My hunting Muzzloader

[peternap]

This was one of the first Ml's I built from scratch. I have used it for deer every year since and killed deer every year.

The wood for this is walnut. When the hurricane came through, I removed a number of trees from peoples houses. This was a walnut tree from a house in Lakeside. It was very light and I stained it using a homemade Aquafortis stain. (Nitric acid and iron)

The 1" , .58 Cal barrel with a 1:48 twist was made for me by Mark DeHass. I bought the Cock from Jim Chambers but made the rest of the lock and springs. I forged all the furniture. I made the front sight and the full buckhorn rear came from Track of the wolf.

This was a plain half stock design going back to a Mountain smith named Gimler who competed with the Hawken Brothers for the trappers business.

I couldn't find pewter that was dull grey like the original stuff so I made my own with wheel weights and nickel. I poured the nose cap in place.

It took three tries and a dozen trips to Williamsburg to make the set trigger (This was my first one) but it breaks unset, at 4 pounds and set an 1/3 pound.

While the under barrel rib on Hawkins was iron, Mountain half stocks and Most New England Half stocks had a wooden rib. This one is made from hickory and stained with Aquafortis

[Redoverfarm]

Nice work Peter.

[peternap]

Thanks John, The rifles and knives are the only thing I can do that even resembles art. Even they are .....sturdy, as my wife says

[Redoverfarm]

My Dad has an old 30 cal flintlock.  Says it is probably around civil war period.  Hasn't shot in years as it has a hairline crack in the stock.  Don't want it to go all the way. But the way they made them back then it will probably last forever even in a cripple state.  Another reason is cleaning it.  My Mom wouldn't let him put it in the tub. 

[MountainDon]

Nice Peter   

[ScottA]

Awsome Peter. I can see alot of careful work went into that wepon.

[Whitlock]

That is a nice rifle Peter you did a wonderful job. I allways wanted to build myself one but, I will have to add it to a list of a zillion other projects I have going.

[John_C]

A question Peter,
With a 1 in 48 twist is that kind of middle of the road? .....  so you can shoot patched round balls or minnie balls?

My feeble recollection is that round balls use something like a 1 in 66 twist and a barrel specifically for minnies would be faster than 1 in 48.   Maybe something like 1 in 38?

What do you usually shoot in it?

[peternap]

That's a good question John, and one I don't get asked often.
The one in 48 is used as a compromise twist in the more modern guns but is not uncommon on older ones that used less than super charges of powder. This one by the way, is a gain twist that starts slow (about 1 in 60) and builds to the 48.

The 48 twist is more accurate IMHO but a patched ball at full charges, tends to strip instead of following the rifling. That and the manual rifling machines were the reasons for the slower twists in long rifles,

If you want to build one, I can't recommend DeHaas enough. His father was a riflebuilder and published books and plans for shop built singleshot rifles that anyone can build with no special equipment.

Mark was a national pistol champion and is one of the finest barrel makers I ever met.
Nearly all barrels have some runout and the runout side is where the proofmark is. You mount it either up or down so all you have tdeal with is elevation.
When I looked his barrels, I remarked there was no mark. He's sort of a grumpy (in a likable way) fellow and just said, "there's no runout in my barrels.

Sure enough!
He bores and rifles the barrels first, then planes the flats concentric to the bore.