Sure, Curl... rub salt in the wounds

. Well I've actually had 2 failures. Both of which were in the "proofing" stage.

The first was a 38-55 built on a Lefever Nitro Special. It was the first conversion I ever tried and it was before Brown's book came out. In short the action while very strong for shotshell use was lacking for rifle cartridge use. It broke the rib extension locking piece right off the barrels on firing. I ended up repairing it and running light black powder loads through it for a few years. Then recently I decided I didn't want someone else to get ahold of it somehow and hurt themselves so I took the barrels apart and am turning them down to use on another 38-55 project on a 28 gauge action.

The other failure I had wasn't nearly as dramatic. It was built using a 20 gauge Thomas Bland (English) action. There were no barrels to the gun (or forend). It was a $50 buy at a local gunshow. After building a monoblock for the gun and chambering it in 30-40 Krag it was test fired and the action seemed to stretch as though it was pretty soft. Thus within just a couple of "proof loads" it was coming off face. In that case because I had so much invested in the barrels I used the measurements (with slight alterations) and made a new action at the mill. It took a while and I'd never get rich doing it but it really wasn't hard to copy the action dimension for dimension to make another of more modern steel. My Father-in-law liked that gun so much he made me go through all the paperwork with the ATF to get it serial numbered and pay the excise tax so he could purchase it from me.

So nothing to exciting but that's 2 failures and both were built on actions I probably should have known better than to try from the start.

I did learn that making actions one at a time isn't hard as long as you have a pattern in front of you. So when are you going to send me the Woodward to copy?

I'll make sure you get it back in 30-40 years or so

.

Bill