stok pattern for club butt musket

[Hungry Horse]

 Do any of you smart guys have an idea as to where I can get a pattern for a club butt musket? I inherited a couple of musket locks ( one French, one English) and a 42"round 12gauge barrel. I've always wanted a club butt musket, or fowler, and think that if I don't build one soon I won't need one at all. I love Ken Gahagan's muskets of this type, I just can't afford one.

                Hungry Horse

[E.vonAschwege]

Hungry Horse,
   One of my most used tools is the local library xerox machine.  Sometimes I'll use my home printer, but that requires more technique with software.  Either case, take a good profile photo of an existing gun, enlarge it to full scale and use that as your pattern.  If you know the dimensions like LOP, buttplate height or lock length, it makes it easier.  Otherwise estimate the LOP to something around 13.5" and go from there.  Grinslade's book on fowling guns would be where I would start.  You can also start with a nice contemporary fowler if you've got good pics of it.  Best,
-Eric

[k gahagan]

Hungry horse, Let me know which Club Butt or Hudson Valley Fowler you want to make and I'll see if I can get you what you need. I'm in the middle of moving my shop so I don't know if I can do it right away but I should be able to at some point. Good Luck with your build. Ken Gahagan

[Mike Brooks]

Just draw it out full sized on a piece of paper. That's how I start every gun I build.

[Hungry Horse]

 Thanks to all of you for your responses. Ken, thanks for the kind offer. I guess I should ask if it is even feasible to build one of these guns with a musket lock that doesn't have a curved plate? The locks I have are a 1763 French musket lock, and a Davis trade gun lock. will either of these work?
 The gun I would like to pattern my gun on, is the musket with the dog lock, and the brass wrist repair. Something about the way the wrist transitions into the very slab sided buttstock is appealing to me. I also like the moldings on the belly off the buttstock, that is mirrored on the tail of the buttplate.

                         Hungry Horse

[Mike Brooks]

Either of those locks will work. here's one I did with a fairly straight lock plate.

[Hungry Horse]

 Much thanks Mike. Actually I have an old Dixie Gun Works Ketland lock, very much like the one you used as well. I didn't even think about using it.

                    Hungry Horse

[k gahagan]

Hungry Horse, I got a chance to look up the Club Butt you were interested in.  I got the profile from one in the book Battle Weapons of the American Revolution by Neuman. It's pictured on page 153. There is a nice straight on shot of the stock that I would have used to get a profile by scaling some of the know dimensions that are given like lock size, trigger guard etc. I take these to an Office Max or Kinkos where they have larger copying machines and use the scale feature until the dimensions match.You can check your locks against the full size pattern once you get it. I cut the sideplate for mine out of sheet brass which makes it easy to match up with the lock. Ken

[Hungry Horse]

 Thanks Ken, I'll give it a try. I see that muskets of this design are known with the later straighter locks as well. I'm going to try one of these, before getting tangled up with rough caste components, and machine work.
 I also found a picture of a restocked Brown Bess in the club butt style which was kind of intriguing. I might try that with the Davis lock I have.
 This project kind of got life breathed into it when I bought a birdseye maple stock blank recently, and discovered when it arrived, that it had ample material in the butt to create one of these interesting firearms.
 The 42" barrels(I have two of them) are full choked in the last four inches of the barrel. Do any of you have an idea how to remove the choke without cutting the barrel off?
 I was thinking of using an expandable ream dropped down the bore, from the breech, so the shank exits the muzzle, and attaching it to a drill motor, and removing all but about the last ten thousandths, which could be done with a hone. Do any of you think this will work?
                     Hungry Horse