Question on parts selection

[yellowhousejake]

Evening everyone,

I have a maybe funny request, if this is the wrong place please move it. I am an instructor for Project Appleseed and I present the history of April 19th 1775 to many groups. I am starting to give the history in period costume. I would like to add a musket to my kit. I've built several rifles and pistols/revolvers in my distant past, I shot only blackpowder for most of my life. Should be able to get back into the swing of things easily enough.

The problem is the musket to build. While we all love the curly maple and ornate decorations, I need a musket more in line with what a colonial militia member would have carried on April 19th. The go to musket that hung over the door. Not a fancy rifle. I think of it like this. If you knocked on my door late one night and told me a you hit a deer and it was kicking the *&^% out of your car, I would reach past my Winchester and my CZ and grab my 10-22 with no finish left and old stove paint on the barrel. I need that, in a musket.

My research has turned up several examples and they are almost always within to the following description.

Full round barrel
20ga to 75 caliber
No ornamentation, no inlay, no nosecap
Rarely a bayonet stud
Locks are often reused from French, Prussian, or English arms, military and civilian

This leaves me pretty wide open for part selection so I figure I should choose quality parts as this will be my entry back into muzzleloading. I'll shoot it, a lot.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I would like to to start rounding up parts by summer, and have a design picked out by then.

Thanks for your time. I look forward to hearing everyone's input on this project.

Dave

[Acer Saccharum]

New England fowling piece, perhaps, would fit the bill. If converted for militia use, it could have the forestock cut back 4" and braze a bayonette lug on the bbl.

Cherry and maple was commonly used for this type of gun.

[Micah2]

If you have not checked out Jim Chambers  Flintlock kits, this is a great place to buy from.  Period correct, best quality.  Check out the New England Fowler or Officers Fusil. 

[yellowhousejake]

New England fowling piece, perhaps, would fit the bill. If converted for militia use, it could have the forestock cut back 4" and braze a bayonette lug on the bbl.

Cherry and maple was commonly used for this type of gun.

My thoughts also. This link is to an article I used to have but cannot find the magazine any longer.

http://www.11thpa.org/neumann.html

DAve

[John A. Stein]

I clicked on that link and the article came right up. John

[yellowhousejake]

If you have not checked out Jim Chambers  Flintlock kits, this is a great place to buy from.  Period correct, best quality.  Check out the New England Fowler or Officers Fusil. 

I have been looking at them. The kit would speed building up, and give me a chance to get my feet wet again (I still have all my rasps, files, scrapers, tools, etc). The Officer's Fusil looked best for me with the full round barrel.

Would they think me strange if I called and asked for the plainest cherry they had? ;^)

DAve

[yellowhousejake]

I clicked on that link and the article came right up. John

I used to have the paper copy.

DAve

[Larry Luck]

Dave,

Welcome to ALR!

If I were trying to build a militia gun, I'd consider the geographical location and the economic position of my character.  A nice fowler like Acer mentioned might be appropriate, styled for the region of your character.  Maybe a trade gun like Clay Smith sells:

http://www.claysmithguns.com/tradeguns1a.htm

I've thought about the kind of gun my dad's ancestors (dirt poor farmers in central Virginia) might have owned, and I figured a jumble of restocked parts based on a smoothbore musket or fowler barrel might have been close.

Good luck with the project.

Larry Luck

And post photos!

[yellowhousejake]

My character, as I give the presentation, is a shop keeper from Middlesex County Mass. A militia member from any of the towns surrounding Concord and Lexington. Woburn, Acton, Sudbury, Groton, Medford, etc. I play the part of a dispatch rider spreading the news after April 20th, I begin the presentation with a copy of the Bloody Butchery broadsheet.

Helpful?

DAve

[rich pierce]

I recommend picking a real original as a template and using that to direct parts choices and styling.

[billm]

Ditto for what Rich said.I would find a pick of an original and go from there.You could add or take away from that ,within your parameters set buy the original.Really sounds like a fun project.Please post pics of your build.

[Gene Carrell]

Chambers  had a great cherry stock for their New England fowler  a couple months ago and their parts  and  kits  are  first class.

[Dphariss]

My character, as I give the presentation, is a shop keeper from Middlesex County Mass. A militia member from any of the towns surrounding Concord and Lexington. Woburn, Acton, Sudbury, Groton, Medford, etc. I play the part of a dispatch rider spreading the news after April 20th, I begin the presentation with a copy of the Bloody Butchery broadsheet.

Helpful?

DAve

Find out if there are surviving rules for the Militia unit. Caliber of the gun may be mentioned, though this does not mean that EVERYONE had a gun of the regulation caliber
Chances are that ANY fowler is perfectly OK. Not all New Englanders had a "New England" fowler. There were surely a lot of imports from England. Militia units generally did not have Muskets though a fowler set up for a bayonet will work. Muskets were special purpose weapons and  were not the best choice for all around use since then used a lot of lead.


Dan

[Jerry V Lape]

You might also consider a trade gun which would generally be French and about 20ga too.  Poor shop keeper might even have some in stock he was selling to the less affluent farmers around his area. 

[Ed Wenger]

Hi Dave,

I agree with the fowler suggestions, and I don't think you could go wrong with the Chambers Officers Fusil.  That's a really nice kit, and makes a great piece.

The other thing you might consider is a musket modeled after the British Brown Bess.  When the Second Continental Congress solicited musket contracts for the Continental Army, they stipulated the arms be made "to the pattern" of the British arms.  All sorts of parts were used, and there were no "specifications", but most looked like a Bess.  I don't know of any components sets available, but Knob Mountain Muzzleloading (Dave Keck) has a Bess pattern available. 

        Ed

[yellowhousejake]

All good ideas!

The reason I asked about parts was that it seemed I could use just about anything correct for the period. So if barrel "A" is a great barrel, and lock "B" is a really nice lock, I could likely use them together on a militia musket where they might be incorrect on any other musket/rifle.

It seems like an opportunity to mix and match, within historical reason, to arrive at a very reliable firelock.

I have plenty of sheet brass and sheet iron, a good bit of walnut as well. My cherry is all too small, but I have two maple trees that are dead two years and ready to be cut. So wood might not be a requirement, which leaves a smaller shopping list than assembling an entire kit.

Keep the thoughts coming!

DAve

[satwel]

What ever parts set you choose, please keep in mind that Militia regulations in Massachusetts required a fowler to have a steel ramrod with a retaining spring in the entry thimble to secure it and to have the stock cut back to accommodate a bayonet. Did every weapon carried by a Militiaman comply with the regulations -- I doubt it.
At the Springfield Armory National Historic site, they have on display a beautiful militia musket with a steel rammer that is essentially a British Long Land Pattern musket that was restocked locally in figured maple or cherry, I can't tell which.
If I were you, I'd give the two Chambers kits mentioned previously serious consideration.