Touch hole liners

[WMnBR]

I use one of Tom Snyder's tools and drill an interior coned touch hole in the barrel. No liner.  Works great.  How long will it last??  But then as Rich suggested a liner can be used to repair it....

A Dremel with a medium sized round burr will do the same.  That's my method.

[Dphariss]

So, to expand on the subject just a bit, and to clarify, rifles made by J. Dickert, W. Haga, Bonewitz, and Peter Gonter, H. Rupp,  would not have touchhole liners? Period correct for them would be just a drilled hole?

Unless "bushed" due to gas cutting surely a "plain" vent. New vents WERE installed in guns. Its documeted. What they looked like?
We also have to remember that a great many surviving flintlock rifles were converted to percussion then reconverted to flint so we have really little idea what was really done when they were new or modifications before being "percussed" since it was all destroyed.

I think there is something everyone needs to understand here. The Kentucky rifle, on average, was not a high quality gun when compared to guns and rifles from Europe or even some of the guns from some places in the east like Philly or Baltimore. They were not "best quality" firearms. Nor were they made for landed gentry (for the most part), "peers" or royalty.

Dan

We have some nice long rifles in the Huntington Museum of Art and the one credited to Daniel Boone is a superb example of an unused one while the Simon Kenton rifle next to it shows use and wasn't a high grade gun to begin with.
Upscale American muzzle loaders apparently did not start showing up until well into the percussion era and most of them were from the Northeastern areas. Tom Rowe's book on American Percussion Schuetzen Rifles is full of them.
Our long rifle makers of today have so many advantages over those of the 18th century that to compare the products of that era with the products of today is almost a waste of effort.
We have better health,eyesight,lighting and last but not least,tools of every description plus materials of known analysis and their benefits.

Bob Roller

Trying to compare the better English guns to American guns of 1770-1790 is almost like apples and oranges. Different clientele is a MAJOR factor, unlimited gun budgets in some cases vs a hunter or farmer.

AS you point out just having electric lights is a major improvement.
I am largely helpless any more without an Optivisor of 5-10 power.

Dan

[dannybb55]

All too true, the firearms that I am into were often made by the thousands at the beginning of the industrial era or at the beginning of the musket era. The work shown was the best that they could do with what they had. They knew their empirical metallurgy, maybe the chemistry was a little fuzzy but they got good results. I think that applying modern, space age tolerances to centuries old machines is missing the point. With textiles, living historians and experimental archaeologists want loom woven fabrics and hand sewn seams, but their firearms have to have the close tolerances of a  
modern sniper rifle? Isn't that a Fantasy Rifle ? Maybe the market wants perfection, after all, they will accept parts that are cast and should be forged and filed.
 I think that I will follow my own path and only bush my vent when I have burned it out.
 BTW my shop has no power except my right arm and some candles and doors but I can forge and file quite easily in there.
                                              Danny

[Jim Kibler]

Danny, I think your view may be true in some cases, but not in others.  For example if you've ever had the chance to study Paris made firearms from as early as the 17th century, it will be clear that close tolerances, fine finshes were obtained and employed on a regular basis.  The key to all this is to understand the context.  It seems sometimes people have a rather romantic view of things.  It also helps a great deal when you've actually handled and studied these guns first hand.  Actual experience building these things is a good thing too.

Jim

[dannybb55]

Jim, I am aware that such close tolerances were possible, The Romans could teach us a thing or two about accurate work and fitting. I have built a couple of rifles, I have one on the bench and a matchlock lock in the forge that is coming together. There will be an English doglock after these are finished. As for handling the antiques, I have access to but a few and we can't afford to move closer to the source like Paris, or Graz so I will have to use the best info that I have. Tools aren't a problem, I am a full time wooden yacht carpenter and have too much money tied up in books, carpentry tools and my blacksmith shop. What I can't afford to buy, I can make.
 I am just waiting for my !#@%$&?!!! broken heel to heal so that I can finally move my carpentry bench into the blacksmith shop and mount my new post vice.
 Anyhow, I appreciate good work but I am enamored by the early work and work that was affordable by the common man. A buddy of mine, whose family was nearly snuffed out in the Tuscarora War of 1712 wants to Re enact the Early West, just west of the East Coast, maybe 2 miles inland. He has a matchlock and I want one too. there will be tight fits in as many places as necessary and file marks and fire scale in many more places, much like a Mark 2 STEN. and just like the English made them in 1630. The clothes are kinda weird but we will get by.
 Danny

[dannybb55]

If you want to see outrageous file fits look at crossbows of the 15th Century and 16th century matchlocks. The guns were more sophisticated than the muskets of the 1640s or even 1700 Spanish matchlocks. Auto pan covers, Sprung safeties, peep sights, 2 piece sears, engraved springs. Some were as plain as a yard of pipe water though. Beech was the most common stock wood, probably because of the predominance of edge tools among the stock carvers but fruit woods such as Lime are sometimes seen.
 What did she smell like when she got hot?

         But I hugely Digress.
             Bolek ought to chime in here or Over the Back Fence.
                       Danny