Another Refurbished Brown Bess

[smart dog]

Hi,
I completed refurbishing and upgrading this Pedersoli Brown Bess recently.  I usually do a couple of these a year for re-enactors. The Pedersoli gun is closest to a pattern 1769 Bess except the lock markings are wrong. The butt plate is too short heel to toe, the butt plate return is shaped incorrectly, and the wrist is too long, making the proportions of the butt stock too small relative to the lock area.  There is nothing I can do about those flaws without restocking the gun.  However, there are plenty of other details that can be improved and brought to a higher historically correct standard.  I often have to work over the locks, which may include cutting a new full cock notch in the tumbler to reduce excessive throw in the Pedersoli Bess locks and reduce the risk of the lock catching at half cock when fired.  The earlier production Besses are easier to refurbish, whereas later production seems to be straying more from whatever original prototype Bess Pedersoli used as a model.  I don't fool with Japanese Besses except to salvage the locks and barrels for use on completely new muskets and I don't work on India-made guns.  Just correcting the crude and over-polished metal work on India-made repros would take a long time.  The first photos show several guns posted on the internet, which represent the typical raw material.

Before:


 

After:

[yip]

  smart dog; nice job,well done.........yip

[Bill Raby]

These are great guns. But no shiny metal on mine. The brass tarnished pretty fast. The steel is starting to develop a patina, but I think that it is going to take a while.

[conquerordie]

Looks very nice. Whenever I've redone one of these, I remove the lock mouldings as well. I believe those were left off on Short Land pattern besses as far as I knew.
When I started reenacting 20 some years ago, I borrowed a Japanese bess that was back dated by Kit Ravenshear from my unit commander. She was called Helga, and if you didn't treat Helga right, she wouldn't go BOOM! I carried that musket everywhere for about a year before I saved enough money to get my own musket.  Man those were good times.
Greg

[davec2]

David,

I may have missed these on some of your other posts about refurbishing a Bess, but is the flat side plate correct.  Obviously I am not at all knowledgable about the historical details of a Bess, but all of the photos of originals I can recollect show a side plate that has a convex surface.  I have a Bess I put together from a Pedersoli kit purchased back in the early 1980s.  I put it together in the mid 90s when I knew even less about what it should look like than I do now (and I don't know much now except for your excellent series of posts on the Muzzleloading Forum).  My Bess has a flat side plate that has always bothered me....

Dave C

[smart dog]

Hi,
Thank you all for looking.  Greg, there is a lot of variation within patterns as to how the lock moldings are handled. Some short land pattern muskets had well formed beaver tails and thin but well shaped lock panels.  Others were much more crudely done and sometimes the beaver tails are missing.  The Bess I display is fairly close to the pattern 1769 Tower (not Dublin Castle) produced Brown Bess shown in Goldstein and Mowbray's book on Besses.  Dave, your excellent question deserves a complete answer.  The first short land pattern Bess (with 42" barrel") for infantry was the pattern 1757 Marine and Militia musket.  This was a gun designed to cut costs and be a bit handier.  It used the flat side plate.  At the same time long land pattern muskets (LLP, with 46" barrels) had thick convex side plates.  In the 1760s, British ordnance decided to adopt a shorter musket similar to the Marine musket as the main weapon issued to infantry.  The specifications called for the shorter musket but retained the convex side plate of the the LLPs.  This was to be the 1769 SLP Bess.  DeWitt Bailey thoroughly researched the pattern specifications that can be documented and described the pattern as having the same hardware as the pattern 1756 LLP but with a shorter barrel. Here is where the debate and problem arises with the side plates on these guns.  Bailey relied on the documented specs or warrants for the pattern description, however, there is not a single existing example of the pattern surviving to today that uses the convex side plate.  They all have flat plates like the Pedersoli and the Marine and Militia musket.  Goldstein and Mowbray discuss this debate in detail.  What probably happened, is British ordnance may have had a supply of the cheaper flat side plates on hand from the Marine muskets and more expensive (perhaps scarcer) convex ones were still being installed on LLP muskets, which were still in production.  As a result, they substituted the flat plates for the pattern 1769, which would not compromise function at all and cut costs.  There are some who incorrectly claim that most if not all British muskets issued to troops in North America during the early Rev War were LLP muskets.  Troops embarking for Boston from Ireland in 1774 were issued pattern 1769 SLPs from Dublin Castle and between 1774-1776, many troops in America were issued SLPs, including the famous 71 regiment (Fraser's Highlanders) and 42 regiment (Black Watch).  All of the muskets surviving from those units sent to America at that time were pattern 1769s with flat side plates.

dave           

[JCKelly]

Shudder

[runastav]

Thank you kloke hund I will use this for my Pedersoli BB
Runar

[conquerordie]

Dave,
I agree about the historical variety seen in these muskets. I guess my choice to remove the lock moulding, but keeping the beavertail was besides the historical example, was to help make the musket look less like an Italian or Japanese bess. The best choice would be to see what character the reenactor was portraying, and alter the bess to that character from our knowledge of historical examples (i.e. an Irish Establishment regiment maybe having a Dublin Castle musket, and not a variety that the Queens Rangers were being issued here in the colonies.  Sorry for rambling, your musket still looks great.
Greg

[davec2]

David,

Thanks for the info on the flat side plate.  As I was reading your description about all the combinations and permutations of these weapons in the 18th century, I was again amazed by the logistical capabilities of that century.  For those of us who make these weapons one at a time (and with mostly store bought parts) it is fairly hard to imagine making them by the tens of thousands.  I would hate to have been the poor British gunsmith when an Officer from the Board of Ordinance walked in and said, "Right you are Lad, I am sure you have heard that Little Boney has begun another dust up on the Continent.  The Queen will need you to make another 40,000 long land pattern muskets...and bayonets.....by Tuesday next."

At any rate, thanks again for the info about the flat side plate and for all the information about refurbishing these modern versions of the Brown Bess to look more like the originals.

Dave C

[smart dog]

Hi Dave,
DeWitt Bailey wrote several books that describe the British ordnance system during the 18th and early 19th centuries.  It was a network of small, almost cottage, businesses that made different components on order from the Tower, and then the parts were stored until there was a warrant or demand for new muskets.  When that happened, "setters up" in the Tower and Dublin Castle establishments assembled the components into finished muskets.  They usuall used up older components first and when they were gone, used newer parts. Bailey lists private contractors making components as gun lock makers, gun barrel makers, brass founders, smallwork makers, and rammer/bayonet makers.  Each of those contractors may have subcontracted to more specialized tradesmen such as lock polishers, gun spring makers, blade sharpeners, etc.  The components were delivered to the Tower where gun barrel filers, rough stockers, setters up, and engravers assembled the muskets.  According to Blackmore, a team of rough stockers could turn a walnut blank into a scraped gunstock in 10 hours.

dave   

[anticus]

Beautiful work Smart Dog.  I just acquired a nice Japans Bess and am thinking about restocking it to a historically correct architecture. Outside of full on custom guns, none of the repros have correct stocks, at least to my eye. Is restocking with this goal in mind been done ?

[smart dog]

Hi Anticus,
Here is a link to another forum on which I did a long tutorial on refurbishing Pedersoli Besses:

http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/302948/

I own a Miroku Bess and plan to restock it as a Pattern 1759 Marine musket.  The lock is fine but I have to rebuild it and tune it.  The Japanese parts are very good but they did nothing to fit and polish components.  I believe the lock components are actually better than the Pedersoli.  It is like they took the parts right from the molds and built the lock.  I will grind away the lock markings or fill them with weld and then engrave the proper marks.  Also the buttplate is too short and the trigger guard is wrong.  Essentially, I will salvage the barrel (which is very good), the lock, ramrod, ramrod pipes, trigger and plate, screws, and possibly the side plate.  The rest gets chucked.  It will make a fine and historically accurate Marine musket when done. I suspect someone has restocked a Pedersoli or Miroku Bess and you are right that the stocks are not correct. One key problem with both repros is the butt plates are too short.  They should be at least 1/4"-3/8" longer from heel to toe.  That additional length really makes a difference in the stock profile.  In addition, both have wrists that are too long.

dave

[anticus]

Wow, that is a wonderful tutorial and a great history lesson on the real and retro Besses !  The Pedersoli transformation is impressive. Looking forward to seeing your Miroku upgrade.

[n stephenson]

Dave, Nice work .  My question is . Is there enough of a demand from the reenacting world to make the work worth it ? I`m not trying to be smart , I was  just wondering . It just seems like a lot of work for something that even you stated still wasn't HC when done, wrong buttplate , wrong architecture  etc. . I can understand the reenactor being concerned with having a piece that looks right but, at least 75% of the general public , spectators at reenactments , etc.   don`t even know that the American Revolution took place before the Civil War. They surely wouldn't know a correct weapon if they fell on it , unless maybe on the bayonet .  I just wondered if the amount of work was worth it . Most of the original besses  I have seen , seemed a lot different than the repros .

[smart dog]

Hi NS,
The look of happiness and delight on the faces of the re-enactor owners is all the payment I really need and makes the work worth while.  Also, knowing that they now have a much better example of 18th century workmanship to show the public than they had before is another reward.  I don't charge much and only enough to pay my bills and taxes and I limit myself to no more than 2 a year.  Certainly, NS, at the big battle events many of the spectators don't see the guns up close or spend much time with individual re-enactors.  However, most living history events are not big battles but small encampments where re-enactors often spend hours talking to visitors one on one.  At those events, it is often the firearms that attract the most interest and the typical scenario is the re-enactor is wearing meticulously correct clothing, with historically correct accouterments and furnishings, but has a musket that is none of those things.  By refurbishing Pedersoli Besses I can improve that situation substantially although not completely.

dave     

[n stephenson]

I understand where your coming from. I wasn't trying to be out of sorts , I just wondered  if it was something the reenactors  were willing to pay for. Lord knows the more accurate any portrayl  of history can be the better. As most of the people on this site are history people it is very easy to forget that a HUGE majority of the walking around public are extremely ignorant of true history . They may have learned their favorite talking point for a specific advantage but on the whole , very unimpressive on historical knowledge period. I recently had a conversation with a gentleman that is quite successful in business , he has 2 Master`s  degrees in business. I understand he wasn't a history major but, he all but called me a liar when I mentioned the Spanish  American War . He literally acted like he had never heard of it , he thought it was something coming in the future .  I realize that you can`t paint everyone with the same brush but, if this man was around the "education" system long enough to get a few degrees  and knew no more than this about basic American history then , I really would hate to see what the average joe would know.

[Seth Isaacson]

I helped teach 100 level (freshman/sophomore) American history courses when I was working on my masters. We had to impart as much useful information as possible knowing that most of the students wouldn't ever take another American history course again. Much of our work was focused on getting them to think critically about history rather than memorizing details. So they did things like book reviews and what not. Much of the work they turned in was depressing, but there was always a few great students that kept your hope up.

Keep in mind that most courses only cover one period or range in history. That means that many students would never have taken a course that mentioned the Spanish-American War. I see no reason to think some one with two masters in business would have taken much more than the required non-business coursework along the way, especially given many students' aversion to history classes.

[anticus]

You can avoid history classes but never history itself. As for a historically correct firelock, I wish I had one of smart dogs Besses when I was reenacting. I want one now, for that one young person at the range who asks questions and takes an interest in what it represents. The cost is worth it if a spark is kindled.