Gun and musket modifications

[tod]

New thread, how to get your gun to go bang and not click (members of Lace Wars and NFOE take note!).

A lot of my muskets have a hardened face brazed or silver soldered onto the frissen face. This has been done by a gunsmith friend of mine and is real plus. My pistol is under going the same mod. at the moment.

The probelm I have is the gunsmith is usually very busy as its not his full time occupation. I've got another welder I know to try and mod. another lock. We are using gauge plate (ground flat stock A01 steel) hardened by heating to cherry red then droppping in oil. This should produce a hardness of about 55 HRC. The face will then be silver soldered onto the frissen.
The frissen has to be ground back very slightly to accomadate the extra thickness of the face. The gauge plate is 1mm thick.
After fitting I'll dress the edge of the frissen to make it nice and tidy.

Should this work as well as my gunsmiths mod. I'll be able to do more and shorten the lead time. At the moment I already have 10 locks waiting to be done.

[al]

My Blunderbuss came with a pedersoli lock when i bought it off Ron years back.
A tool of total joy, it'll put a 10 guage ball straight through a 1 1/2 plank of Oak at 50 yards
with a 2.5 Dram load.
Anyhoo back to the plot. The frizzen on that gun when i got it, would not throw a spark
no matter what you tried with it, the frizzen was just too case hardened and you got flint
slide when it struck causing too quick a motion to effectively make any good spark.
The cure was to replace the frizzen with an India pattern one and that gun has been a
thing of love ever since.
I always think that correct flint knapping makes for a better spark every time too, but these
are the joys of experimentation with black powder shooting, you are never totally sure what
your going to get each time you pull the trigger, makes life fun.
We've tried clay pidgeon shooting with muzzle loaders a few times......absolute laugh, we hit
5 clays out of 200, makes you understand what fun a fouling shoot must have been.
Tod, do you get any flint cracking or sharding with this steel plate idea or is the flint life good .??

[tod]

A certain some one has bought my carbine, have a look at the sparks off that!
I bought it from the Chairman of a gun club who were using it for clay shooting. The idea being that on BH's they'd hold a competition, hit a clay win some champagne.
It was costing them too much in booze hence the sale..........

[minkie]

Bugger.....who bought it, I wanted it! Baaaaaaaa

[minkie]

Ahh "You know who" is ME!

Yep its me burpday today and have acquired a shiney new gun to blast away with.......of course in private in my tent with the rest of the NFOEWNAG members!

Dinda I suggest we meet up with our new toys in some big bushes, huzzah for blasting bushes! ;D I'll send you the co-ordinates...

I shall def not be going Le Click this year...bang..bang..bang..bang..bang...bang...bang...bang...boom!

[tod]

Tell 'em about the sparks girl.

[minkie]

I nearly set fire to my bed linen this morning! ;D

[al]

What was used as a barrel lube to stop barrel fouling whilst rapid volley firing
in rank during 18th century warfare, D'ya think....?

Was it a waxed paper cartridge..?
Was the cartridge always wax dipped to seal the end..?
Would there have been another method / other methods of making sure ones
balls didn't get jammed, so to speak.

[carmichael]

Aha, Al! That explains the expression on your face in the Red Zebra shot.