Moving along nicely.

One lesson learned is to get everything that has an affect on the rifle being smoked on face fitted so I only have to do that one time. So the ejectors, striker bushings and of course the side clips are next. I locate and spot drill where the center of the bores will be. The firing pins are at a slight angle down and to the center of the action by about 5 degrees. Using a compound vise, I am able to drill the holes for the bushings, and counter bore the hole for the bushing. The bushing runs all the way through the action face, and the body is threaded. Here is a picture of the holes, and next with the bishings in place.

After the bushings are seated, I machine off the excess material down to the face. Remember I left the face with about .005 extra material.

I fitted the ejectors when I made the shoe lump, but since the barrels were not in place, fitting them requires machining the cavity where they ejectors will be. I would love to have a horizontal mill for this, but a modified keyway cutter is another way to get it machined. From here, I go in with rifling files and make sure it is flat and the ejectors fit.

The next step is smoking the barrels on face. I didn't have the camera at the shop yesterday when I did this, but I am sure most of you have seen it done. It's slow and tedious work, but I kind of like it. It ends up putting me in a zen-like state of mind and the time goes quickly.

Her is the action with the barrels on face.

With the barrels smoked in, I can begin work on the top lever and sliding bolt. Again, I use a keyway cutter to machine the slot for the bolt. The rifle has double underbites, so the bolt is too long to machine only from the bottom. This is one of those operations where everything must be good and square. Once I machine part of the slot from the bottom of the action, I flip it over and machine the forward portion. It the action isn't square and level in the vise, the slots won't line up and there will be a step where the cuts meet.

Here is a shot of the bottom of the action with hte barrels on. You can see the relationship of the underbites with the action. Nice snug fit in there :-)