Musket stuff

[riarcher]

Mostly all home made.


The ball pouch lower right was earlier on, bag on lower left was later. Was learning as I went.
Can't tell you how many horns I went thru before I was happy.

[Lobo69ss]

Good looking kit you`ve assembled there.  What caliber or guage is the thunder stick?

[Timo]

Nice stuff! I to am interested in the rifle.Lets here about it.

[Eric Krewson]

Flintlocks and primitive bows go together well.

I just finished this Beck rifle, 54cal Rice barrel, deluxe Chambers Siler lock, White Lightening liner, scratch build from a block of wood and a pile of parts. Shoots through the same hole at 50yds and goes off like a percussion gun. From start to finish it took me almost three years to complete the gun, bowmaking got in the way.

[Hillbilly]

Nice stuff! I'm working on a shooting bag and day horn for my flintlock right now, but it won't look nearly as good as yours.
Eric, SWEET! How about some close-ups of that carving? I want to build me one one of these days. It would probably take me ten years, though. Rice and Chambers are right here in my neck of the woods.

[Pat B]

Very nice stuff guys. I killed my first deer(and second) with a 50cal T/C Hawkins my wife gave me for Christmas over 30 years ago. Haven't shot it since. In those days everyone told me to put up that smoke pole and get a real gun...today they say the same about my stick bows.    I guess I'm just a man ahead of his times!
  I have been reconsidering going back to black powder. I like the simplicity of it's difficulty.

[Mechslasher]

sweet combo!  went squirrel hunting wed. with my new .32 cal. flint and had a ball.  shoot eight times and hit one squirrel.  shot at one four times and another three, both lived through the experience.  i would love to make one from scratch, but i have too many irons in the fire as it is.

[Eric Krewson]

No carving on my rifle. I was once a serious duck decoy carver, really good at it. Too many years of working osage staves have rendered my once artistic hands to somewhat arthritic, club like appendages. They no longer take commands like they once did.

I am sure I can work out a technique to carve rifle socks in the future but for this gun I found my attempts were not up to my standards. It is easy to turn $700 in parts into a $300 gun with sloppy work so I went with stock moldings instead of carvings this time.

I have two more planned (this was my first), next will be a flintlock 12ga turkey gun followed by a slim flint squirrel rifle. 

If any of you want to jump in and give longrifle building a try there are options available for every skill level from a scratch build like mine to guns in the white (assembled but no finish on the stock or metal)

For a scratch build you can count on at least 200-300+ hours to complete or at least a year of off and on work. As you learn what you are doing the process will get faster but you really have to go slow on your first one.

Here is what I started with, I drew the pattern on the orange card stock.

[riarcher]

Good looking kit you`ve assembled there.  What caliber or guage is the thunder stick?

Sorry, got carried away with my researchs on this site and forgot all about this post. 

Rifle - is a "Second Land, Brown Bess Musket". The barrel has been "Browned" in the old (horse urine) way instead of being "left in the white" (White was British solder's way, browned was what happened after the Colonials shot the Britts and confiscated.  )
Bore is 0.751 dia. / 11 ga. / .75 cal depending on how you figure it.
It's my "main squeze" in gun hunting.
Use 80-110 gr 2Fg black powder for the home spun .715 RB
Also utilize between 60 and 80 gr. with shot.
The Bambi pelt in the photo was taken with this. I've also taken pheasant, squerrel, duck and goose with it so far. (no wabbits! )
Foul hunting is on reserve now days because my Bismuth supply has dwindled and it's expensive if not near impossible to get.
It's close range for sure shooting. The only goose I got was (shamefully) a wounded runaway fom some poor shooting shotgunner. Ducks were from jump shooting in these Yankee swamps (where I do most of my hunting)

[riarcher]

Eric-
"It is easy to turn $700 in parts into a $300 gun ..."

A lot easier for some of us than others! I can without trying! 

I'd rather a fowl smelling(?) Flinter / capper than a in-line!
Surprising how things / times changed.
Back in the 70's R.I. did not have a hunting season for front stuffers. I worked with a lot of others here to get a season going.
Now with the in-lines,,, DEM is again scrutinizing their wisdom (whizdome?) of allowing a Black Powder season. Seems the Inline guys are making things difficult by poor hunting practices. They practice with their 30-06's until opening day, then drag out the In-lines with their smokeless, sabots and such. Not the way it was intended. No devotion, familiarity, or clue, and it makes for bad publicity with wounded game and what-not.
Again, only takes a few to ruin it for everyone. 

[Grunt]

Here's some more musket stuff. All the smooth bores shoot a .615 ball. The top is an English Fowler I traded for a Browning 12  auto in around 1982. It was built by an englishman, Kit Ravenshire. The bottom canoe gun is a cutdown Navy Arms Charleville and the pistol is a NA Charleville also. I built all the bags, horns and stuff.
The rifles are a matched set .25 and a .50 southern mountain Bean family style with all handforged iron hardware built by Dave Motto for me as a trade for some $ and me doing all the chores on Dave's farm for two weeks. Learned I didn't want to be a farmer. I made all the horns, bags, etc. The round balls are a .615 and a .25. I have owned these guns for damn near thirtyfive years and all of them have made meat.

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[Timo]

Love all you home spun stuff ! Really fond of those Mt rifles. I have a barrel on order right now for one of such.Got my wood already and having a custom lock made.  My buddys got some great patterns so really looking forward to it.

Here's a few pics of my last build. 54 cal plains rifle. I made all the furniture for this one, and Hot bleached it. Also made the percussion lock into a flint. Not the best job on the lock, but she throws a great spark!



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[Grunt]

Fine work, you know your stuff. Lewis and Clark carried a 1803 Harpers Ferry 50 cal half stock flintlock. Your build looks like the transition rifle, half stock for horseback,  a forerunner of the Hawken.

[riarcher]

  WOWed with some really nice stuff here! 

[Dane]

These weapons are all very inspiring. I have to get back to building the NW Trade Gun kit I got late last year. No pics yet, but I will post once i build her. I'm also going to get a medieval handgonne, which should be a lot of fun, plus easy to clean. Cleaning these things is never fun.

Dane