AmericanLongRifles Forums
General discussion => Gun Building => Topic started by: D. Taylor Sapergia on March 26, 2019, 08:22:49 PM
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I have just finished a target pistol for a friend. It features a Green Mt. .50 cal fast twist bbl 10" long x 15/16" AF, a 1" Hawken hooked breech and tang, filed down to mate with the barrel, and the tang straightened. The triggers I had in inventory, and they are the same as the ones formerly sold by MBS. the guard came from TOW. The stock is a dense and heavy piece of American Walnut provided by the client, finished with Circa 1850 Tung Oil Finish, and chequered (16 tpi). The grip cap is a piece of walrus ivory, again, provided by the client. The rod pipes are from TOW. The pure silver nose piece I made. I engraved some borders on things just to smarten it up, and also did all the screw heads. The lock is a Hawken lock by L & R but much altered and filed to reduce the size and improve the mechanism. Rear sight is a casting from TOW - front one hand schmieded in my shop.
All steel is rust blued using Laurel Mt. Forge's reagent, browned in cabinet for two days with two hour interval applications...boiled in distilled water for fifteen minutes, carded on Brownell's wire wheel, killed with ammonia, and lightly oiled.
Happy to answer questions and receive critique...
(https://i.ibb.co/Vmj8zyF/100-8657.jpg) (https://ibb.co/fv17yR3)
(https://i.ibb.co/BzkXjhJ/100-8658.jpg) (https://ibb.co/j6tcGCY)
(https://i.ibb.co/ZJb5fLd/100-8660.jpg) (https://ibb.co/8BQqmKM)
(https://i.ibb.co/VTcb5ML/100-8662.jpg) (https://ibb.co/cQSRV2y)
(https://i.ibb.co/3T9VxZh/100B8700.jpg) (https://ibb.co/Jcw8YJk)
(https://i.ibb.co/XYHhn4S/100B8760.jpg) (https://ibb.co/BnkXhPq)
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Heck, Taylor, evening he can’t shoot well he will be the envy of everyone else in the line.
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Beautiful :)
Helsing Runar
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GM barrel and long sight radius should make it a great shooter. Very nice work BTW. :)
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Very neat, clean and Beautiful work, Taylor!!
I Do like your lovely clean engraving!
R.
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Beautiful work, and I really like the pistol.
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Hi Taylor,
Nice saw handle pistol!!
dave
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Nice fit lock to bolster - as always. Set- trigger - dang - think I need one of those on my old pistol.
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Beautiful work. I love the engraving.
Best regards
Rolf
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Hi, looks like a adjustable trigger,do you have pictures of the trigger out of the stock ?
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That is a really nice pistol , Taylor. It looks similar to the pistols I recently saw at a museum in Perth, Ont. which were used in Canada's " Last duel "
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Like the bag grip Hawken you made,this pistol stands out like a goose egg in a bucket of coal.
This is also proof of what you think of yourself as the maker of this pistol and also your opinion
of the new owner.
Bob Roller
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Beautifully done. Have you shot it? Just wondering how it does.
Tim
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Nicely done! The more I look at the pictures the more subtle details I see. Wonderful pistol.
David
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I need to find a few friends like you Taylor. :)
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LOL - My old goat skin - good back-drop, as always.
Don't show them the other side.
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Man if that thing shoots as good as it looks then it will be unbeatable. ;D I have always wanted a saw handled pistol and that one just makes me want one more. To bad you can not shoot these in the traditional matches at Friendship, only plow handled pistols are allowed. Great work all the way around.
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Looks like it was done in the 1850's by one of London's finest gunsmiths - splendid. Reminiscent of a pistol by Mortimer of that period.
If you should happen to lose your client's address......
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Taylor,
What's the purpose of the notch cut into the left side of the breech plug?
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Taylor, very nice work indeed.....
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Man if that thing shoots as good as it looks then it will be unbeatable. ;D I have always wanted a saw handled pistol and that one just makes me want one more. To bad you can not shoot these in the traditional matches at Friendship, only plow handled pistols are allowed. Great work all the way around.
You can shoot it at Friendship, just not in the kentucky pistol category. You would have to compete in the unlimited caplock category. Good luck with that.
That is really a beautiful pistol Taylor. I have looked at the photos over and over and all I can say is Elegant!
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Thanks everyone for your nice comments. I finished up the pistol and took a few pictures for this site on the morning I was leaving town for a week away. So it has not been shot yet, but I anticipate a take driving easy to shoot pistol.
The breech plug was relieved on the left side to help reinforce the stock at the lock bolt. Muzzleloading stocks are notoriously weak there, and are often cracked down through the bolt into the wrist. Not my idea...I have an English rook rifle with that feature, and it made such good sense, I often do this to guns that have a hooked or patent breech, especially if they have an English flavour.
You will recognize John Schippers in the engraving style. Until I bought and read his great book on engraving historic firearms, I was at a loss to come up with designs that filled the ground available, and that were pleasing to my eye. Now I need to do more than one of these a year so that I can improve. I never start with a practice plate...just go straight to the gun and have at it. One thing I learned doing this one...when cutting a line, it is easy to accidentally leave the layout line and diverge. To avoid that, stop cutting, and back up the graver in the cut to see where you are, about every 1/8". That way, you are in better control of where the point is taking you. It worked for me anyway, after I noticed I was in trouble.
When I get back home, I intend to get out to the range and give this thing a go. I left the front sight crazy high, so I could file it down to zero it, after we've found it's optimum load. I spent a lot of time making sure that long tang was dead straight behind the breech so that I didn't have to have the sights kittywonkus on the barrel and tang.
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I really like the pistol Taylor and love the engraving. Can you tell me how wide the two parallel lines are on the border of the trigger guard? To me that border has an English feel to it and I will have one somewhat like it on a rifle in the future. :)
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I cut the three parallel lines a little less than 1/16" apart, and in from the outside edge.
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OK thanks. On looking closer I now see the three lines not just two. Straight and parallel lines tax my skill quite a bit so looking at yours gives me something to strive for. ;D :)
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Delicious!
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Shifty: yes I do, but I'll have to wait 'til I get home to post. I had to reduce the height of the kicker(s) as much as I could to make the trigger work in the vertical space I had. But they function nicely either set, or unset.
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Check out the close-up on those diamonds.
(https://i.ibb.co/XYHhn4S/100B8760.jpg)
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Lovely, I like everything about it.
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Great work love the engraving just right not over don. Really like nice long site radius. Makes me really want to get into my pistol project, it’s been laid aside to long.
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Heck, Taylor, evening he can’t shoot well he will be the envy of everyone else in the line.
Taylor
How did you polish the metal that you blued using the LMF solution?
Did You draw file or use sandpaper or both?
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That's an excellent question Tim, because with bluing particularly, you must card the steel removing scale that accumulates during the browning process. The carding on this piece was done using Brownell's soft wire wheel at 500 rpm. In short, the finish is more IN the steel than ON it. So, unless you remove file marks etc, they will show up after the boiling and carding is done.
So, the long answer is, I draw file to remove casting marks and to finalize the shape, and then use progressively finer abrasive cloth and paper, backed with various items including dowels, files, rubber hose, and special cut pieces of rubber from a found engine support block. I likely stopped at 400 - 600 on this piece. So the sequence would have been file, then abrasives 80, 120, 180, 220, 320, 400, and 600. I use some wet/dry paper but I also use Norton's sandpaper...cuts nicely and lasts well. When polishing steel, you will find that each finer grade of abrasive takes less time than the previous. On each successive grade, I change the polish angle so that I can clearly see that I have removed the marks left by the coarser paper/cloth, ending with lengthwise stokes of the finest.
All the screw heads are engraved, case hardened and burnished with a wire wheel.
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Special pistol, Taylor. Well done.
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I some how missed this the first time around. That's some very fine engraving. I especially like the details on the lock, right down to the tiny elements on the border of the hammer.
Great job Taylor.
Jeff
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That’s one fine looking pistol that anyone would be proud
To own and shoot. The details are crisp and clean
And I love that smooth blue finish Taylor did.
I am building a Kibler SMR and, except for the lock,
Plan to LMF rust blue all of the metal hardware.
Knowing what polish to put on those parts helps me
out so much. The trigger guard is now polished to 600
Grit wet or dry using soapy water as the lubricant.
Taylor, much thanks for going into detail on how you
Accomplished that awesome finish. I was afraid that
Polishing to 600 grit would be to slick for the rust to
Take hold.
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I brown in a damp box, ala John Bivens. A dimmer switch and a 300 w incandescent bulb in an asbestos lined compartment in the bottom provides heat to ~ 95 F and over the blub sits a stainless steel bowl with two inches of hot water, gererating humidity just short of the dew point...IMPORTANT! Your first application of LMF applied with one lengthwise wipe, will give a bluish/grey colour to bright steel over 2 1/2 hours. Subsequent applications even out and bring up the rust that makes the barrel brown. Do not be temped to go back over wet applications, even if you think you missed a spot. You'll get those spots next application, though try to get it right on the one pass. I use a Q tip damped with LMF for dovetails. I apply the solution to steel parts with two cotton balls (drug store), dipped in the greenish LMF and wrung out 'til damp.
I get an even brown in about 6 - 8 applications, and this sometimes takes me to the second day. Over-night, I take the parts out of the box and let them sit on my shop table, continuing the second day with the damp box.
I boiled this pistol's parts in distilled water for about twenty minutes, carded them (dry) with the wire wheel, washed them down with household ammonia, and oiled with motor oil. No after rust.
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Beautiful.
I find it frustrating the NMLRA does not allow saw handled pistols in competition. It seems arbitrary. They were common. The plow handles ones are much more likely to break the stock while loading.
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Stunning. The hammer screw is, as my kids would say, Dope. How you inlet like you do is magic. Nicely done.
I know, way too many pop culture references. I hate pop culture but I hate deleting and rewriting a post more....
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Classic as usual Taylor Bob
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Darned nice I say.
Dan
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Scotia, check Alacran's reply re using saw handled pistols at Friendship. My son uses one in the championship aggregate. In fact, the only matches where saw handles are prohibited are the "traditional" matches.
Beautiful pistol Taylor!
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The infamous " Last Duel " here in Canada, which took place in Perth Ontario, was conducted with a pair of saw handled percussion lock pistols. The pistols were on display at a museum there and look much like Taylor's creation
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Scotia, check Alacran's reply re using saw handled pistols at Friendship. My son uses one in the championship aggregate. In fact, the only matches where saw handles are prohibited are the "traditional" matches.
Beautiful pistol Taylor!
I have seen abominations like a 45ACP made into A FLINTLOCK and
"N"frame Smith&Wessons converted to percussion.Coil spring locks
also used."Traditional"matches? What is that?
Bob Roller
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[/quote]
I have seen abominations like a 45ACP made into A FLINTLOCK and
"N"frame Smith&Wessons converted to percussion.Coil spring locks
also used."Traditional"matches? What is that?
Bob Roller
I agree Mr Roller. If I was going to compete with a modern looking pistol, like a Ten Ring, Cimarron, Yassel, or for that matter any of the inline target muzzleloading pistols out there. I would just go out and use my modern guns in Bullseye competition.
All my ML pistols are "Kentucky" pistols.
[/quote]
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I have seen abominations like a 45ACP made into A FLINTLOCK and
"N"frame Smith&Wessons converted to percussion.Coil spring locks
also used."Traditional"matches? What is that?
Bob Roller
The NMLRA defines a "traditional" ( read that "Kentucky") pistol as one that has a plow-handle stock, front sight no wider than .10in., rear sight no taller than .250 in. and the width of the barrel flat.