Author Topic: The world's most popular gun (Read 9303 times)

James Wilson Everett · « **on:** December 16, 2011, 12:25:01 AM »

Guys, Please don't consider me to be arrogant, but the subject title did get your attention, didn't it? Certainly Luke 18:14 applies.

Anyways, here is a boy's gun that I put together several years ago so that all of the 8 year olds whom I speak with at show-n-tells can hold and try a flintlock that fits them. Really, who lets little kids handle the $8000 ones? The gun is made using one of those original Belgian 0.50 cal smoothbore barrels that Dixie was selling years ago for a very low price. The pull is about 11 inches.. I can tell you that this gun has accounted for more deer , turkey, and redcoats that any 10 other guns put together. The fun actually when the kid has clicked it and seen the spark and shot that imaginary deer. When he hands it back, I reply Oh No, after you shoot it you must clean it!! Then the kid is lead through the cleaning tip, patch, bore swab process. Really more fun for them than the click - spark. Who knows what grown up kids are now owning and shooting for real M/L guns today who got their interest this way?

Anyway, here are the photos of the "world's most popular gun".

Jim Everett

flintriflesmith · « **Reply #1 on:** December 16, 2011, 01:09:42 AM »

Very cool and I really appreciate your interest in getting young folks involved and interested.
Gary

roundball · « **Reply #2 on:** December 16, 2011, 01:31:55 AM »

Nice looking long gun for sure...

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #3 on:** December 16, 2011, 01:57:38 AM »

Indeed, the small guns make the kids eyes pop out.

At the local County Fair, I do a gun building demo. Kids were just about mauling me to death to get to handle this gun. I told one boy that I'd made it for my ten year old son. The boy looked at me with wide open puppy eyes and said ' I'm ten, too.'

Just melted me right there on the spot. If the gun didn't already belong to my son, I'd have been tempted to give it to the lad.

I made this for my son Sam when he was ten. He's now twenty one.

ottawa · « **Reply #4 on:** December 16, 2011, 04:36:33 AM »

both of those are some sweet rifles Acer can you give me some info on yours my daughter likes the looks of it
thanks
Ben

draken · « **Reply #5 on:** December 16, 2011, 05:10:20 AM »

Those are a couple of fine looking rifles! I can't imagine anything more exciting for an eight year-old than "shooting" and then learnig to clean an honest to goodness "Kentucky rifle"

T*O*F · « **Reply #6 on:** December 16, 2011, 05:22:15 AM »

Nuthin fancy, but here's an original .410 boy's fowler. The quarter on the wrist will give you some indication of the dimensions.

B.Habermehl · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2011, 11:14:14 PM »

Boy Tom, does time ever fly, I remember handling the rifle you built for your son at Dixon's. I think it was the year you built it. The pictures you have here on the forum don't even come close to doing it justice. BJH

wattlebuster · « **Reply #8 on:** December 18, 2011, 05:30:05 PM »

That is a fine lookin rocklock for sure. It gives me an Idea for my grandsons

Acer Saccharum · « **Reply #9 on:** December 18, 2011, 10:50:11 PM »

Link to more little man gun photos: http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a246/Tom45-70/Contemporary%20guns/

Side plate image, nickel silver, in the 19th Cent style of humorous engraving:

Robby · « **Reply #10 on:** December 19, 2011, 02:00:48 AM »

Acer, That's really cool, whimsical, and well done!!

stuart cee dub · « **Reply #11 on:** December 19, 2011, 09:00:41 AM »

Great kids gun.Acer.Plenty of drop to go with the short kids length stock.Exactly what is needed.
If we were wise we would build more such kis sized guns and help kids who want to shoot have the proper and safe tools to learn the trade.They make kid sized skis.So in like fashion ,it is up to us to make the tools to teach the interested while they are still young,trainable and teachable.

Glenn Hurley Jr. · « **Reply #12 on:** December 19, 2011, 02:54:49 PM »

Tom,
I checked out the other photos of your son's rifle. The " Grasshopper" front sight is really appropriate! The trout eating the ramrod is, as expected , done to perfection. Thanks for sharing.

Bob Roller · « **Reply #13 on:** December 19, 2011, 04:16:20 PM »

First off,I thank God for our Marines,Navy,Air Force,Army and Coast Guard and all who serve as Border Patrol Agents. I have nine years Army.
Got out in 1963 after JFK sold out the Bay of Pigs raiders. We have a son.Rob,who is a 17 year police officer with the Air Combat Command,USAF. He said one more trip to the "Muddled East" and he would be made an "Honorary Arab".
We have a grandson here in Huntington WV who was recently diagnosed with a "legally blind"right eye.He is amost 10 and nobody found it until now. It explains why he couldn't hit a target with a Marlin 22 caliber single shot boys rifle I bought for him 2 years ago. He was having trouble in school and the teacher thought he was a poor student and said he ought to be kept home. One of the fine men on this forum said it sounded to him like a visual problem and he was right,this has been confirmed and if I can get the boy to shoot the 22 well,then a muzzle loader is next.Maybe another small Whitworth.
There is more to the eye problm than I can say here other than he first school should have caught it in an eye exam but didn't.

Bob Roller

Kermit · « **Reply #14 on:** December 20, 2011, 03:46:01 AM »

Schools do vision screening, NOT eye exams. You wouldn't let them prescribe Ritalin, would you? Glad someone caught it though. Mine vision problem wasn't found until I was 19. Too late for a lot of do-overs.

Daryl · « **Reply #15 on:** December 20, 2011, 10:36:58 PM »

Quote from: T*O*F on December 16, 2011, 05:22:15 AM

Nuthin fancy, but here's an original .410 boy's fowler. The quarter on the wrist will give you some indication of the dimensions.

Didn't Dixie sell these years ago? There's a young fellow at Heffley who shoots one.

T*O*F · « **Reply #16 on:** December 20, 2011, 11:18:54 PM »

Quote

Didn't Dixie sell these years ago?

Maybe, but this one is a lot older than that.

However, either Dixie or Numrich sold Belgian proofed barrels very similar to the one on this gun. I obtained one several years ago and made this diminutive little fowler with it. It couldn't have weighed more than 4.5 lbs and all the weight was in the butt end. Barrel is 30" long.

The guard was reshaped from this casting.

Daryl · « **Reply #17 on:** December 20, 2011, 11:38:46 PM »

The .410 smoothbores I was referring to, and recall seeing in their catologe, were originals - this was in early 1970's.

Bob Roller · « **Reply #18 on:** December 21, 2011, 12:01:03 AM »

In the Summer of 1958,I worked for Dixie Gun Works and they had hundreds of these little single barrel shotguns that came in from Belgium. Ernie Tidwell picked one up and bent the barrel into the shape of the letter "U" with his bare hands. I question the wisdom of shooting such a gun with more than a thimble full of 1fg.
Are there any smooth bore barrels available for a flintlock single barrel shotgun that are made from gun barrel grade steel? I have thought about making one but don't know really who is making what and what materials are being used.

Bob Roller

James Wilson Everett · « **Reply #19 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:13:52 AM »

Guys,

I still have one of those Belgian barrels that Dixie sold in the "good old days". It is 31.4" long, octagon to round, 0.785 across flats at breech, 0.600 dia at muzzle, 0.500 bore, no breech plug. It is marked made in Belgium and SR. This is essentially the same barrel I used for the "world's most popular gun" which I have shot it often with a powder charge of 40 grains fffg with the same volume measure of shot. This is the recommended service charge in the back of the DGW catalog for a 37 gauge shotgun. Anybody want it?

Jim Everett

rudyc · « **Reply #20 on:** December 21, 2011, 01:29:12 AM »

Good on you James for a wonderful idea!!!

rudyc

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Author Topic: The world's most popular gun (Read 9303 times)

roundball

ottawa

Daryl

Daryl