poured pewter

[BrentD]

There is a lot of negative curvature to a buttplate, that is concavity.  That would be hard to pour I would think.  Or else you have a lost of post pouring filing. 

Unless, of course, you poured it off the gun - but then what's the point of that?

[karwelis]

you know guys i have to thank you all! so far this is inspiring me to give this a shot!(pardon the pun) i am still hoping to hear from more of you that have done this.

[Dphariss]

I use Silva-Brite 100 solder. Its basically one of the old pewter formulas.
But its harder to pour, needing more heat than lead/tin alloys  like 50-50 but maintains it color better.
I always heat the barrel, because in pouring 1874 Sharps tips with the staff and ball not doing so simply results in a incomplete fill.
But these are more complex, if done so they will stay on the gun, than a tip like this



Dan

[Metalshaper]

Tried to scale this to a tiny pic? but here is a 'pour' I did, on my Son's UH carbine. Tried to capture the rear of the forearm and also form a flash guard for the wood.
Lots of arcs and angle changes to compensate for, during the shaping of the form.

Respect Always
Metalshaper/Jonathan

[Herb]

Crow Killer, these are two Hawkens I poured pewter nose caps for.

These are rifles I built.  The second from the left is a Green River Rifle Works Leman rifle I built in a class in their shop in 1978.  Greg Roberts, the shop foreman, drilled the ramrod hole for me and it came out the bottom of the stock.  So I fitted a wear plate.  In making a nose cap, I did the work about as described here, but didn't plug the ram rod hole well enough.  The melted pewter ran down the ram rod hole, but it made that wear plate $#*! for stout!  I had to drill it out and repour it.  I think heating the barrel is good so that the pewter cures with a good close fit to the barrel.

[Herb]

Here's two more I made and poured.  Top one is a copy of a J.H.Johnston rifle on page 78 of "The Long Rifles of Western Pennsylvania" by Rosenberger and Kaufmann.  The bottom one is based on John Fleeger's rifle on page 46 of the same book. Changed from fullstock right hand to halfstock left hand.