Thanks everyone for your nice comments. I finished up the pistol and took a few pictures for this site on the morning I was leaving town for a week away. So it has not been shot yet, but I anticipate a take driving easy to shoot pistol.
The breech plug was relieved on the left side to help reinforce the stock at the lock bolt. Muzzleloading stocks are notoriously weak there, and are often cracked down through the bolt into the wrist. Not my idea...I have an English rook rifle with that feature, and it made such good sense, I often do this to guns that have a hooked or patent breech, especially if they have an English flavour.
You will recognize John Schippers in the engraving style. Until I bought and read his great book on engraving historic firearms, I was at a loss to come up with designs that filled the ground available, and that were pleasing to my eye. Now I need to do more than one of these a year so that I can improve. I never start with a practice plate...just go straight to the gun and have at it. One thing I learned doing this one...when cutting a line, it is easy to accidentally leave the layout line and diverge. To avoid that, stop cutting, and back up the graver in the cut to see where you are, about every 1/8". That way, you are in better control of where the point is taking you. It worked for me anyway, after I noticed I was in trouble.
When I get back home, I intend to get out to the range and give this thing a go. I left the front sight crazy high, so I could file it down to zero it, after we've found it's optimum load. I spent a lot of time making sure that long tang was dead straight behind the breech so that I didn't have to have the sights kittywonkus on the barrel and tang.
