This rifle is and is not an antique. The barrel is an antique as are the triggers and the lock. I can never have enough cash on hand to purchase one of these, so I am forced to make them, but that's ok. Actually, the old antiques I do manage to buy are pretty much used up or poorly butchered attemps at "improving" the gun......
.....so, the barrel is just a tad over 7/8's and the bore is about .319, maybe a .318ish....a 32 for sure. The rifleing is decent, except for a small patch of corrosion about 3 inches from the muzzle, but she doesn't tear patches.
The twist on the barrel is 1 turn in 61 inches and I think it most likely came from a barrel mill and then rifled by a smith. It's been in a gun two other times by the looks of empty dovetails. There was no rib when I got it....I think I purchased this for about 15 bucks.
The lock is your run of the mill hardware store lock of the mid 1800's, nothing fancy. The triggers are of the appearence of store bought, but the spring for the front trigger is a brass rod and I am thinking it was a replacement.
I had the barrel rebreeched as the breech plug was broken and the drum hole was pretty badly wallowed out. There was no front sight and believe it or not, months later I was at the Log Cabin shop pawing around a box of "junk" and there was this sight....2 bucks later I had it and it fit like a hand in a glove...it was Karma.....
The hardware are castings from originals that I own. Whenever I go to a gun show and see original butplates or triggergaurds or capboxes or triggers or what ever I try to purchase them if the price is right (some folks think they got stuff thats worth far more than it is). When I would get or find stuff I would then hand it off to two guys in Toledo Ohio and they would cast at the musuem of art.....those days are gone as the one recently passed away. The other guy, David, is more busy than I could ever be and we have our hands full with an upcomming project for Friendship this spring. I think I have somewhere in the neighborhood of about 20 butplates and triggerguards that they have cast over the years.
The patchbox was a total flop. It was my attempt at making a finial pattern by hand that just got ugly. The hinge is made by hand and then I attempted at making a patchbox that would be more of the style of those that would be found along the national road that travels from Washington thru Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indianna and wherever else....It is Rt. 40. I would file a bit here, then there, then some more here and it got to the point where I jusy plain screwed it up and didn't know what to do with it. Attending the CLA show I saw marvelous old guns with all sorts of patchboxes and there were some that were not run of the mill stuff but rather handmade with finials of all sorts of weird shapes and points and whatnot and a lot had pretty coarse engraving and looks very folksy....completely handmade. At that point I decided on putting the pathbox on the gun.
I had finnaly found a way to salvage the finial and it was this weak pointy sorta thing that really was very unimpressive by it shape, but the more I looked at it the more I thought about useing that shape to my advantage....so I came up with a fish and engraved it in. The side plates on the box are shaped after an original box that I own (purchased from a table at the CLA) that were from the Maryland area. I made a pattern from them on paper, cut them out and laid them against the already installed box and modified them untill I had a shape that to me was pleasing and I cut them out and didn't screw them up and installed them.
I saw on the Contemporay blog a gun built by Jesse or Jud Brennan that featured a man in the moon and I thought "Man, I like that!" so I cut one out and slammed it in....I like it, It's simple and direct.
I finished the stock (got that from Dick Miller) to give the immpression of age thru use, but not neglect. At the juncture of where the drum is I nibbled away the stock to give the appearence of the normal affects of age, and errosion of the wood due to heat and percussion flash which is normal for a back action lock. The finish is aqua fortis, scrubbed back, with some honey maple dye, then I used artist oil black paint to darken those areas that would see less handling than the wrist and cheekpiece, nose of the comb...there are a couple of areas where I brushed in some dark brown leather dye for added contrast.
What I wanted to make was a folkart rifle that looked as though it lived and breathed in the past and could stand alongside antiques and fit in. This was a fun project and I piddled around with this for about 3, maybe 4 years trying to figure out which direction I wanted to go in.....and best of all it was fun.
