First Rifles

[California Kid]

I'm impressed with the rifles some of you built way back when.  Mostly because I know you didn't have the resources that us newcomers have now.  Heck!  Al Gore hadn't even invented the internet when some of these rifles were built.   Kudos to you all!

Maybe Global warming is affecting my old Hawken! Wonder if it will still shoot!!!!!!

[Mike Brooks]

Ok, first one I built from a blank. Hand inlet barrel. 44" Getz barrel, L&R Queen Anne lock (pre chambers Virginia) Built somewhere around '83 to '85, probably one of the fist 6 or 8 I did.

[rich pierce]

First blank-built longrifle, 1978.  I'd done some kits and a restock of a halfstock from a blank, but this was the first real project.  42" GRRW, .45 tapered barrel, 15/16 to 13/16", L&R Durs Egg lock (I think it was from a kit but could be mixed up), buttplate and guard bought at Dixon's and I made the rest.  Got the blank from Freddie Harrison.












Took it to show Chuck, too late- already had the spaghetti plastered on carving on there and the gun finished.

[JTR]

Hey Ca kid, I'm stuck out on this ship for another 2 weeks.

Mike Brooks, Nice fowler, and I see you've already engraved my initials on the thumb plate, so feel free to pop it in the mail to me anytime! 

John

[g.pennell]

Early Summer, 1984...a brand new PFC with a 101st Airborne patch on his shoulder walks into Dixie Gunworks with a few hundred dollars of his enlistment bonus still burning a hole in his pocket....Turner Kirkland helps out with that!

Built on my kitchen table, all Dixie parts, pre-carve, Siler lock, and enough errors for a half-dozen rifles...but a pretty good shooter that has taken several deer.  Now resides over my sister's fireplace...

Sorry for the poor pictures, but these are scans of old 35 mm's.

Greg

[Wyoming Mike]

My first build was done about thirty years ago.  I managed to make every mistake in the books.  Used a cheap lock and single trigger without knowing how to put it in properly.  It has a .42" - 13/16" Sharon .36 barrel.  Over the years it has had three locks, the final one being the Cochran that is in it.  The triggers went to a single set to the set of Davis triggers it has now.  About 20 years ago I cleaned up most of the mistakes I did on the stock.  All through all this it has been a good shooter with several aggregates under it's belt and a lot of bunnies in the freezer.

It is the top rifle in the picture.




The other two are rifles I built about four years ago - a lightweight .32 and a fullstock flint Hawken in .58.

[rdillon]

Now I am REALLY embarased!!!!!!!  My gun doesn't even look like one.

No way will I post it here.  I will win the ugly contest for sure.

[LURCHWV@BJS]

Wait till I post mine, it was a kit with an ugly SECRET


                  Rich

[pintail_drake2004]

Heres mine, a .54 cal Early Lancaster from PR. Took me several months and over 300 hours to finish. It was a great learning experience. It wont be my last one for sure...amof I recently started on another one for my brother.

[bdixon]

There was not a rifle posted here that I wouldn't pick up and head for the woods with.

[frogwalking]

My first "build" was using about $19.00 worth of Dixie parts.  Those of you my age will remember his ".410 gauge shotgun kits" using the absolute trash locks.  It was a start.  My current work is still not as nice as most of the posted "first" builds.  

I am proud of the guy with the trouble getting the breechplug and tang inlet properly and who is brave enough to let others know that this is really not easy for most of us anyway.  Thanks.

[Michael]

My first build,lets see------

I think I still have the breech plug, nose piece and part of the triggerguard!!

Michael

[JTR]

Now I am REALLY embarased!!!!!!!  My gun doesn't even look like one.

No way will I post it here.  I will win the ugly contest for sure.

  Your gun sounds Absolutely Perfect for this thread!

John

[rdillon]

Now I am REALLY embarased!!!!!!!  My gun doesn't even look like one.

No way will I post it here.  I will win the ugly contest for sure.

  Your gun sounds Absolutely Perfect for this thread!

John

Perhaps I will take some photos tonight.

Promise not to laugh

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

OK you asked for it.  First muzzle loading gun.  Smooth bored .50 cal left hand flint pistol.  Everything, including the screws and springs made by hand - I was 14 or 15 years old.  I still have it.

[JTR]

14 or 15 years old? Taylor that's amazing!
No wonder you're able to build the beauties you build today!

John

[Roger Fisher]

My first is on the way via the antique site,where it was posted by my young daughter in law...in error.

That rifle does not qualify as an antique; but it should as a barn door prop!

This is for Roger Fisher

Thanks for moving this over to where it belongs....

This rifle was hidden in the attic and has not seen the light of day (or night) for years and more years.  A classic example of how not to build a decent rifle.  Come to think of it my 'work' has not improved much since then  Still struggle.  

I do remember shooting a 47 on the 8 ring black bull offhand at 50 yds at one of our early shoots.  I was happier than a madam after a 'good' Saturday night or maybe a pimp!

[D. Bowman]

Here is my first from a plank of my own cherry wood.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

John...you are too kind.

DB...that one is especially nice.  The quality of first guns coming to light nowadays is quite remarkable.

[Keb]

I built the one gun from a pre-carved stock & parts I bought from Bill Shellhorn in about 1986.
.45 cal Siler lock & davis set triggers, iron parts.



Built this in 1987 from a plank that was cut on my cousin's farm in 1960. It was a nice piece of walnut but a little narrow. Check out those lock mortises... Just a wee bit wide.
I think it was a .50. Don't remember much about who I got the parts from.

[J. Talbert]

Well, I'm still shooting "Number One".  In fact, it's the only flintlock I've ever owned personally, but I don't have any pictures of it, LUCKELY!  It's no great beauty,  but it has served me well for 32 years.
All the others I have built for other people.  I'm still trying to get around to building a NICE gun for myself.

Maybe the next one...

Jeff

[bob243]

Here is my first attempt,  finished July 07.   I had it for about 3 years before it got finished, in that time, I decided that trying to finish it in a corner of my laundry room was a really bad idea, so I made a workshop outside.   

[davec2]

In 1969 I was in high school and had never seen a long rifle except the ones on TV that were only movie props.  However I did get a hold of a Dixie gun works catalog, but couldn't afford any of the rifles in it.  I eventually saved up enough to buy a Dixie brand .45 caliber barrel, a butt plate, and a trigger guard casting.  In a empty lot nearby my home someone had cut down an old walnut tree a few years before.  I asked the owner if I could have some of the wood to build a rifle.  He got a kick out of the idea and said I could have all I wanted.  It took me several weeks to make the lock and the only thing I had to copy was the fuzzy black and white photos (the size of a gnat's rump) in the Dixie catalog and a really lousy Spanish flintlock replica pistol I had seen in a local gun shop.  At any rate, this was the result, one of the ugliest rifles known to man.  However, back in the 1970's, I won a few off hand rifle matches with it (one on the 4th of July at the Pendleton Marine Corps Base) and still shoot it from time to time.  It would be a perfect poster gun to catalog every possible mistake that can be made in building a gun.

[ottawa]

mine was a minute man rifle it was in .36 cal the prevous owner would force ballberings down  the barrle no rifling left bought it for about 120$ a good friend took it and rerifled it to .45 for me and put a new face on the frizzen so i could use it for reenacting revwar the frizzen went soft and would not reharden so he put a 1/16th spring steel face on it wished I wold have asked him to teach me ealeer then I did was like 6months befor i went into the sevice