Dan

That is a good question, that deserves a good answer, sadly loss of grey cells over the 27 or so years since I did my engineering theory has not helped my ability to give a full technical (metalurigical) description of the differences between a drop forging and an action machined from bar stock save that in simplest form the grain structure of a forging flows with the variances of angle etc rather than cuts throught the grain as a machining will.

The techinacal expalnation would cover the grain structure of the steel but the theory is that a forging gives a stronger end product than a machining, an contemporary example of this would be a spanner, for reasons of strength in the jaw area spanners are often (almost always) made from drop forgings rather than machined.

Sorry this is vague, some of the more technically minded will hopefully come to my aid here, terms such as pearlite, cementite, marstenite etc come vaguely back to mind but not with sufficient clarity to offer a scientific reasoning.

The action forging will facilitate an anson and Deeley boxlock as you will have spotted. The forging itself is one from Phillipsons who make action forgings for all the English trade (forgings have always been the basis of ALL doubles rifles historically), they make actions for H&H. Purdeys, Boss, William Evans et al.

Rough machining of the action is done by Phillipsons, the standing breach, and table are milled, as is the slot for the lump. The hinge pin is solid and machined by way of a dividing head, the pin itself is a none removable one, so any re-jointing if ever needed would have to be by way of spray hook method and not simply replacing of the pin.

The race way for the bolts is broached through the action, again by Phillipsons as few makers have facility to broach.

The barrels will be let into the action by milling and cuttng the bites in the lump, Trevor does this all by first principle machining as he has no CNC facility and the loop will be cut for an Anson push rod forend release.

Shaping of the action will be by the usual method of chiseling and filing of the fences and bolsters.

You will see from the pictures of the barrel that the reinforcing and rib keel around the reinforcing have still to be filed to mate up with the fences of the action, this again is hand work nearly all of which will be done by file and striking iron.

THe rear rib and front sight ramp have been shaped with spear points and tinned to the rib, they will be machined to accept the one standing one folding rear sight and the combined moon protector foresight one the bulk of the actioning work has been completed.

The rifle will have intercepting sears to prevent the chance of double discharge from the abundant recoil. and also to permit none too heavy trigger pulls. The front trigger wil be articulated not that the 5/162 travel will save the finger from a bruising here!

Incidentally in present form the barrels weigh in at 8 1/4 lbs, all up weight of the completed rifle is unlikely to be less than 14 lbs and possibly close to 16 lbs.

some further photos will be posted shortly of the stock blank and other action parts, again only forgings at present, I thought it may be of interest to see just how much of a transition there is from rough forging to finished action.

The question you seek an answer to re the strengths and virutes of a forging over a machining is a difficult one for me to answer, of tradition and even today, English rifles are built from forgings for which much follow up work must be done, this in soime way imparts the extra cost over a machined from barstock action.

As for strength, the above exposition is the theory, certainly there are guns built today almost exclusively from CNC machinings, I think Mr. Searcy may do just this, and as far as I am able to tell over this side of the pond, they work just fine.

Another feature of this rifle will be a third bite in the standing breach with a sliding bolt drawn by the top lever, so when the gun is in battery the third bite will be locked, again many variations of a third bolting system existed over here, the Greener cross bolt and various forms of "dolls head" extension to name but two.

As with the CNC machinings a number of modern rifles appear without this form of bolting and again seem to work just fine, I suppose in some ways also we have better grade steels than makers of 80 plus years had access to so actions are stonger and the need for extra locking may well be reduced.

hope this goes some way to explaining things