THIS IS MY RIFLE. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT, BUT THIS ONE IS MINE.
Yeah, I slept with my M-14 at attention after reciting the creed just like Gunny made his recruits do in the movie, and yeah, I learned that there was nothing more dangerous than an angry young man in Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children with a rifle in his hands. I became one. If that second looey had left me alone on the range rather than correcting my sitting position on my last qualifying shot, I would have had a perfect score.
The creed, almost forgotten with age, jumped out and grabbed me on one single afternoon at Dixons this past spring. There, on the floor, next to that big bench by the door, was the first hand made rifle I ever owned, long gone and traded away due to shoulder injury and now traded in by somebody I didn’t know. It had been abused, traded I dunno how many times.
Nate MacKenzie made this rifle for me way back in the early eighties. I asked him for a transitional piece that would make use of my Numrich Arms, .45 caliber straight 15/16ths barrel that I salvaged from a Minuteman with…you guessed it…a broken wrist. That deal was not birthed easily. We were at the Whispering Pines Rendezvous in nineteen eighty something , where they have a trade session at night. The nearby Danvers Boys helped me get both of us sufficiently lubricated by the jug. So, by the time it was over, he had most of my blanket full of shoes, a leather shirt, several Moccasins and hunting bags, all of which I had crafted. I had the rifle to be made later. It was exactly what he promised…a transitional piece as short as a Jaeger with emerging Long Rifle characteristics. A little English, a little German and some Pennsylvania. I had not the vaguest idea that I would one day be living in the region where a gun like this would have come from. Not a rich man’s rifle, lightly carved, basic and sweet.
A craftsman in New England by the name of Ray Palmucci put an exquisite patchbox on it made to look like it was added later in the rifle’s life. For the next two decades it won me some game, all kinds of ribbons, medals and more than a few frozen turkeys. Now, here it was on the floor, battered to the point where Nate’s name was filed off, a gap at the tang and having a broken out-of-production lock that nobody could find parts for.
The gun could not make muster for consignment and I asked Greg Dixon to offer the owner a small amount to get it back. I would probably be in a substantially expensive bind to try to bring it back if I got it, tho. Every two weeks I’d badger Greg…Did the guy come back yet?...Did the guy come back yet?...Did the guy come back yet?
When the guy finally came back he took it home. This was my rifle, but he got to take it home... The lifelong, ingrained USMC button got thoroughly hit and roughed up. If I couldn’t rescue it, I’d make another one like it. Not to be flipped, never yielded…this was now personal.
Before I even started this piece I had to take stock of my deficiencies. Patience. Nothing was gonna be rushed on this build. Patience is my greatest dragon to slay. Better lighting, parts selection, closer to something historical and more distant from a fantasy gun. Better tools and better technique in keeping some of them sharper... It was not so much the build I wanted to post here, but where I went to learn what I needed to make a better rifle. Patience.
Pecatonica. God Bless ‘em. Doug and Jeff had a Pre-Rev stock that had the closest lines to Nate’s Build I could find. Jim Chambers. What a guy. For that matter, what a family. He had the lock, the Round Faced English, that I picked off in Dixons because the Germanic lock would not fit right. Nate used a round faced lock and this one was better than his. Track of The Wolf and Muzzle Loaders Builders Supplies for parts and tools. They oughta make a shrine to them with the rest of these guys. Dixons had the rest, including several files, the buttplate, some thimbles and bone knife handle blanks. I like bone inlays, toe and side plates. I dunno why, I just do.
The CM-1 stock had a couple of deficiencies, but from the get go I resolved that I was not gonna mess this up, so the St. Joseph The Worker’s Statue was moved right above my workbench and a resolution made to do one task a day and then stop. Patience
So, here’s what I did and what I referred to.
Jim Turpin tells you how to inlet the barrel and tang for a close fit. Buy the video. I’m pretty sure there are no other ways to inlet the barrel and tang, so there was no thinking here. I fit the barrel first. Then I tapered the bottom of the tang and sanded the pencil to sharp points for close marking, and especially avoided a heavy hand by taking small cuts and lots of re-fits. That’s what the video said to do.
It worked.
photo upload sites freeno gaps this time
I had taken an ordinary shelf bracket, checked it against my T square for exactness, and shortened the barrel to the thirty one or so inches the original Numrich was by clamping it to the flats and using it as a poor man’s guide for my hack saw. You have to grind away the bulge at the crotch of the bracket to do that. I shoved a patched ball about a half inch below the cut line to protect the bore and sawed away. Nobody taught me that, but I couldn’t afford the jigs inasmuch as I am not ever going to produce guns professionally or in great quantity.
free upload site no registration
image hosting no sign upNow, then… there’s the value of this forum…This forum did teach me to use a round stone to make sure the crown was right.It worked. Muzzle and crown ended up true, and the lighter barrel took on a better balance. So far, so good.
Chris Evrard did a post on using a scraper on brass to help in the finishing process. Never saw that on a video, but when I tried it I found I was using a lighter hand and getting the work done in far less time. Mike Brooks did a post on an English rifle where a single lock bolt went in just under the cockpiece and screwed the lock to the breechplug. I dunno why that tickled me so much, but from now on that’s how I put locks on rifles. It is also the second point I kept in mind…The Mike Brookses, Hungry Horses, Dennis’s, Flehto’s and other heroes on this forum are like a floating library for just about anything. While on the build I try to check it daily.
It worked. No gaps, no mishaps and a tight fitting lock with one bolt where I wanted it. I could double back and trim the mortise area later.
Originally Nate used and early trigger guard that fit close to the stock and had that straight drop in the tail, so I ordered a Lancaster guard from TOW and bent it a little.
how to upload pictureI even made the little screw-jig to cut the forestock moulding as was shown in the video over there in Shop Made Tools that Moleeyes36 posted. Straight lines and fun to work with in about half the time it took to mark and cut the forestock and buttstock moldings the way they were on my original rifle.
Hershel House, Homer Dangler, Jack Brooks and Wallace Gusler have videos on building and carving that are so good you can watch them as entertainment. The carving had to be simple, so I re-drew the patterns several times. Jim Turpin made a point of showing a trim, lean lock mortice area that did not have a lot of wood. Hershel House showed how to make a patchbox, and putting one on there that looked like it was added later became the objective. I didn’t do anything without planning and consideration first. One step at a time. Integrate all the features. The rear thimble is my friend, the rear thimble is my friend…
I am pretty sure Nate used the Aqua Fortis method in staining my rifle, But the Jim Turpin video and the available stain range at Dixons took me away from that. I guess by nothing more than association I think of English guns as in the white, so whatever influence the English in my residential area had was manifested in the lock and sideplate after several visits to the Jacobsburg Museum. When I finished hand rubbing the finish and put all the parts together, this is what I ended up with
(Modern gun edited out by moderator)
Of course, Cordwaining ego being what it is, I had to make a bag rather than buy one.
A long time ago I used to show up at Rendezvous with my five string banjo because there was always a guy with a guitar and maybe another with a fiddle and you can get together for a while at night. At one point, as some lady in a yellow dress was complimenting me the next morning after the camp jam session, I realized that, no matter how much I practiced, no matter how much I learned and no matter how good my banjo was there would always be this huge gap between me and Earl Scruggs.
The same holds true with this rifle. No matter how much time, technique and materials, the pros were up there somewhere and I would forever remain down here. I’d never get along with inletting the butt plate. This one was made worse by the wood irregularitythat made it stain a little unevenly, so there’d be this dark stain patch under the fix…
So I decided not to correct this glaring stain problem under the buttplate on the cheekpiece side…yet. Rather, I gave the rifle it’s name….PATCH. Maybe I’ll double back on this later, when I learn something else.
I MUST MASTER MY RIFLE AS I MUST MASTER MY LIFE.
It grouped just fine. It even minimized the staining problem in my mind’s eye. Besides, this one would never be sold or traded away while I was alive…
image upload free direct linkI’m not into metaphysics, Karma or anything like that, but it’d be pretty hard to convince me that, if I could not rescue my old rifle, I could capture it’s spirit in this one. You could fall asleep on the cheekpiece that Nate MacKenzie crafted in my old gun, and it proved easy to do that on this new one. The pull was right, the balance pleasing and the sight line easy to work with. It’s a shooter’s gun…not a museum piece.
My task came to a gratifying end.
THIS IS MY RIFLE. THERE ARE MANY LIKE IT, BUT THIS ONE IS MINE.
Don’t shoot yore eye out, kid
The Capgun Kid
