As Pete mentioned, on a big rifle a small flaw might be overlooked whereas on a small rifle even a small flaw looks big. This is especially so in your architecture.
Having built miniatures tools for 30 years I had reached a point where the challenge was gone and there was no longer the" fire in my belly" to continue with miniature tools I was looking for a new challenge and boy did I find it in building 1/3 scale miniature Kentucky rifles.
The center rifle in the above picture Ron posted was built over 30 years ago when the only tool in the modest shop was a drill press,I used the book The Modern Kentucky Rifle:
by R.H. McCrory. Included in the book was a full size blue print that I scaled down to 1/3 scale.The barrel on this gun was made from mild steel but at the time I had
no way to drill the barrel all the way through . Having added a few new skills and many machines in the workshop I wanted to try and raise the bar on building miniature rifles and also be able to produce components that could be sold as parts or kits for those wanting to build their own miniature rifle. In order to capture the scale detail I took the approach I had used in building miniature tools for 30 years...use a full size original to obtain accurate measurements and details. For my first production run I chose a Jim Chambers early Lancaster kit as the master. The last year was spent building a stock duplicator to copy the pre carved Chambers stock at 1/3 scale, additional tooling was built including a CNC rifling machine, barrel drilling fixtures,a barrel swamping machine, models and molds to cast all the hardware, special miniature carving and stabbing tools for doing micro carving and wire inlay for .004 wire. Also a few hours developing a miniature spring former and hours learning to temper and harden really small springs.
In order to maintain dead accurate scale reproduction of the barrel I had two choices on making the barrel . The first was to use round DOM (drawn over mandrel) 1040 or 1030 aircraft tubing or 12L14square bar stock without a hole. Each solution had different challenges and I ended up choosing the 12L14 solution after solving the problem of drilling a .1875 dole end to end and having the drill come out within .002 at the other end.
Ron, there is a little truth in the statement " you need mini tools to make mini guns" but just remember you can make small parts on a big machine but can't make big parts on a small machine. Sometimes when people are taken with the miniatures I have made over the years I point out my stuff is big if you want to see small or really miniature just remove the back from your wristwatch and look at the parts inside.
I would like to thank all the fine people I have met in the gunbuilding community during the last year for their help and support, and those who took the time to critique my current miniature at the CLA . If I can help in any way in the miniature solutions please give me a a PM or call.
Paul Hamler
