Building another flintlock

[JW_Halverson]

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

I know who Chuck Edwards is! 

[Eric Krewson]

Time to pin the stock to the barrel so everything will be held firmly in place for lock inletting. On these rifles the barrel supports the stock.

First locate where you want the pins so they won't interfere with the ramrod pipes which are pinned to the stock but not the barrel.



The lugs I will dovetail into the barrel are .052 thick so I need to cut a .052 deep dovetail in the barrel.



I mark .050 on the sides of my barrel flat and take out as much material as I can with a hacksaw.



I square everything up first before I cut in the dovetails.
I make my dovetail about .010 undersized so I can file it larger a little bit at a time for a tight lug fit.



A nice tight fit;



Cleaned up and ready to cut the next one, I will put three underlugs evenly spaced to pin the stock to the barrel.

[Eric Krewson]

Next I inlet a slot for the underlug to fit it into the barrel channel. First I black the lug and press it into the barrel channel to locate the slot.



I cut the slot with chisels, files and even a dremel tool, I want a loose fit.



Done, the barrel bottoms out in the channel again. This lug may go into the ramrod hole, I will push a 3/8" dowel up the ramrod hole to make sure the lug doesn't block the hole and file the bottom of the lug off if it is in the way.

[chamookman]

Really enjoying this Eric - Thanks ! Bob

[Stringman]

Following

[caveman2533]

In the very first picture there are two marks on the barrel one is clearly for the pin. What is the one on the left for, the Pipe location?

[Eric Krewson]

Yep, ramrod pipe.

I won't pin the barrel until I get all the underlugs in place and inletted.

I use .078 music wire for pins and thought I was out of it. I found plenty on ebay but it came in much larger lots than I could ever use. I dug a little deeper into my random dowel, rod and pvc pipe catch-all and found some.

Next I needed a #47 drill bit to drill for my pins, it's diameter is .0785. No such animal in town, I found this out after a lot of calling. Ebay to the rescue, I have three drill bits on the way.

[mullet]

This is cool. Thanks, Eric.

[Eric Krewson]

I got all the underlugs installed today, waiting on my drill bits. I will show you all how I drill through the stock and hit the lugs with pictures when I get my bits. I always use a new bit for any small hole drilling during the building process, even with a drill doctor I don't trust used bits to go in right where I want them to.

For instance; if you drill a pilot hole for your touch hole liner and miss by just a fraction it throws everything out of kilter, barrel, lock and all.

[Pappy]

Cool build along Eric Thanks, and I thought making ax handles was tedious.
 Pappy

[Buffalogobbler]

Eric,
What tools did you use for inletting the barrel? Did you do it all with just a hack saw and file?
Can you show us the underlugs?

Kevin

[JW_Halverson]

The price of a new bit is a heck of a lot cheaper than the time spent fixing the situation I the bit wanders, or wore yet...BREAKS!  (I am putting that trick in my trick bag for future use!)

[JackCrafty]

Wow.  Super detailed work and explanation.  I'll be bookmarking this one for sure!

[Eric Krewson]

I inletted the barrel and drilled the ramrod hole by calling Pecatonica longrifles and telling them I had a blank I needed some work on. I sent the barrel and stock blank, two weeks later they sent me back a precarved stock with the barrel inletted and ramrod hole drilled.

I had planned to do it all on this gun but got hit by a lazy spell and farmed some of the work out.

I have a .50 cal Lancaster kit waiting in the wings and wanted to finish this one as quickly as possible and get on to the next one.

I was going to pin the barrel next but  a pro made a comment that he didn't pin one until he had the tang bolt in place which makes sense.

So, it will be inlett the lock, install the double set triggers, drill the tang bolt hole through to the trigger plate, install the tang bolt then pin the barrel.

I marked the touchole location this afternoon so I can aim the lock's pan at it and get it "just right".

[nclonghunter]

Hey Eric, moving along pretty good. I missed the tang install. I noticed you did a great job resulting in a tight fit. When that gun fires over and over you want the barrel recoil hitting squarely on the back end of the barrel against the stock. The breech plug should be hitting the backstop. After many shots the wood can allow the barrel to move slightly further back than where you finish it. That transfers the recoil from the breech plug stop to the tip of the tang. Many old guns are cracked in the wrist because it was real tight. Everything settles in after shooting some. The remedy is to cut just a small gap at the end of the tang for movement. Fill the gap with burnt wax when finishing the stock. This occurs more on big caliber guns with big recoil, but just to be safe give it a little wiggle room.