Reagan's new Brown Bess

[smart dog]

Hi,
I posted a longer thread about this on the Muzzleloading Forum.
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/a-pedersoli-brown-bess-kit.147669/

I thought I would post finished pictures here too.  Reagan is a local high school senior who is an active F&I and Rev War reenactor.  He portrays one of Herrick's Regiment of Vermonters and a 42nd Regiment Scottish highlander.  He came to me for some help with his Pedersoli Brown Bess kit.  The Pedersoli Bess cannot be turned into a true copy of a short land pattern Bess because the butt stock is too small, butt plate way too short, wrist too long, and all the lock markings are incorrect.  However, you can make a lot of improvements bringing it closer to the real guns and vastly improving the quality of workmanship. That is what we did and it came out pretty nicely.  We reshaped the stock to bring it closer to the originals and finished it a bit rough, leaving tool marks and scratches like the originals. The worst part was the ramrod pipes were machine inlet with over sized oval, flat bottomed mortises such that when pinned the pipes wobbled side to side.  Flat bottomed to fit round pipes!  The lock also needed a lot of work.  We resolved it all and here is the gun.
 





























Reagan came to my shop, Thursday, to pick up the finished musket and we shot it.  It works great.  He has it in time for the reenactment of the Battle of Hubbarton on July 8-9.

dave

[120RIR]

Very nice!  I've worked with another pin-head buddy to completely re-work a number of long-land Besses over the years.  The most recent looks to have been an old Track of the Wolf kit that needed a tremendous about of work in both wood and metal but in the end we were quite pleased with the result.  What I've always done with repro Bess locks is simply grind/file off the markings and re-engrave.  However, that can be tough on the Pedersoli lock plates because the marks are so deeply cast.  It's tough to fully obliterate them without making the plate too thin.  I had the same issue with the latest TotW kit.  To some extent it was like putting lipstick on a pig and some of the cast-in "engraving" was just a bit too deep so I did my best to work with and around it.  As for the crown, I mostly just enhanced the cast engraving. We even had our own stamps made up that are more accurate than those offered by TotW and we put in all manner of proof marks and inspector's stamps on the interior of the lockplate, under the barrel, etc.  De-farbing these commercial Besses is a lot of work but as you've shown, the end product can be way above and beyond the usual commercial grade stuff 95% of reenactors use. 

[smart dog]

Hi,
Here is a Pedersoli lock I re-engraved with Dublin Castle.  Getting rid of the stupid double border and engraving the proper thick and thin border is a real problem.  It is made impossible now because Pedersoli now drills the hole for the sear screw way too low on the lock plate such that they have to bend up the sear bar so it does not extend below the lock plate. There are no currently made production repros of the Brown Bess worth a @!*% without extensive  reworking, and none that can be made right.



dave

[Bob Gerard]

That’s one splendid looking Bess. Reagan will undoubtedly be very proud of his firelock, and rightly so.
I hope he cares for it better than many reenactors do. You might do periodic inspection of the musket to keep the lad in the habit of keeping a clean firearm.
I love the area behind the barrel tang. That “mogul” where it slopes down into the wrist. It slims the wrist so nicely and gradually. The shape of the nose is really eye catching for me as well.
Wish my pre-fractured Bess looked like that. I probably wouldn’t have taken such dramatics in my battlefield “deaths” with it 😄

[hanshi]

^ What Bob Gerard said,  I agree completely.

[120RIR]

I like your Dublin Castle re-work.  I did a dozen or so like that many years ago and had an accurate Irish acceptance stamp made up.  The fun thing about the Dublin Castle engraving is that it tended to be fairly crude compared to its English counterparts so while my inclination may have been to make it as nice as I could, doing so wouldn't have been very authentic.  Consequently, I purposefully and consciously make it a bit on the rough side.  My current project is re-engraving one of the Japanese Bess locks.  Those are real easy since they seem to be of much softer steel and the stamped "engraving" is pretty shallow so wiping it clean is a piece of cake.

[Brian Sweeney]

 I'm with hanshi,what Bob Gerard said.