1770's English Officer's Fusil Build

[Mgray]

Hello Folks,

I know many of you have been looking forward to updates about my work in the shop and I am now home on winter break and in between semesters! I have spent a lot of time working in the shop during my break and I have gotten a lot of work done in the process. I am currently working on two projects: a 1756 Long Land Pattern King's Musket and a 1770s English Officer's Fusil which is the focus of this thread. As Dave's (smartdog) apprentice I will be following in his footsteps and this thread will be about the building process of this fusil.

I am a history major so of course this thread will come with a history lesson. I apologize for those who wish to just see my work and where I'm at but you are all going to have to deal with and read through it.

Now an English Officer's fusil was a longarm privately purchased by a British officer. It was not something that was government issued such as the King's muskets were. They first became popular in F&I in warfare in the colonies for officers to protect themselves in the wooded terrain by carrying a longarm. They might also use it to hunt for themselves and the company. Sometimes regimental colonels would purchase a batch of them for the officers in the regiment via a private contractor. The alternative was the officer would independently go out and find a private maker and commission a fusil from them. There were makers who were popular with officers because their prices were modest which was reflected in the quality of the work. A few of these makers include Jover, Wilson and Richards. These makers made many officers fusils and an officer might have commissioned them or they might have bought examples off the rack. The fusil that an officer owned might not have always been carried by that officer. For example while in the West Indies or while serving in Europe the officer might not have carried the fusil despite having carried it in service in North America.
It was not universally excepted for officers to carry a longarm. For example, George Augustus and his younger brother, William Howe promoted officers carrying longarms. In contrast, Lord Cornwallis and Sir Henry Clinton did not promote or believe in officers carrying longarms. They believed it was an Officer's duty to lead the men and not be shooting. 
 
What constitutes an officers fusil is somewhat ambiguous. That is partly because there was no standard issued pattern. It ran the gamut from a civilian Fowler or sporting gun cut back for a bayonet and mounted with sling swivels to a much more robust gun such as a scaled down version of the King's Musket. The universal feature would have likely been mounting for a full size bayonet, sling swivels and a bore corresponding to a full size musket (.75 caliber) or a smaller carbine bore (.66 caliber). There are surviving examples of officer's fusils that were rifled. Often there is misidentifying of guns as officers fusils that are likely sporting guns brought by an officer. There is also mislabeling that happens when a piece is found with martial motif engraving and the assumption is made it was an officers fusil. 

This fusil I am building is an example of a finely made Officer's Fusil. It would not have been a cheap purchase and would have been purchased by an officer with means. The lock is a Griffin lock I am building with parts cast from Kevin Blackley. It will be stocked in English walnut and mounted in brass with civilian (hunting) motif engraving. The barrel will be of spanish form (octagon to round, 2/5 octagon, 3/5 round), 39" and rifled.

I hope you will all enjoy following along with this project as much as I enjoy working on it. I will shortly get to updates on the work I am doing so those of you who wish to not suffer through a history lesson can skip to the pictures.

Happy New Year!
-Maria

[Dave Marsh]

Looking forward to it.  Might even look at the pictures.   

[smylee grouch]

Hello and thanks for the history lesson. I knew some of those facts but didn't know many others so it is interesting for me. I will be following this build for sure and thank you for your documentation efforts. Happy new year.

[flatsguide]

Looking forward to the build and the history lessons.
Cheers Richard

[mountainman]

Happy New Years to you! I will be looking forward to this thread as well!

[John Proud]

Looking forward to your project posts.

[TDM]

Looking forward to photos. Best of luck.

[Daryl]

Enterprising young lady. Well done - great report and history lesson. Thanks.
A VERY Happy New Year to you, too.

[smallpatch]

Welcome Maria,
You are truly blessed, David is one of the best!

[Bob Roller]

Maria,
YOUR interest in this type of hobby and willingness to learn how to use tools and use them well is more than a common "Good thing".
I had no one to show me much of anything but an old WW1 veteran,George Killen showed me how to make springs and years later I was able to give him high quality steel to make them from.YOU have a teacher of uncommon capability and YOU have the uncommon interest in learning skills long ago made obsolete by the industrial revolution.Like Dave,I also have a too pretty to be real young woman I have helped with her teaching WW2 as a history teacher in NC.Her interest has made us friends now since July 8 of 2018.She now owns my collection of books pertaining to that sorry era from 1933-1945.Her name is Amanda K.
Bob Roller (Former lock and trigger maker).
 

[Daryl]

A very nice post Bob. I concur wholeheartedly.

[Bob Gerard]

Looking forward to this build!

[2 shots]

 please dont keep us waiting too long. and a very happy new year.

[smart dog]

Hi,
This thread will unfold slowly.  Maria will post building the lock but then she is back to school until spring.  She will update it as she can.

dave

[bob in the woods]

Wonderful !   The only question I have, is the documentation re the caliber /bore size of the common Officer's long arm. My research has me draw the conclusion that a bore of .62 to .69 was often used .

[Mgray]

Hi Folks,

I'm back, alive, and crazy busy in the shop! I have finally gotten back to this project. I finished building the lock back in December, had to take a break while I finished the school year and am now cranking the gun out full time in the shop. I'll frequently be updating on this build as I'm a few weeks out from it being finished.
The lock is a Griffin Fowler lock built from parts cast by Kevin Blackley.

The first thing I did was remove about a 1/4" from the front of the lockplate as it was crazy long, most likely because the original had an ornate and long sideplate. I then drilled for the tumbler, fit that, continued on to the bridle, then the sear, sear spring, mainspring, battery, and finally the featherspring. The secret to building this lock was to drill holes undersized and then if need be, file the hole more centered before drilling the correct size. This enabled me to make sure every hole was dead on. It was a fun build and is a lovely lock.














More to come soon!

-Maria

[Bob Gerard]

That’s a really cool looking lock. I’m confident it will turn out as nice as can be with your quickly developing skills and excellent teacher. Thanks for continuing the thread build and enjoy your summer!

[Jim Kibler]

What a beautiful lock!  Nice work.

[Tony N]

Very nice workmanship!  Great job!

Tony

[bpd303]

All I can say is wow and looking forward to more updates on your build.

[Mgray]

Hello Folks,

There is lots going on in the shop and we're teeming with business! Dave and I have a work list a mile long and we're cramming a lot into this summer. We're facing an awful wave of high heat and humidity this coming week that'll make us both grumpy and miserable. Thankfully we have AC in the shop so work shouldn't be too bad.

Now to the updates on the work on this fusil!

Back in March I got the barrel for this gun. It was 39" long, 1 1/4" at the breech and 13/16" at the muzzle to fit a bayonet. Quite simply, it was bloody heavy. The wedding band transition was too far back towards the breech so I took one look at it, picked it up, almost dropped it, flopped it in a vise, picked up a mill lathe file and got to work.



Using the lathe file I extended the octagon section about 4", completely wiping out the wedding band.






I started with a barrel that had a straight taper but needed to modify it to a barrel that had the majority of the taper in the octagonal portion and just a very slight taper from the transition to the muzzle. So, after extending the octagonal section as far as it needed to go I got to work pairing down the round portion of the barrel. Here Dave helped me by doing some top secret "twiddling" on the barrel which really sped things up. Once both areas were completed to the dimensions I wanted them to be and the taper changed, I started working on the transition from octagonal to round. I really did not feel like cutting in a wedding band so I did a simple transition of octagon to hexadecagon to round. At this point I had taken over a pound of metal off of this barrel.



I completed the transition and then sanded it a bit. The sanding ended up changing the transition and rounding it over a bit more than I would have liked but that will be fixed at a later date. I'll simply sharpen up the edges with a file and go over it with finer sandpaper. For now, I left it as is and inlet it.



After inletting the barrel I Acra glassed the barrel channel as that can make it up to 10 times stronger. I then shaped the hook tang and breech using a little half round file.







Once that was completely fit, I filed the face of the standing breech to fit the breech of the barrel, cleaned it up, soldered it and inlet it.





I'll leave this at this point for now so people are not mindlessly reading miles of my ramblings and photos and I will continue this update later.


I hope you all enjoyed. Stay safe and stay cool folks!

--Maria

[taterbug]

Wow!  Going at a brand-new barrel like that, it's pretty impressive.  And proof that you've had some very good instruction and taken it to heart. 

looking forward to all your updates.  Even with all those words

I can still read purty guud

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Maria:  I see in this image that the cock is down in the rest position, yet it is not bearing against the lock plate...yet.  And the mainspring is still some distance up the ramp of the tumbler's toe.  Is the sear resting in a notch in the tumbler preventing the cock from finishing its stroke?

[Dave B]

I am impressed with your work. Getting the look right is a big deal to my thinking.  The thing that stands out is the use of the coveted top secret twiddling to maximize the speed to make a less than ideal situation into an intentional change of profile that is far better than its starting point. Well done!

[smart dog]

Hi Dave,
"Twiddling" is a very special term I learned from Kit Ravenshear.  It usually involves a belt sander.
 

dave