Building another flintlock

[Eric Krewson]

For those of you considering a kit, here is the reality of what is available.

I hope you understand these "kits" offered by Track of the Wolf, Pecatonica River, Jim Chambers,Muzzleloader Builders Supply, etc are far from a easily built "kit". In fact, they could be more properly called a "box of rough parts kit".
Absolutely nothing will fit.

The only things that come close to being finished parts are the lock and the trigger. Even these parts require locating, drilling and threading the holes for the screws that hold the parts to the stock. The barrel will need to be draw filed smooth before it is browned or blued with the exception of a Rice barrel that is mostly finished.

The barrel is not finished. It is rifled but the sight dovetails are not cut and on many of them the breechplug is not installed. This applies to the trigger guard, butt plate, side plate too. These are just rough, unfinished sand or lost wax castings.

All of the parts will need to be inletted into the wooden stock.  This applies to the barrel, lock, trigger guard, butt plate, side plate and ramrod thimbles.

Speaking of the stock, even it is just a moderately close roughed out blank which will require a LOT of wood removal to be close to the real longrifles. A precarved and inletted stock can be a good thing if all the shaping was done carefully and precisely, which is seldom the case.

Knowledge of metal and wood work is a definite requirement.

Plan on spending a minimum of 120 hours of your time to finish your gun. Actually, for a first build, a number like 180 hours would be closer if you want your gun to be something you can be proud of.

I'm not telling you all of this to discourage you. I just don't want to see anyone go into this with the idea that the gun will be ready for assembly.

Speaking of ready for assembly, Traditions, Lyman and Pedersoli offer kits that are easy to assemble and finish.
These are basically the same guns these companies sell but the parts don't have their finish sanding and finishing done.

These "Big Factory Kits" are indeed, true "kits" with all of the threaded holes located and finished.
They require something like 15-30 hours of your time to finish depending on whether you wish to make modifications like reshaping the stock or installing inlays or wire inlays.


If you want an actual historically accurate rifle or fowler the so called parts kits are the way to go but are pretty involved.

My first two gun builds were not from kits but from a block of wood and a pile of parts, this is called a scratch build.

[Buffalogobbler]

Eric,
My first black powder gun was a Thompson Center 54 cal. Hawken from a kit. It was just as you describe, sanding, finishing, put it together and shoot it.
I have been interested in attempting a more challenging build for quite a while, can you show more of the blackening and fitting of parts and I'm interested in learning about shaping and finishing the metal parts.

Thanks
Kevin

[Stoker]

Eric
   Good advice given on the kits.. I recently acquired a 40cal smoothbore of spanish make.. It is a project gun.. Someone started and did a fast refinish job.. Nothing that can't be fixed with a little time and patience.. I would like to brown the barrel and lock.. Something to do after hunting season and xmas trade are over... Pics will be taken start to finish
Thanks Leroy

[gifford]

Eric - a very welcome posting and your descriptions are spot on.

My buddy and my experience has been that not all the parts will even come in at the same time, stock, barrel and parts box arrived over a period of about several months. Things may have improved from a certain supplier since this occurred some years back.

Your time period for construction is about right, it takes a darn long time to build one. And the cost, well, these muzzleloader kits cost plenty.

Having said all that, muzzleloading is as addictive as bow making and primitive archery.

[Eric Krewson]

I have yet to inlet a barrel or drill a ramrod hole, I send the blank and barrel off to have this work done.

Was going to do it all on the gun I am posting pictures of. I started with a cherry stock blank I cut myself  but cut the profile incorrectly with my bandsaw. I had enough wood to work with but kept hitting bad spots in the wood. In the interest of completing the gun I bought another stock blank and had it precarved.

I wanted to get the squirrel rifle finished so I could get an .50 cal TOW Isaac Hanes parts kit I have waiting in the wings finished by next deer season.

[Eric Krewson]

More work and small goof-up;

My barrel got so tight in the inlet from absorbing moisture in my shop I couldn't pull it out of the stock without risking breaking the stock. I needed to open the barrel channel a little. All barrels except Rice barrels need to be draw filed to remove the milling marks. Before I opened the barrel channel I thought it would be a good idea to draw file the barrel first to see how a slightly smaller barrel would fit in the channel.
I only draw file the flats that will show on a finished gun. The file is chalked to keep it from trapping filings that will scratch the barrel as you file. Draw filing is a two handed job but I needed one hand to hold the camera.



Time to inlet the breech plug tang. It comes straight and needs to be bent to match the curvature of the gun's wrist. Whacking it with a sledge works for me.



A check with my pattern shows a pretty good match after 6 or 8 good whacks.



Blacking the tang on an oil lamp to start inletting it;



Cutting down into the stock to fit the tang. I got sloppy here and didn't know it at first.



 I might as well show the good and the bad. I had a couple of small gaps in my inletting as I went down, I hate gaps so I cut a couple of tiny wedge shaped shims to glue in my gaps. Trimmed, sanded, and stained and they won't show on the finished rifle. I cut the shims wedge shaped so I can insert them in the gap, the actual part glued in the gap is about 1/64" wide or less.

[JW_Halverson]

Some time back, Del the Cat said a Master is not someone that does not make mistakes, but rather they are capable of fixing them as they arise.

[Eric Krewson]

There is one kit that just came out that is for an authentic southern mountain rifle that is historically correct in every way and is an actual assembly kit, not a parts kit.

This is the first time a CNC machine has been used for stock shaping and inletting, the precision is incredible, the parts fit perfectly.

If you look up Jim Keibler longrifles and hunt around on his site you can find the kit, pricy but like they say "you get what you pay for". Jim's level of craftsmanship for the rifles he builds is about as good as it gets as pictures of his work verify.

[lebhuntfish]

Very cool Eric! Thanks for sharing your build with us!

I was wondering if you ever heard of Chuck Edwards? He is a custom black powder rifle builder. He does absolutely amazing work. Plus he just happens to be my cousin.
Patrick

[Eric Krewson]

I don't know Chuck Edwards but have seen him profiled, his work is top notch.

A little on inletting;

 After I got the breech plug lug inletted I moved the barrel and breechplug to the back of the barrel channel and scribed a line in the stock around the tang with an exacto knife, I then followed the scribed line with a chisel cutting the line deeper. I filed a slant around the breech plug and tang so the top is wider than the bottom, this lets you inlet a piece for a very tight fit. You do this to most of the parts on a gun with the exception of the buttplate and nose cap.

I cut out some of the wood where the tang will go up to my line and blacked the tang. I tapped it into the inlet with a rawhide mallet. I removed the barrel and chiseled away only the black marks.

 

I repeated this procedure for 2 hours and almost have the tang completely inletted. I will keep going down until the barrel bottoms out in the barrel channel.


A word of caution; remove most of the wood from the bottom of the inlet, work the sides of the inlet very cautiously with a riffler file, just a little sawdust and don't remove all the black. The sides of an inlet need to be a press fit at first. If you use a chisel you will have a gap before you know it.
 

[Buffalogobbler]

The pics are great Eric, I'm learning a lot.
A few years ago I met a gun maker here in Western New York, Mark Robinson (Roby), he shows up here on PA occasionally
he makes beautiful black powder guns and accessories.

Kevin

[Urufu_Shinjiro]

I used to know a guy in my historical recreation society who was a gunsmith. He made some pretty nice period muskets and pistols. He made most of his own parts since most of what he made was not your standard flintlock, he made a lot of swedish snap locks and even a few wheel locks. He had a hookup with an old military buddy that would get him spent barrels from various miniguns etc, once those things are burnt out they're useless to the military but makes a great smooth bore musket barrel. He made a pair of swedish snap lock muskets for my fencing teacher and his wife for a big anniversary and they are magnificent. The stocks are made from some timbers he managed to get ahold of that were found when they drained an old shipyard in new england somewhere and were thought to be over a hundred years old. He says he burned up a dozen router bits and a router shaping them the wood was that hard and dense.

[Eric Krewson]

I finished inletting the tang and seating the barrel today, a nice tight fit, no gaps. Pinning the stock to the barrel is next.

[Buffalogobbler]

Nice fit Eric,
When you finished the inletting for the tang do you seat it a little lower from the surface of the stock to allow for final sanding or do you fit the the two parts flush and finish sanding both surfaces at once?

Kevin

[Eric Krewson]

When I put the tang screw in it will pull the tang just a little lower for final finishing.