Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Muzzleloader Project in SE Az.

Talk about rode hard, put away wet,....this old .50 cal., percussion sparked 25Lb. "Chunk Gun" BTDT.

As luck would have it the bore was well greased / oiled prior to it going' wherever the hell it was prior to going into intensive care here. I've had the breech cap off and the rifling is very strong, and good to go for some patched round ball shooting. Its' VERY slow twist would indicate that was it's original intent......

As is the case with a lot of orphaned vintage ML Target guns, ...this one was missing it's "Kit". One can only begin to guess where the original false muzzle and ball starter for its' 1.700" dia barrel ended up,....

Oh well,in a case like this, some reverse engineering goes into play,....

Co-axing the raw Falsey got interesting for a while,...
...the bore was left undersized, Piloted, and than the pins CAST in skew with an appropriate retaining system.

Marine Bronze chips rain, as the ball starter's roughed out.

....than line reamed

Close to complete,....reducing the ball starter's cupped nose will require some actual loading and shooting

Sprue up ?
Sprue down ?

Dunno,...so I cut a dual radius in the ball seaters nose cup,...leaving clearance if it's sprue up.

Fun!

Nice work.

This barrel sports a .545 groove depth, and a somewhat
" choked " .521" bore,....

The false muzzle is tapered to allow a ball and patch to "thumb" in, above a straight cylindrical section, which currently sits right at around .542"...
this may get opened up, but very slightly, if any.

Figuring that a .510 dia. Round ball, and a .010" patch will require that the final dia of the nose cup be reduced a bit,...things were purposedly left tight, so's to verify that the co-axial alignment was Skookum, and it is.

Fun dittos.

GTC



GTC

Memories! Had an old Royland Southgate rifle with a false muzzle. About 38 caliber. Thanks for posting Cross!!!

Nice work! Well played, sir!

Cross

A nice work in progress there man! I've read...think it was in Ned H. Roberts book on The Caplock Rifle that in building the rifles used for 40 rod shooting that the bar stock was ordered extra long for building a false muzzle shooter and a section for the false muzzle was cut off prior to boring/reaming/rifling. The muzzle of the barrel was then drilled for the FM holding pins then the FM was joined to the barrel and then the normal drilling/reaming/rifling was done.

Am I right on this??

Always wanted one of the Dudes!!

My understanding is that the barrel blank was bored ( e.g. "deep hole drilled or gun drilled") Reamed,...and THAN muzzle end drilled for the pins. The muzzle end was cut, bisecting the pin holes, and both pieces squared up,...The Barrel and the muzzle end piece that were was to become the false muzzle were than fitted together on tight pins, and secured with a clamp. The barrel was than rifled in the conventional manner of the day, its "False muzzle" right along with it.

The BIG slug guns are still awe inspiring in terms of accuracy coupled with , indeed ACHIEVED with BIG bore sizes, HEAVY bullets, and MASSIVE powder charges.

I've been noodling around with various methods and stunts that one might implement if he just absolutely HAD To come up with symetrical and conforming rifling in reverse engineering mode,....It's doable, and I think I'm close to having it figured. Not going to talk about it until I've actually pulled it off, though.

GTC

Somewhere, someone is going to smile when the postman comes a'wheezin' to the front door with a delivery.

Nice work there!

Very cool. Very cool indeed!

The initial patch lube / treatment will be a mixture of beeswax, rabbit kidney fat, and SIMICHROME polish. I'll be keeping my eye on the crown,and certainly measuring it, as dialing the new (as yet to be built) sights in. Cannot anticipate anything much happening, ....bore condition wise, than the gradual disappearance of a fairly uniform brown internal "patina".

Can't feature this one being ANYTHING but a shooting fool.

GTC

Love this post and admire your talent.
I always wanted a lathe and mill, and wanted MORE the knowledge to use them.

This is a simple tapered smooth bored ball starter,...no rifling.

In MY machining world, it's axiomatic that NOTHING GOES BACK TO THE SAME PLACE TWICE,....EVER. In other words it is technically IMPOSSIBLE to perfectly replicate a missing rifled false muzzle.

I know that today's high end machining processes get VERY close to that ideal situation, golly, they're now talking ANGSTROMS, for tolerances. I'll also BET that a really well equipped , modern state of the art machining facility could take an old original barrel, and with their command of lazer / digital metrology, generate a clone thereof that would be damn near dead nuts in conformance to the original barrel's dimensions in all respects.

The ideal dimensional relationship between a RIFLED slug barrel and it's false muzzle is the objective.

OK,....so how the heck does one pull this off in a 19th into 20th century tooled shop ? Patent date on your lathe falls into the late 1880s ( as does mine)

Let's hear it,boys, I'm all ears.

GTC

Well, you can high tech the chitt out of some things, but I prefer paths less common....



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