• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

.50 flintlock pistol from Deer Creek kit

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Patocazador

54 Cal.
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
2,309
Reaction score
552
Location
Central Florida
I bought a Deer Creek Mountain pistol kit last month. It came with a parts list and no directions. I have only put together one other kit and that was 35 years ago.
The kit was pretty good except for the rusty barrel with 3 pitted areas which took lots of work to get through to the solid metal beneath.

Parts after rough shaping.


1st fitting.


2nd fitting.


Final assembly.


Left side.


The frizzen spring was so strong that a great deal had to be stoned off the spring and the bearing surface of the frizzen plus polishing before the hammer fall would even open the frizzen.
The trigger pull was ridiculous also so a bit of work on the sear was necessary too.
I used a product called "Express Blue" to blue the small parts and the barrel. It was supposed to be easy but I didn't think so. I had trouble with the barrel because there were lines and blotches where uneven heating with a propane torch and spots where tongs gripped the barrel caused a noticeable unevenness in the bluing.

I may redo the barrel later.
 
Very good ! I can't think of anything more fun
than making one's own flintlock pistol. You can
be proud of your work..
Wulf
 
Looks good to moi! :thumbsup: Those old CVA Mountain Pistols just keep on keeping on...even if the company changed hands a time of 12! Have to admit the first photo had a bit of an optical whatchamacallit going on and looked like the barrel had about a 10 degree sag! :shocked2: Had me one of those moments till I figured out it was the camera! :doh:
 
It isn't perfectly flat because the rib didn't fit perfectly flush. It could be off by a degree or three or it could be that I had to file/sand so much due to the pitting.
I'll find out when I shoot it for accuracy. That could be tomorrow.
 
I shot it today to try to work out any kinks. I shot it 9 times and got one flash in the pan. Don't know why unless it was a lessened amount of 4F in the pan. I re-primed and it went bang. I was shooting without a rest at 10 yards and experimenting with different loads and patches. It seems to have a very tight muzzle and then loads very easy the rest of the way.
Most accurate load was .490 PRB with a .015 muslin patch with mink oil in front of 20 gr. of 3FG Goex. I had to use the knob of the short starter to beat this load past the muzzle and then it slid down easily.
.480 PRBs with a .020 patch loaded easier but strung out vertically.

If it's not raining tomorrow, I'll go to the bench with a sandbag and see how it shoots from a rest with different powder charges at 25 yards.

I'm really glad I built this kit instead of a pinned barrel. Popping out the key and cleaning the barrel is a piece of cake compared to my pinned flintlock rifle.
 
A lot of people use tight ball/patch combinations for their muzzleloading rifles and they do work well.

That said, as you've found, the difficulty in starting a tight ball/patch combination in a pistol makes loading difficult.

The smaller powder charges used in pistols do not require the tight ball/powder loads so my suggestion is for you to try to find a pure cotton material with a tight weave that is only about .010-.012 thick.
Pre-cut commercial patches of this thickness are available if you can't find a yard of fabric at a cloth store.

The thinner .010 patch with a .490 diameter roundball will be much easier to start and ram.

While I'm talking, almost all new muzzleloading barrels have very sharp edges where the rifling in the bore meets the chamfer at the muzzle.
The chamfer often also has a sharp edge where it meets the bore.

Both of these things will make starting the patched ball more difficult. Indeed. They will often cut the cloth patch while it is being loaded. If the patch gets cut, accuracy goes down the drain.

If you don't mind doing a bit more work, place a 1" X 1" piece of 120, 150 or 220 grit, black silicone carbide wet/dry sandpaper on the muzzle.

Use your thumb to push it down a bit into the bore and then rotate your thumb from side to side while you rotate the gun barrel with your other hand.
As the paper "dulls" you may need to use a few more pieces of the sandpaper.

Doing this will round off all of the sharp edges which will make loading easier and at the same time it will greatly reduce the possibility of cutting the patch.
 
Thanks for the tips. I'll get after the muzzle with some emery paper tomorrow.
I stroked the bore with Remington 40-X bore cleaner 100+ times before assembly to try to smooth the lands/grooves but it didn't do much as far as I could tell.
 
I have the exact same gun in percussion and like it a lot and have been thinking about getting another but in flint. Could you tell in a little more detail exactly what you had to do on the springs? File away the sides to make it more narrow or the flat area?
Thanks.
I didn't like the belt loop, if I carry the percussion while hunting it swings around too much.
 
I used a dremel-like engine with a grit-impregnated rubber wheel to polish the thickness of the frizzen spring not the width. I did it mainly where the bearing area of the frizzen contacted it. I also reduced the frizzen "knob" that contacted the spring and polished the devil out of both right down to using a chamois wheel with jeweler's rouge. I did it twice and it could still stand a bit more. That frizzen spring is 3x stronger than it needs to be. Everything works well now.
 
Back
Top