Gunsmithing

 

This is the lock on my Tradegun. Take a look at where the flash hole into the barrel is. See how far forward it is in relation to the pan? The gun doesn't fire well, it'll go off sometimes but really just when it feels like it.

Previously sometimes it wouldn't even flash but I polished the frizzen which had a big gouge in it and also polished the pan. I'm kind of proud about how the pan came out, its really smooth. That made a big difference in getting the priming powder to go off but didn't really help the gun to fire.

So I decided the barrel needed to be better aligned with the bottom of the pan. This is kind of a big ask, either the barrel needed to move back or the lock needed to move forward. I decided it would be easier to move the barrel back, the inletting is less complicated and it won't leave as obvious gaps.

I don't have any pictures of the work in progress but I used my Proxxon rotary tool with a variety of milling bits to take out wood a little bit at a time. A lot of what I took out actually appears to be epoxy. It looks like the original builder of this gun might have moved the barrel forward, for what purpose I have no idea...

Here's where we're at. Notice how the touch hole is much more centered. I ended up taking out way too much material from behind the barrel but I've got barrel bedding epoxy I can use to fill in the gaps. I did that when I fitted the new stock onto my .300 Savage and that's held up perfectly. I kind of want to shoot the gun before I do the reinforcement but I don't want the recoil to break the stock. I might go fire a couple shots with just a powder charge and a wad to hold it in. If it'll go off reliably I'll know that my changes did the trick.

New Gun day!

 A guy from the rod and gun club I shoot at died and his collection recently went to auction. I'd never been to a gun auction before and because of COVID this one was 100% online so I figured I'd watch.

Item #850 was listed as a "Fusil de Chasse" or "Gun of the Hunt". Flintlock, 20ga, whats not to love? I tossed a bid on it and waited. The auction started at 9am, the gun came up around 6pm, the auction ended around 7pm. One auctioneer with strong vocal cords and a bladder made of stone...

Along the way I tossed bids at a couple other things, a few Browning Auto 5s including a rare 20ga. A couple Berreta semi-auto shotguns including one in 10ga. I didn't bid on a Remington pump rifle in .35 Remington and immediately regretted it when the gun went cheap.

Then I got caught up and accidentally bought a Smith and Wesson semi-auto shotgun. Oops, auction excitement can get anybody. That one, being a modern gun, has to go through the FFL process so I'm still waiting on it. The flintlock arrived the other day.

I don't think its actually a Fusil de Chasse, the stock on those generally has a huge drop to heel, and only one barrel ring. This has a squared off stock and two barrel rings.

The Lott lock is normally associated with English Trade guns. Combined with the stock and barrel I'm thinking this is an English Trade gun and in fact looks an awful lot like a Track of the Wolf kit gun.

I don't think its ever been shot, there isn't any soot or discoloration like you'd expect on a gun thats seen black powder.

The barrel almost certainly started its life as a piece of thick wall pipe and was machined down. At the muzzle end they left quite a sharp edge around the outside of the barrel. Its octagon at the breech and transitions to round partway down, the flats all have machining marks. I haven't decided yet if I should polish them out or leave it as is.

So anyway I paid significantly less than the price of a Track of the Wolf kit for a gun already assembled. These Lott locks don't have a great reputation but this one throws a nice shower of sparks with just about any flint I put in it. I'm pretty happy overall. I've ordered some .600 round balls (20ga is .62) and some 20ga wads, it'll be fun finding out what it takes to make it shoot.

More flintlock fun

I'm trapped in California for two weeks but dreaming of last week when I took the old flintlock to the range:

Three shots from 50 yards. Its a little low but I didn't want to raise the sight too fast and start shooting over. The target looks a little ragged because I didn't get it tight against the backer. The holes through the board look perfect. From the bench I could keep my shots into about a 1.5" circle. Standing that opened up to more like 4". For a primitive biathlon you need to hit a 6" target so I'm right about where I need to be. With more practice I should be even better.

The 3/4" x 3/4" flint I bought was too small, it would spark but not the big shower of sparks that is required for regular ignition. The 7/8" x 3/4" flint required trimming to fit the cock on the gun but sparked well. I fired about 20 shots that day and only had a handful of misfires. I did managed to ruin the big flint.
That night I ordered 3 3/4" x 7/8" English flints and 3 3/4" x 7/8" French flints. This is a little like the Ford/Chevy debate with people singing the praises of each. I also ordered one American sawn agate flint. I'm told the sawn flints are either the greatest thing ever or total junk, it'll be interesting to compare them.

I was shooting 60 grains of 3F blackpowder. I had some left over 2F from hunting season with the 16ga, I pulled my powder every couple days to make sure it was staying dry, it was and it shot fine in the .45 but shot lower than the 3F. I'd read that this would happen, apparently the smaller granules in 3F create more pressure, its interesting when information from the internet turns out to be true...

Flintlock!

I don't think I've ever talked about guns on here before other than tangentially when I refer to hunting.
I've been around guns pretty much my whole life. In Maine its super easy to own a gun if you don't have a criminal record. In Massachusetts not so much, its actually not all that hard but I've never bothered to get a gun license since I could always go to Maine.
Well last year I realized 2 important facts:
#1. Because I' m a Mass resident my hunting license here is cheap and if I get an antlerless deer permit (I haven't) I could potentially shoot two deer here.
#2. In Mass if the gun loads from the front its not a firearm and therefore doesn't require a license.

So near the end of last year I bought myself a muzzle loading shotgun. Its been pretty fun, took me awhile to get used to loading but I carried it during turkey season with no problems other than my inability to find any turkeys.

I'll write more about it later. I took it to camp with us for 4th of July and forgot it there so its time to turn my attention to something more rifley:

The barrel is marked "T. Mansfield INC .450 CAL" with no other marks that I can find. Its a flintlock which makes shooting it a little more interesting but it shoots pretty well. Dad and I fired it a bunch right after Thanksgiving but I hadn't brought it home until the end of May.

This week I decided to pull it out and install a new flint:

The one on it is pooched, I could possibly sharpen it and get a few more shots but flints are like $2 each.

I didn't know exactly what to order, the one in the foreground is what came on the rifle, the middle is 3/4"x3/4", the rear one is 3/4"x7/8". In testing the one in the rear is really too big it doesn't fit into the lock hardly at all its so tall. The one in the middle fits the lock well but its really too short. As an experiment I installed it "upside down" which is to say with the beveled edge facing down and it sparked way better than it did the other way. Upside down the leading edge strikes the frizzen much higher which is why it sparks better.

Since I left much of my blackpowder gear at camp I haven't been doing any shooting but now that I know I've got a working flint I'll try to get out to the range.