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Back in the day 1 turn in the length of the barrel was a common twist for the RB. Since the American rifle often had a "4 foot" barrel this twist was very common. In Europe they made shor barrels Jaegers and English Sporting rifles with one turn in short barrels. By this they produced twists...

The people at the shop are probably trying to save you some grief. In the hunting context if a conical is needed in a ML then a larger round ball is the best answer. Conicals loaded to produce a flat trajectory will generally cause nipple erosion problems, hammers blown to 1/2 or full cock and...

Looks like a wall gun to me. Possibly bored smooth when converted to percussion. Could have been a 90-95 caliber rifle originally. Its stocked and carved like a rifle. Does it have a rear sight? A 90 caliber rifle would be an easy 400-500 yard gun for wall use. Dan

Curators are often completely clueless. I would not trust the firearms museum in Cody to know anything about this and its probably the biggest firearms museum in the US. Dan

+ another 1. Hole is off. Dan

To make the pan fit. First the frizzen pivot hole has to be drilled in the right place. Then the use of files and scrapers, usually on the pan, with a magic marker (or a candle to smoke the parts) to show the high spots will fit the parts till they are essentially water tight. But it takes...

From the forend shaping the rifle pictured here is likely an assembled kit. The big difference in "Mr Big Name" is that he might actually know what he is doing. So the rifle is more likely to be properly breeched and the rifle properly shaped so it actually looks like what its supposed to be...

Don King made these starting about 1969. They are based on an original Hawken fullstock percussion he had access to about that time.

Given the detailed photos I have seen of the Smithsonian rifle with the lock removed I cannot conclude its anything but a hooked breech FL rifle that was converted to percussion by fitting a drum into the vent and sawing/filing the water proof pan and frizzen mount from the plate leaving the...

This I like. Really cool rifle. Dan

Its entirely possible the heavy rifle marked S Hawken may have been converted to percussion by the Hawken Shop and maybe freshed and marked at that time. The stamp is the only thing that looks like a Hawken product and nothing at all like the S Hawken rifles. Dan

Consider the firing cycle of the FL. Cock has to travel to the frizzen, it has to scrape the flint down the frizzen pulling off hot bits of metal and uncover the pan. The sparks have to heat the priming powder granules to ignition temp. The flame has to propagate through the prime and build...

Instant is not possible. People who claim, for example, that their FL is as fast as a percussion are dealing with a really screwed up percussion. Stiff springs in a well made and engineered lock and an internally coned vent liner that puts the powder close to the priming. Dan

1.5 Swiss is close to 2ff Swiss and works good in RB guns. Dan

Try shooting some onion skin paper at 15 yards and see what hits the paper... 15 yards is 45 feet... Dan

If you look closely at the plug in the lathe you will see the imprint of the grooves in the felt tip marker color on the breech face. Dan

Thanks the for complement. There is nothing wrong with a plain breech in a FL and I breech barrels like this. Though I do like vent liners. The other options are just something gun builders need to know of. Like this, which is also an old design I have seen on English FLs. It allows setting...

Smoothbores run from hopeless to 50-60 yard hunting guns for big game. If you want a 54 caliber rifle you need to build an earlier style rifle with the wider, flatter buttstock than the typical SMR has. Something like a Dickert or JP Beck perhaps. By 1800 the ball size of the typical Kentucky...

But this is also the least efficient breech. In a shotgun used for wing shooting its not the best choice due to variations in speed of ignition. I don't use a patent breech on FL Kentuckys except in rare cases. But there are things that can be done to the "plain" breech to give better velocity...

I like patent breeches but seldom use one on a FL Kentucky. The "new" designs are not really new. They are simply modern adaptations of English breeches designed back at least as far as the 1750s onward to the end of FL development. There were so many patents (locks, breeches, boring etc) on...