cobbling a cheap musket

[thecapgunkid]

Fully aware that you get what you pay for, I bought a low priced Bess ..."Ranger"...musket on which I want to correct my build mistakes and practice, practice, practice.

It's one of those Indian Jobs that I view as expendable, but I will get in a lot of learning by lock work, re-finishing and whatever else  I need to improve or want to learn about,  knowing that the inletting may not be all that good.

Since these arrive with an unproofed barrel, if I decide to replace it where can I go to get my hands on a .75 BBL or another Barrel that will fit?

I know there are guys out there who will proof it safely, and I don't have any time constraints.

Thanks

By the By, a "Cobbler" is a repairman whose title made it through the industrial revolution.  Cobbling this beast is an example.

A ..."Cordwainer"... was the term for a guild member who made shoes, thus being the higher craftsman.  I like making shoes, but am fully aware that there is a reason shoemakers make shoes and riflemakers make rifles. I just wanna get a little better at the latter.

[Hungry Horse]

IMO, you bought a fence post posing as a musket. There is little or nothing worth wasting your time on with these guns.

  Hungry Horse

[Hudnut]

Probably the only way to get a quality barrel that would fit would be to have one made or contoured.  Wouldn't make sense to spend the money on a good barrel when the rest of the parts are of lesser quality.

[thecapgunkid]

Thanks, Horse and Hud, but you guys are preaching to the choir.  The fence post is just a platform to play with areas my skills are weak.  The question isn't whether I would go to get a new barrel, but rather where.  I am more likely to put the money toward the Chambers crew than buy parts, but I was able to track down anything I'd need in theory except the barrel.

[Mike Brooks]

Any barrel will do for a cobble job. Get a colerain fowling barrel, what ever is available. I assume you're going to be making a whole new stock, you aren't going to learn anything fiddling around with that poor quality bongo wood thing. If you're not going to restock it what's the point? The wood is so soft on  those indian guns you can just squeeze the parts onto them, if you actually try to inlet parts in that wood it just mashes away....I've tried, I know.
 Actually, if you could get rid of this thing you would be better off. Get a set of parts and build a NW gun, or parts for  a plain gun of some kind and stock it up in a solid piece of wood. You'll learn far more.

The only thing you'll be practice , practice, practicing  by fooling with this thing is wasting you're time and money.

[redheart]

Track of the Wolf carries all of the Colerain smoothbore barrels.

[thecapgunkid]

Was hoping Mike would jump in.

Anyhoo, today the gun arrived and it is about what I expected, you guys have commented on repeatedly, and, believe it or not, what I want to monkey around with.

OH!...Goodness Gracious!!...Did I mention, Girlfriends,  that Dixons is about 30 minutes east of me?

Of course Mike has a good point ( once again...I look for stuff with his name on it)  but that is not the goal.  I want to make this cowpie into something respectable.  Oddly enough, the wood on the stock is not all that bad.  Not great, but not all that bad.

You oughta see the ramrod, though...

My wife watches all those HGTV shows where they buy a @#$%/!! hole of a house, renovate it and turn it into somebody's dream palace.  I'm thinking that one of the many times I fell asleep it penetrated my brain...slap my face and call me liberal, but being retired gives you plenty of time to prove stuff....

Thanks for the comments, but I hope nobody else wastes a lot of time on this sort of topic.

C'Ya

[WadePatton]

Any barrel will do for a cobble job. Get a colerain fowling barrel, what ever is available. I assume you're going to be making a whole new stock, you aren't going to learn anything fiddling around with that poor quality bongo wood thing. If you're not going to restock it what's the point? The wood is so soft on  those indian guns you can just squeeze the parts onto them, if you actually try to inlet parts in that wood it just mashes away....I've tried, I know.
 Actually, if you could get rid of this thing you would be better off. Get a set of parts and build a NW gun, or parts for  a plain gun of some kind and stock it up in a solid piece of wood. You'll learn far more.

The only thing you'll be practice , practice, practicing  by fooling with this thing is wasting you're time and money.

Engrave that on a plate and post it on yer forehead!

truth hurts

but it also sets one free!

Plain wood ain't expensive (plank).  Straight bbls without rifling ain't expensive.  A used, higher-quality lock and triggerset from anywhere you can scrounge it won't cost too awful much, depending somewhat upon your trading skills.  

Cobble up what I'm talkin' about.  Learning will be there.  And you might make a real shooter out of it.  

...  I want to make this cowpie into something respectable...

C'Ya

Respectable?  Yes, maybe- right after you replace the hardware, trigger, lock, bbl, wood, and ramrod.

 

have fun.  It's your time, spend it as you wish.  
 

[44-henry]

If you are that close to Dixon's you can get a good deal on parts. I have seen a lot of parts there that are brought in on consignment and he always has a nice selection of wood and other parts to pick from. I was just there last Saturday and he had a lot more good deals than I had money to spend. A lot of what I saw there was cheaper than ordering from a supply house and its always an interesting place to visit.

[Mike Brooks]

I wouldn't put to much value on my opinion on this, if this is something you want to do go for it. I've already been down that road.

[Acer Saccharum]

Guys, please don't put too much value in Mike's opinion.

[Mike Brooks]

Guys, please don't put too much value in Mike's opinion.

You're enjoying that statement  WAY too much.......

[WadePatton]

Guys, please don't put too much value in Mike's opinion.

You're enjoying that statement  WAY too much.......

well, that one sent me rollin'!   


(and yeah, don't let us talk you outs of it) 

[thecapgunkid]

You guys are still here?

Well, the thing arrived and I promptly stripped the stock and took everything apart.    The barrel is going to Dixons this morning to see if it is worth anything.   The stock is as soft as Mike said earlier and the inletting was force fed.  Lots of cleanup here, but not a lot of gaps in the wood to metal.  The side plate looked like it had red clay shoved in as filler, but the gap went away when I sanded the face down. The plate had simply been set too deep.

So I dug up my copy of Redcoat and Brown Bess and jumped back into the supporting bibliography.  Sure enough, I re-discovered that most of the muskets issued to Americans during the wars in '45 and '55 were assembled pieces put together by the lowest bidder.  Lots of complaints in the journals, reports and diaries of the day.  I betcha this thing would have fit right in.  I just hope it was not made in some sweatshop by somebody's mommy.

Howsome ever, this pig is going to fly. 

[SingleMalt]

That's exactly what Washington's army did.  They scavenged the battlefields, picked everything they could find and gunsmiths turned them into muskets for the troops.   One I especially like is stocked in ash, with Hessian musket parts (#7).  You could probably take it to any degree you wanted to.

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

[Mike Brooks]

If you're looking for a challenge restock it. You'll learn more that way than learning how to fix an Indian hacker's work.

[54ball]

My advice...clean it up and tune if you can. Enjoy it for what it is even if you just hang it on the wall.
 Life is too short and parts are too expensive for otherwise in my opinion. But Hey, It's your time and your dime.

[Daryl]

I had one for a short period of time - East India Pattern - it's 1.0" barrel breech was interesting, as were the 3 breech plug threads that engaged. Actually most of my  interest (bemusement) was all about the .002" to 024" actual engagement of those 3 threads in the barrel's threads.  Also, the across the frizzen (sideways- ridged) 1/10" deep grooving was also interesting. Once I ground the grooves, it actually sparked well.
Nice - LOL

It was quite nice of the retailer to return my money.

[Hungry Horse]

Daryl is right on this one, not only is the workmanship on these gun questionable, the material is sketchy at best, and the best parts on them are borderline dangerous junk. You don't have a starting point for a project. There is little point in trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. I have given the same advice to numerous other beginning builders. You just can't upgrade inherently inferior parts.

  Hungry Horse

[Bob Roller]

I had one for a short period of time - East India Pattern - it's 1.0" barrel breech was interesting, as were the 3 breech plug threads that engaged. Actually most of my  interest (bemusement) was all about the .002" to 024" actual engagement of those 3 threads in the barrel's threads.  Also, the across the frizzen (sideways- ridged) 1/10" deep grooving was also interesting. Once I ground the grooves, it actually sparked well.
Nice - LOL

It was quite nice of the retailer to return my money.

Maybe a number of these can be bought and made into lamps of some kind.
That breech plug is absolutely frightening.

Bob Roller

[Daryl]

Not to scare anyone off these nice guns, but the threads were larger than 7/8" - in the 1" bl. Now that I actually thought about it, the barrel might have been 1.1" at the very breech face-plate - tapering quickly, to 1" at the vent where the end of the breech plug overlapped by 3/16"and had to be ground out (V'd) "some" so fire could get to the powder charge. After dismantling, measuring and reassembling, I sent it back.  Not cheap at $800.00, but very cheaply made.
The barrels seem to have been tapered by hand on a belt sander and not being quite perfectly concentric, have the internal hole (bore) wandering from side to side & yes - they are made from tubing of some sort.
I cut 4" from the perfectly concentric muzzle as the 'bl' length and forend shape wasn't quite right (I thought)and the barrel wall was incredibly thin on one side at the new muzzle - a rather abrupt wandering, I'd say. It was kinda scary.

Git some!

[bob in the woods]

Mine was pretty much the same as Daryl's.  The beaching was more of a concern than the barrel material { tubing ].   I tried to obtain a replacement part for the lock, but was told these were not available. [ all individually fitted ].   I know that there are a lot of these guns out there, apparently functioning without mishap, but I can't recommend them.  Here in Canada, they are not inexpensive either .

[hammer]

Interesting that there was blow-by in the breech plug on that example.   I had understood that those shipped from India as working, shootable firearms were pre-proofed to recognised international standards.   Could these questionable ones have been originally exported as decoration pieces, i.e. with no Indian proof marks and not certified as safe to shoot?
Of course, even if pre-proofed and professed to be safe to shoot it doesn't mean the general build quality is any better.

[Mike Brooks]

Interesting that there was blow-by in the breech plug on that example.   I had understood that those shipped from India as working, shootable firearms were pre-proofed to recognised international standards.   Could these questionable ones have been originally exported as decoration pieces, i.e. with no Indian proof marks and not certified as safe to shoot?
Of course, even if pre-proofed and professed to be safe to shoot it doesn't mean the general build quality is any better.

These aren't proofed in India and aren't intended for shooting. They come to the North American Continent with out touch holes so they are supposedly unfirable.
 India DOES make guns that are proofed and are safe to shoot and have loads of proof marks stamped all over the barrel. They are generally much higher in quality than these "guns" of cartoonish caricatures of what they are supposed to represent. 

[Daryl]

Mike is right.  They are shipped complete with all the original-styled British Proofs, no new ones. They are advertised as 'shootable' here, all one has to do is to drill the vent hole where it is indicated with a punch mark or drill mark. They are also or were advertised as being of higher quality than Pedersoli Bess and French-styled Muskets.