Duprey rifle on the blog today

[Mike Brooks]

Interesting gun, I like it.

[bgf]

Mike, you may have met your match there.  That looks like it came out from under a tarp in an old shed, and I mean that in a good way.  Do you reckon he went to one of those fancy PA schools ?

[Ken G]

The Soddy guns are my favorite!  Jack has a dead ringer there.  Great looking rifle. 
Ken

[MagKarl]

That's a beauty right there.  Very nice.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have a hard time getting past the roughness of the work.

[Mike Brooks]

I have a hard time getting past the roughness of the work.

Looks like red maple finished with a sraper. I find the end result to be warm with alot of character and "soul".

[Jim Kibler]

The "roughness" isn't just a result of scraper work.  Open up the pictures full size and you will surely see.  Now, I'm not saying this is good or bad, just trying to help clarify what it is.

[bgf]

I took the roughness of the work in almost every case to be a conscious choice not to prissy it up too much.  My reasoning for that is how effectively he carried out a deceptively treacherous architecture; hard to believe he can't scrape and polish with the best.  I think that he just did everything to the minimum in terms of fitting and finishing in many cases.  It is most likely a hard choice to make these days, but not at all outrageous for the type of rifle it is.    Perhaps he went too far, but over-finishing a rifle of that type would have been -- is -- a worse offense in my view.

[Roy S.]

Jack is a cool old dude, not sure when he built this gun but I am more than sure that its the same one from when I first met him.. Personally I like it.

[PIKELAKE]

Could someone venture a guess as to the wash board effect on the side plate panel. Scraper chatter marks? Just wonderin. I really like this rifle. It is different, but I like it.   JZ

[heinz]

Looks suspiciously like what I get when I set the plane blade too coarse

[Dphariss]

Well it is a lot easier to make something with this level of workmanship. Hog out the wood, put in the metal, rough shape it, rust the parts and viola a complete gun.
I can't do this "level of work".
Can you imagine an actual master allowing his apprentice to do this sort of thing? If the master was properly trained its not going to happen.
If he did he would be violating the apprentice contract to properly train the apprentice.

In America anyone could and can "build guns" and it is painfully obvious that this was the case when looking at some originals. Some of them are butt ugly and could be the product of someone who stocked muskets during the Rev War and then thought he was a gunsmith.

Dan

[Flinter]

Anybody from Arkansas would be happy to own A flintlock like that.

The only thing I see wrong with it it it just has to small hole at the muzzle. Other than that, I like it.

Mike