading gate cover (AKA "ladle") with a stronger, improved one. For now, I have penetrating oil soaking into the screws.

Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Resources

I ran across this first link yesterday and thought it's worth sharing with the current State of the Union.

Bellingcat's Online Investigation Toolkit - Links to a variety of OSINT tools. If you have a Google account, you can go to File > Make a Copy and save it to your own Google Drive.

And this video is interesting:

Using Skiptracer to Gather License Plate OSINT Data.

(That channel, Null Byte, has a number of interesting videos.)

Scanner stuff:

Radio Reference - Site with information on frequencies, licenses, and discussion.

Broadcastify - Site to stream scanner feeds on your computer or mobile device.

Police Scanner and Radio on Apple App Store.

Police Scanner and Radio on Google Play.

Freescan - Free software to program and control many police scanners. Can also be used to record. I use this with my Uniden Trunktracker IV.

ProScan - Another piece of scanner software.

Chirp - Free software for programming primarily ham radios, but you can use it to easily add other common frequencies like FRS, GMRS, MURS, and NOAA weather to hand held radios like the ever-popular Baofengs.