Cap Lock Build

[Cory Joe Stewart]

Hello everyone.  A friend of mine has asked me to build him a caplock.  Right now I am thinking it will be in the mountain rifle variety, I do not know what exact style yet. 

What I am wondering is with a cap lock and drum and nipple system is there any thing to take into consideration when choosing the barrel?

Regards,

Coryjoe

[Bob Roller]

Hello everyone.  A friend of mine has asked me to build him a caplock.  Right now I am thinking it will be in the mountain rifle variety, I do not know what exact style yet. 

What I am wondering is with a cap lock and drum and nipple system is there any thing to take into consideration when choosing the barrel?

Regards,

Coryjoe

 Make sure it's NOT a 13/16 x 45 caliber and if it IS,get a flint style breech plug to install the drum into.
 No gap between the lock plate and the drum is a must with this breech.

Bob Roller

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Recently, I've been nurturing a love affair with a Bedford Co. rifle.  I've been looking at images of originals in reference material, and have dug out a lock plate and hammer from the seventies that I've had squirreled away.  This rifle requires a drum and nipple, and a barrel with sufficient barrel wall to support a good long thread journal on the drum.  I've just done a little math, and discovered the following:  if the barrel is 7/8" (.875") at the breech, and the bore is .45 cal, with only .010" rifling just for example, you have a barrel wall of .2025".  I don't consider that enough.  So if the barrel is 15/16" (.9375") at the breech, with the same bore, you'll have .4525" of barrel wall to support the thread journal of the drum.  That's enough.  So the barrel better be tapered or swamped or it'll be muzzle heavy @ 44" long.  Now I don't know if such a barrel is appropriate for a Bedford rifle, so I'm open to advice from more knowledgeable folks...I know you're out there.  If I build this rifle with a 15/16" parallel barrel @ 44" - 46" long, and I find it too heavy for offhand, it'll make a great chunk gun.  I don't mind 12 pounds for offhand, do you?  Just try to get those sights out of the bullseye...impossible!

But in terms of this thread, here's a rifle that is designed for the drum and nipple.  It has been my observation that the majority of original rifle's I've handled have all had breeches that were much heavier than what contemporary builders today.

[smylee grouch]

Myself, I wouldn't choose a Bedford style stock for a chunk gun, too much drop for me.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Chunk gun design is probably the stuff of another thread, and I have only a little experience with that style of shooting.  But I found my rifles that fit me perfectly for offhand work slap my cheek something dreadful in the prone position.  Even in only .40 calibre.

[galamb]

Just to expand on what Bob posted up, I wouldn't build with a normal/regular drum that screws in the side of the barrel. Just a safety/phobia thing on my part.

Track of the Wolf sells some really decent drum style patent breeches (Pete Allan stuff), that they call an Ohio Patent Breech. Just a few less things to go wrong when you use one of these.

[Cory Joe Stewart]

I like the look of that system from TOW but I need the tang to be longer.  Maybe I can have a piece welded to it.

Thanks,

Cory

[stuart cee dub]

I have used a 7/8'' straight barrel in a 45 caliber with a drum and mountain siler on my Ohio rifle for 15 yrs ,shooting it once or twice a month and have about 10000 rounds through it  .The drum is fully supported by the lock plate.The drum screws in tight with no slop .

I had to replace the drum last year as the threads were shot where the nipple screwed into the drum .Probably the result of cross threading and some resulting gas erosion as nipples were replaced over the years . At the time I could see the inky leak when I had the breech in a bucket pumping water through it for cleaning which was the clue.
 
That being said that is my personal minimum wall thickness.
Anything thinner is either flint or has a patent breech.

No 11 Caps are scarce at the moment ,perhaps a reason to move to the dark side on a new build.
 
 

[smylee grouch]

I used the breech that Galamb posted on one rifle. Works good but I did have a little trouble with the hammer anignment with the nipple as the hole for the nipple is angled back just a little bit. I did make it work but had to fuss with it for a bit.

[galamb]

Yes, the geometry can be a little challenging with these, it would be nice if they were available un-drilled/un-tapped so you could do it yourself (or at least have that as an option).

I have avoided bending hammers by using either T/C short (pistol) nipples and in one case (with a Chambers Golden Age Conversion lock), a Snake Eyes pistol nipple - which is wicked short, but saved severely bending the hammer or swapping it out with something else.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

My friend John Archer just emailed me to point out that my math sucks.  That's not what he said, but that is the truth.

on a 15/16" bbl with a .45 cal bore, and rifling .010" deep, the barrel wall will be .233" - not .452"!  That leaves about 1/32" less than 1/4" for the threaded journal of the drum.  With a 7/8" bbl, the wall would be about 1/16" less than 1/4" for the drum.  So even with a 7/8" AF barrel, and a drum threaded 3/8" x 24 tpi will have a thread engagement of about 5 threads.  And that should be lots.

[Cory Joe Stewart]

Thanks for your help everyone.  This process is pretty intimidating.  I am trying to talk my buddy into a flintlock but he is hardheaded and bigger than me. 

One more question for now:

What about swamped barrel?  Most of the information you guys have provided seems to be for straight barrels, would it make any difference?

Coryjoe

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

The only difference would come from the style of rifle you're trying to emulate.  By the time the percussion system of ignition was established to the point that guns were made purposely percussion, barrels also changed.  During this era, it was more common to see parallel rather than swamped barrels, or at least if they were swamped, the double taper was extremely subtle.  The drum and nipple system doesn't care, if that's your question.

[B.Habermehl]

I seldom build percussion rifles, the several I did when fitting the lock plate and drum I put a .010 shim under the barrel tang. After the fitting was complete I removed the shim from underneath the tang. To remove the lock from the completed gun you need to first loosen the tang bolt. Maybe I'm going a bit overboard on the support the drum thing but it's my belt and suspenders approach to having firm support of the drum. Knock on wood I never had any trouble so far. BJH

[stuart cee dub]

On swamped barrel rifle ,sometimes I have used the percussion version on an older style lock body .Slier percussion locks with the pointed tail and a percussion hammer  can make a rifle from the RevWar look as if it were converted in the later period of it's use to percussion .So you can get away with using a percussion lock on an earlier style.
 Stylistically you don't see this much anymore by builders.The trend seems to be to build flint period guns with swamped barrels get built as flints as they would have been built new .I have seen maybe a couple of guns where the builder knew what hi was doing an made  credible rifle . Most of the time not .A most common error is to use a Germanic styled lock on Tennessee .
So sure you can use a swamped barrel along with cap lock. Just plan ahead .

[Gaeckle]

I have a bunch of old original barrels: most are percussion, most are swamped. I have of total of 21 barrels. I also have an old rifle that was built around an old, repurposed swamped forged barrel that is a dead ringer (in profile) of a rifle in the style of a prominent Ohio builder named Peter Rienhart....but it was most likely an apprectice's build and it is in percussion.

Back in the day, folks didn't waste anything.

The Log cabin Shop in Lodi, Ohio has a stellar collection of Ohio built rifles...next time I'm over there I'll take some pictures and post them.

The swamp in the barrels I own are very slight.

[galamb]

I think like Stuart on this one.

I prefer capguns but wanted a Christian Hawken/Maryland rifle styled after one he may have built right around 1800.

So I built it with a Southern Swamped barrel from Rice (not an overly aggressive swamp pattern) , breeched it with the Ohio (drum) patent that I posted above and for a lock I used a Chambers Golden Age conversion, so it "looks" like it was built in 1800-1810 as far as the style goes but was "converted" to percussion maybe 40 or so years later.

Now, aside from my gun building skills, which are "still developing"  , the "look" is believable and I still got my capgun even though the original was a flint.