1888 Commission Rifle

[jmoore]

I get riveting and silver solder, but welding and solder? Now that's just weird.

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[vintage hunter]

Sure looks like a weld job and silver soldered seam to me.

Post a pic or two, be interesting to see.

It's possible to solder over weld (though I can't figure why anyone would want to) but you're in for big problems trying to weld over solder or brazing.

[muffett.2008]

Thats the pins that appear to be welded, the seam around the mating surfaces is where it appears to be silver soldered, it's just too neat a join to be just sitting there.

[vintage hunter]

Thats the pins that appear to be welded,

That's a good possibility but I tend to believe any welding would've been done as a repair to ''tighten up'' a guide where the rivets worked loose. Perhaps this is what led to the belief the guides were welded instead of riveted as mentioned in post 3.

the seam around the mating surfaces is where it appears to be silver soldered.

I've looked at a good many close up photo's of 88/05 charger guides and I've yet to see anything that would suggest they were attached by any method other than riveting. Soldering generally leaves a tell tail bright ring at the joint and I've seen no evidence of it so far.

too neat a join to be just sitting there.

Joints between parts with machined mating surfaces can be awful hard to see, especially 100+ years later when any minute gaps would've long since filled with fine crud and/or rust.

[Aragorn243]

Mine does not appear to have anything holding it other than the rivets which look exactly like rivets. They are perfectly round with perfect joint.

[muffett.2008]

Another dull pommie day, so dragged the old girl out for a few pic's.........used a mirror in the bolt channel, so you can see both sides at once.
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These pic's are of another one(borrowed for a look, different again)
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The top rifle you cannot see any rivet sign on the inside face, the outside marks are very faint. note the joint around the right side plate, one shot shows the soldered joint after I cleaned the crud off.
The second rifle you can see both sides of the rivets on both faces.

[Aragorn243]

muffett, Your top rifle does look like something happened with it but it doesn't look like it would have after coming out of the conversion so it may have undergone some sort of repair after they became loose. The bottom rifle looks like it should, that's how mine looks.

[jmoore]

Finally did some photos of an '88/'35:











The rear rivets/headed pins weren't hard to see, but couldn't detect the front ones. Wondering now if the "rivets" are actually headed pins that were soldered in place rather than bucked to enlarge the tails in the raceway. Then through holes wouldn't be required. Have yet to do '88/'05 photos.