Some of the people I shoot with here get their knickers in a knot when they see a caplock, wanting everyone to shoot flintlocks only. So I built a .54 English Sporting Rifle fullstock flint, but couldn't shoot it well off-hand. It weighed 7.5 pounds. Next I copied my Bridger Hawken but made a flintlock .58, and I will see how well I shoot it off-hand. My .54 Bridger with a 31" 1 1/8" GRRW barrel weighs 11 pounds, and I shoot it wonderfully well. Thus a flint copy, which weighs only 9 3/4 pounds. It has a 32" Green River barrel, tapered from 1 1/8 to 1".
Length of pull is 13.25 inches on the Bridger and 12.25" on the flintlock. I like short stocks. The stain is Laurel Mountain Forge Lancaster Maple and the finish is 4 coats of Track's Original Oil finish.
I heat blued all the parts with a propane Mapps gas torch but browned the barrel with 12 coats of Laurel Mountain Forge barrel brown & degreaser.
Here are two groups, working on the sights, at 50 yards rest. Shots 1-5 are with .562 balls, .014 (crush) linen patching and 90 grains of Goex 2F at 1529 fps. No wiping between shots or groups (ran out of cleaning patches). Shots 6-10 are with 100 grains of Olde Eynsford 1 1/2F and some reject cast balls, which seemed to mike .577. Don't know how I did that with a .570 mold. Velocity averaged 1611 fps. I'll start with 50 grains of Goex 2F for off-hand competition.
I sawed the stock out of a blank using handsaws. I would not wish this on anyone, but I have three more to do like that.
The Green River breech was tapped 5/8" deep, so I cut off the back of the barrel and cut my flint plug to 1/2" and used a White Lightning liner, which I had to open to .070 to eliminate flashes in the pan.
I had an early Hawken buttplate from Muzzleloader Builders Supply, which is different from a similar one that Track has. Though it looks a lot different from the Bridger buttplate from Track (on the right), the actual shoulder shape is the same. I cut 1/2" off the return and will solder it onto the Bridger buttplate to make it like the one on the Kit Carson Hawken, which I will build soon. The black is the left hand buttplate and the red is the Bridger outline.
Here is what I am getting ready for. I was up on Diamond mountain scouting and found three bucks and a doe and then these 7 bucks. Friends Carl and Carole, who killed bucks up there 3 or 4 years ago, saw 16 nice ones in one bunch on nearby farmland. They are going to guide me on my hunt.
