Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders so it begins....

But where does the story go?

a 54 cal on a 42" colerain barrel, 15/16 straight octagon.

Thinking a stock style similar to a Lyman Great Plains, but I haven't made my mind up yet. We got a fair amount of black walnut lying around.


Getting stuff together for a fast twist 45 as well.

Of course, the only thing worse than waiting a week for your barrel, is receiving it and realizing they sent you the wrong caliber.

dammit.

Nice!

What's the "wrong" caliber?

50.

I would have seriously contemplated keeping anything other than a 50 and considering it providence.

The beauty of simplicity .... Love it!!!

.50 ain't bad. Actually works well on helicopters as I recall. 16" twist will work on 800 grains of lead...if you got the courage.

Ever since the tragic electric fence incident, and the boys were replaced with brass, I'd say I got the moxy, but the 50 is a slow twist.

Nothing against the 50, but I have a bunch of 54 moulds at the shed. Be a shame not to put them to use.

My 54 should be waiting at home, now.

The black walnut has been planed, and I have dug through my box of goodies to recover my 90* router bit. Should make the octagon channel a little easier.


I know its cheating - but I don't care.

Well, the barrel finally came yesterday. I'm stoked. 42" of 54 caliber rifled glory.

I was wanting to use a lollipop breech/tang, but the wider dimension won't be long enough to be able to get screws into both the action holes. Putting a tang sight on might be a little tricky.

Although I can get the front action screw through the tang to, then hide the back action screw under the narrow part of the lollipop. Decisions, decisions.....

What would be good is if I can find a tang sight setup without holes, so I can drill it and the tang to fit the spacing on the action.

OK, I got some woodwork done today, started with roughing in the barrel channel, pulled out the router, along with a series of bits, and got to it.

Pics were cropped to reduce the size, but so far it looks good. Need to chisel out the breech so its flat and flush, but the overall fit is good.







Width, and height along the barrel will be trimmed later. I like a wide base when using a router, and likely will pull out the dremel with a router attachment and guide to start the action inletting

You're making it look too easy.

I won't get into the ugly details, as there was one mishap to take away the "too easy" status, but suffice it to say, "measure twice, rout once" isn't fool proof.

I violated my own rule and didn't test each cut on a test board. It's essential when your doing finicky work.

What lock are you going with?

looking Good RWE .

I was going to do some rough contouring and start the action inletting this weekend, but my wife mentioned something about making her a matching night stand to mine.

Well, I'll tell you right now that I put my foot down......







on the gas pedal, and went to the store to get the lumber for her nightstand....

Allan Foundary underhammer action.

Nice....

I won a good looking piece of maple once at a shoot. Took it to one of the members who thought he was a decent shade tree gunbuilder.

He had a jig all set up with his router. He dug around and found the proper hex bit. Affixed the wood in the jig,..got everything nice and square and lined up.

Put stop marks in pencil, went thru the motions with the power off,..everything perfect.

This time for real...power goes on...bbbBBBBBrrrRRRRRRRRRRRR,..chips flying, sawdust everywhere..down the barrel channel we go...

Flip power off,...finished......

Only problem was he forgot to tighten up his router depth fence....

I ended up with a rifle/barrel channel that shot uphill....



Got a good laugh outta that...

Ended up making a couple tomahawk handles out of it....

What make of barrel did you end up with and is she swamped ?
I have a Burton made swamped on my J�ger that I'm pretty happy with.

I got a Colerain 42" 56 twist. Straight octagon. I was thinking swamped, but knew I would take forever trying to do the barrel channel.

I got the Colerain 56 twist because it is slower than a 48 so it should handle PRB's a little better, but backing in a greenhill calc, it should toss a Lee improved mini (which needs a 54 twist by the numbers).

Little concerned if the round bottom rifling will take to the mini, but if it doesn't, there's nothing wrong with a PRB.

I started inletting yesterday, and got a decent fit at surface level; need to take it down another 2 tenths to my calculated final position.

The inletting I did by hand - razor knives and chisels. No dremel.

Final position would put the hammer at about 0.6" below the barrel, so I can put in a long nipple, with a set nut, and a flash cap to protect my delicate forearm from flaming debris.

I'm pondering my desire for a fast twist 45, and thinking I may do a 32 or 36 squirrel rifle next, saving the 45 in case I go total darkside and get a BPCR.

A squirrel rifle with a smaller Billinghurst Underhammer and a swamped barrel would be about awesome if I can keep a near full length stock and weight down. I want to keep it sleek.

I may have some purple heart left around here, somewhere.

A purple under hammer. Something vaguely Freudian in that...

i have round bottom rifling on my 54 which i have talked about in the past shooting the Bernard Minnie so well .
i think you will find you like it alot . not only for the way it shoots but also that it takes alot to get the barrel to foul. especially with RB

captchee,

what twist have you got?

what can you tell me about a Bernard Minnie?

. its a 1 in 70 twist
the bernard minnie that i shoot is a 435 grain hollow base .
it has one less grease grove then a regular Minnie

On the left is a 54 cal old style Minie design 445 grain .
On the right is the Bernard which Kinda looks like a Gardner but not a round at the tip or a thick in the skirt
Notice the difference in length .
But when we flip the round over , you really see the difference in the skirts .





here is a link from another forum with a discussion about the bernard and other minnies in slow twist barrels
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=526938

Cool; thanks for the link.

And the upskirt pic .



Did some final inletting and action testing. Fits good, but I had a little over cut on one side. Dampened the wood in that area to see if it will swell any to make up the small gap. It's not bad, probably not bad enough for anyone else but the carver to notice, but such is life.

Serves me right for actually working in the house on the dining room table while my wife is at a meeting....

Ye olde update - without actual build pics for the moment.

I got the lock inletted, and the breech plug/tang fit, indexed, and inletted.

Was going to start some stock shaping, narrowing the foreend and such before doing the ramrod groove and hole, when I got to thinking.

Most percussion and flinters have the area around the lock wider to accommodate the lock and associated symmetry, like in the picture here:--------->

but since this is an underhammer, no such widening is really needed.

Is the widening in that area really all about the lock? Or can I just keep it narrow all the way, and blend it to the wrist?

So far, the plan is this: With a 42" barrel, the foreend comes to within 12" or so of the muzzle. I was going to place a ramrod pipe near the muzzle, then groove the first 16" of the foreend for the ramrod, then drill the last 16 or so inches to where it would abut the nipple and flash cup.

I don't see any reason to really have a pronounced widening under the circumstances.

Thoughts?

You really don�t nee the mortises� RWE. Unless you wanted them for esthetics. Which might be good considering the type of under hammer ignition you went with .
You then could also build a side plate for each mortise and have them engraved would look Dam nice IMO .

As to the RR channel . I would agree . But what I don�t understand is that your running the forestock all the way to 12 inchs from the muzzle on a 42 inch barrel ? So in other words your a 18 inch forearm , then reduce down to a forestock that�s only 10 inches ?
Seems rather odd but maybe im not picturing it right

Myself I think I would make a standard � stock and use 2 RR pipes with an under rib

I photoshopped my thoughts here:



Basically 14-16" Forestock, 14-16" grooved foreend, 12" at the end.

I thought about some light inlays on the side, but didn't think of placing an outright sideplate there. That would make more sense, in case I screw something up, it would be easier to replace, and would only require about another 1/8" on the sides of the action area to accomplish.

intersting idea.

update time.

Been a slow go lately, what with family and power outages stemming from that old hag, Mother Nature, but I managed to get some work in.

Yes it looks rough, but I haven't got the shaves, planes, and sandpaper out yet, so chill. There's a LOT of wood yet to come off.



I routed a 3/8" channel in the foreend area. This will set me up for a 9mm rod. Also facilitates using the 3/8 steel rod I have for either forming a spade bit, or welding a drill bit to, in order to do the rod hole through the forearm.

I had a little side cut misadventure earlier, so I used a flat piece of rectangular channel to act as a router guide (I had to shim it in a few places to to make sure my channel stayed center with the barrel), and from front to back, over 14", I'm off about 1/32" to the side, so all in all, the ramrod should still be well placed by the time I hit the nipple. It looks a little off center at the end, but that's poor photography on my part.



Then I started thinking about a butt, other than my wife's.




I really like the style of the schuetzen's but that lower hook isn't conducive to hunting, nor is my old body got that much curve in it, so.....

A little mapp gas, leverage, dremel, saw, and filing and I got something I kinda like. (It's got a lot of soot and marks on it from being shaped, and from shaping to the stock, but it'll clean up nice.)

Straightened it out a bunch, and upturned the hook some.




The top hook now fits nicely over typical shirt, hoodie, and hunting jacket, and should help support the weight.

I got out the candle, and blackened the inside up and got to fitting to the stock.



It looks like gaps, but that's soot and shadow. Right now, there is very little light left between the two. I'll work on where I want my screws, than shape the bottom tip, both brass and wood together, once its set. Then start working the stock from butt to wrist.

Final length of pull is about 14"

Here's a shot of the current overall, sans barrel and hardware. (Again, not sure why there appears to be a hump in the foreend, but it isn't there in real life - I need photography lessons)



Side note.

After watching the Hunchback of Notre Dame with my daughter, we both thought that a gargoyle cut in brass, would look great at the forearm/foreend junction, with an open mouth for the ramrod to pass through.

My wife is dubious.

I mucked this up and canned it.

Started over.

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