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.50 caliber pistol kit
- Thread starter tommy b
- Start date
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I just went through the same thing tommy. I wanted a handgun that was carried by HBC employees. As usual, I contrived a reason to travel to Chadron, Nebraska to the Museum of the Fur Trade.
http://www.furtrade.org/index.php
This musuem has the largest collection of original fur trade firearms that I am aware of (I have never been to the Smithsonian) and is well worth the trip. They show two distinct types for the HBC. The first of which is simply a flintlock, large caliber smoothbore about the size of a Walker Colt. The barrel has flats on the side and looks very plain. (I love that part as I prefer the Chevys & Fords of the fur trade rather than the Cadillacs.) The Officer's handguns were the 'screw barrel' type with the centrally hung hammer.
I don't imagine that the average trapper cared greatly about the maker as long as it was a reliable back up for his single shot rifle.
Voyageur
http://www.furtrade.org/index.php
This musuem has the largest collection of original fur trade firearms that I am aware of (I have never been to the Smithsonian) and is well worth the trip. They show two distinct types for the HBC. The first of which is simply a flintlock, large caliber smoothbore about the size of a Walker Colt. The barrel has flats on the side and looks very plain. (I love that part as I prefer the Chevys & Fords of the fur trade rather than the Cadillacs.) The Officer's handguns were the 'screw barrel' type with the centrally hung hammer.
I don't imagine that the average trapper cared greatly about the maker as long as it was a reliable back up for his single shot rifle.
Voyageur
V,
Looks like I've got to arrange a trip to that museum when the weather warms up. Last September I passed just west of Chadron down rte. 385 on my way back to Denver from the black hills. I came home that way in order to visit Cabela's to pick up some Goex as it's getting harder and harder to find it here in Colorado.
Where in the Rocky Mt. do you hail from?
Looks like I've got to arrange a trip to that museum when the weather warms up. Last September I passed just west of Chadron down rte. 385 on my way back to Denver from the black hills. I came home that way in order to visit Cabela's to pick up some Goex as it's getting harder and harder to find it here in Colorado.
Where in the Rocky Mt. do you hail from?
I don't actually live in town tommy...my home is in Northwest Montana...not too far from Belknap, Montana. Belknap doesn't actually exist anymore (no post office) but it might someday when population pressure exerts its influence. Hopefully I'll be long dead.
Montana is one state I have never visited. The northwestern part looks to be the prettiest as far as trees and mountains. Next summer the wife and I are planning to visit my brother and his family in Bend, OR. Maybe we can swing a loop that takes in your area. Being retired has its advantages, one being no time constraints.
Well, I've looked at the Lyman Great Plains pistol, the Hawken halfstock pistol, and others, but I still like the stlye of the Traditions Trapper. I like the double set triggers, the brass nosepiece that the ramrod goes through, and the adjustable rear sight. The only thing I don't like is the politically correct safety wording on the barrel. I'm thinking since I have to spend that store coupon at Sportsman's Warehouse, I can look through their kits and hopefully find a decent one. I'm figuring that I can tune the lock and trigger assemblies and put a brass nameplate with my name on it over the wording on the barrel flat. As a last resort, I can replace the barrel with one from GM. One other place I see a potential problem is the fit of the sight and barrel wedge dovetails. I don't know how accurately they're machined. How do I attach a nameplate to the barrel? Rivets? solder? Do I machine a groove so the plate sits flush with the surface or just let it stand proud? How thick of a plate do I use? I am going with a 15/16" barrel in .50 caliber. I hope I am not trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Any information will be appreciated. Thanks guys, this a great forum for learning.
Tom: Based on your first experiance with their kit I think you might give the sow an apology. But anyway you might get lucky.
As I recall one of your first complaints was the screw threads wouldn't start. If you take the screws down to a good hardware store which has metric nuts and bolts, you can try the screw in different nuts until you find one that fits. Then you know the proper thread series and can buy a tap. (The metric threads only have one or two pitches of threads for a given diameter of screw so this should not be too hard to do).
If it is just one or two holes that's causing problems you can lightly file a taper on the male screw thread. That will help it start in the hole.
Use some bar soap for lubricant and it should screw in fairly easily. Don't force it or you will cross-thread the bolt and or the hole. If it won't start from one end of the hole, try the other end. Sometimes burrs get pushed back into the tapped hole and prevent the screw from starting.
You might consider adding "Draw Filing" the barrel flat to remove the marking to your list of ideas. If you need a discription of the process let me know. Soldering/Riviting/dovetailing etc are all processes that can turn a tolerable thing into a small disaster if not done right.
Let us know how things are going.
As I recall one of your first complaints was the screw threads wouldn't start. If you take the screws down to a good hardware store which has metric nuts and bolts, you can try the screw in different nuts until you find one that fits. Then you know the proper thread series and can buy a tap. (The metric threads only have one or two pitches of threads for a given diameter of screw so this should not be too hard to do).
If it is just one or two holes that's causing problems you can lightly file a taper on the male screw thread. That will help it start in the hole.
Use some bar soap for lubricant and it should screw in fairly easily. Don't force it or you will cross-thread the bolt and or the hole. If it won't start from one end of the hole, try the other end. Sometimes burrs get pushed back into the tapped hole and prevent the screw from starting.
You might consider adding "Draw Filing" the barrel flat to remove the marking to your list of ideas. If you need a discription of the process let me know. Soldering/Riviting/dovetailing etc are all processes that can turn a tolerable thing into a small disaster if not done right.
Let us know how things are going.
I've got an e-mail in to Traditions on the screw thread sizes but they haven't been too helpful in the past. Your hardware store idea is a good one. A lot of gun screws are 8-32 and 10-32 but since these come from Spain I agree with you, they're probably metric. Maybe I should look at this project as a learning process and not be too worried if I can't make an excellent gun out of it. I'd hate to screw up a 4 or 500 dollar kit. I plan to move into making quality American kits after I finish this one, so this one is good practice. Or am I rationalizing? Draw filing may be the answer but it seems that if you're talking about filing the words off it would change the dimension of the flat a good bit as it looks like they are cut in with a laser and are pretty deep. Why don't you send me the info on how to do it anyway? At least then I can evaluate whether I want to go that way. Thanks for the help.
Well, here it is, three months later and I've had a lot of time to think about it. In late December, I figured that since I had the Sportsman Warehouse store credit for the price if the Trapper kit, I'd buy another one and see if the previous one was just a fluke. Well, they were out of the kits and didn't get any more in until this week (mid March). So I trotted down and, after looking over a couple kits, found one where the wood looked good, the buttcap looked good, But I still couldn't start the screws into the lockplate. I bought a kit anyway, and took the lock and a lockplate screw to the hardware store. As near as I can figure, the screws are 4mm x .7mm. I bought a tap and die in this size, as well as a metric thread pitch gage. After supper, I'll play with it and see how it comes out. I can see where I'll probably be looking for help, at least having many questions answered, So you may want to move this thread to the builder's bench forum. Thanks in advance for any help and encouragement from you guys. (and gals)
Tommy b: Rather than move the thread to the Builders Bench, may I suggest you just start a new thread on building your pistol over there. You might title it something like "Building a .50 cal Trapper Pistol" or something like that.
This would let future builders get right to the meat of the subject.
If you do continue this post this there, (which I hope you do) don't forget to tell us how it is going when things are going good too.
Sometimes people only write when they have problems and this is good but it can scare off the first timer when he/she doesn't hear about how well some things went together.
Hope to hear from you soon.
PS Leaving this post here is kinda like leaving a little bait out on the trail. It might guide someone into a hobby they never gave much thought to.
This would let future builders get right to the meat of the subject.
If you do continue this post this there, (which I hope you do) don't forget to tell us how it is going when things are going good too.
Sometimes people only write when they have problems and this is good but it can scare off the first timer when he/she doesn't hear about how well some things went together.
Hope to hear from you soon.
PS Leaving this post here is kinda like leaving a little bait out on the trail. It might guide someone into a hobby they never gave much thought to.
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