Merry Christmas to You all from Down Under. A couple of years ago I got wiped out in a bushfire, I lost all my gear. This rifle was gifted to me by a good mate some years ago, and was working up to be a good short range hunting rifle. Its a classic English Percussion hunting rifle of 1850 vintage by Isaac Hollis. I recovered the ironwork from the ashes of my saddle come gunroom, the stock was ash. The barrel was not warped, just a bit of light oxide, lock springs just a little tension left. I had a local stockmaker restock her in English walnut, also re soldered the underbid ( soft soldered as it was originally. I will reproof the barrel with my normal hunting load of 3 1/2 drams of FFg, a greased felt wad, and a patched .71 ball. I will run callipers over it first, then again after firing it off. Barrel will just be strapped to a heavy board, so if something nasty happens I can at least rebarrel the stock. I have seen the odd story of muzzle loading rifles being brought back into service after a fire, but not much detail. Other muzzle loaders that were in the house got too hot, the barrels actually burnt, like a shoe over cooked in a forge, so beyond recovery. This rifle is a Damascus barrel so mostly wrought iron, so soft anyway. She was built for the India market, as a rifle for hunting tiger, so short range, 50 yards and under. The load mentioned gives a poi at point of aim at 50 yards using its only leaf sight. I am putting this up as it may be of interest to some of you if you are faced with having to recover a burnt rifle
