A Pedersoli Brown Bess Kit

[barracudadave67]

HI Dave
Do you have a picture of the breech plug face after you filed the groove in it,??. I have the same small groove in my Bess carbine.
How do you get the breech plug out,??.

Thanks Dave C.

 

[Hatman/2nd line]

Lucky student having you around and your a good guy helping him!

 

[sturmkatze]

Wow. @dave_person I am always in awe of your Bess work. Have you ever thought of teaching a week-long class like they do at the nmlra? Maybe something with a better stock?

I heard a rumor that Kibler might do a Bess kit. That would be awesome.

 

[rickystl]

Excellent as usual Dave. Your brain to hand skills are incredible. That's going to be one happy guy.

Rick

 

[dave_person]

HI Dave
Do you have a picture of the breech plug face after you filed the groove in it,??. I have the same small groove in my Bess carbine.
How do you get the breech plug out,??.

Thanks Dave C.

Hi,
I removed the plug to take more photos. No big deal and probably a good thing because as you can see in the second photo, I needed to smooth the bottom of the notch more at the threads.

The work was done with a conical grinding stone in a Dremel.

dave

 

[Alan O]

Hi,
I am helping a senior in my local high school make a Brown Bess musket from a Pedersoli kit bought from Dixie Gun Works. He is an active reenactor and wants to make as historically correct a musket as he can. What a mess. In addition to the features Pedersoli got wrong like the wrong lock markings, butt plate way too small, poor inletting, wrong stock shape, etc, etc, etc, etc. we add absolutely lousy machine inletting. Gaps around everything including the lock, butt plate, and trigger guard. It gets worse. All the machine inlets for the ramrod pipes are flat on the bottom!!! The pipes are barrel shaped not flat. So when the already drilled pins are installed in the pipes, they wobble side to side because the machined mortises are also too wide. This is junk. The lock looks nice with the polish but the mainspring is way too strong, the frizzen spring is cheaply made and the wrong shape, the sear spring is so stout the trigger pull must be 15 lbs at least. At close to $1200, this is fraud. Pedersoli no longer makes any Brown Bess that can be claimed superior to the India-made versions, which means nobody makes a commercially made Bess repro worth a damn. My student, AcraGlas, and I will salvage this piece of junk and produce a vastly superior gun but it is a shame this kind of stuff is out there for sale.

dave

thank goodness for guys like you, Dave

 

[Joemolf]

Hi,
We finished the musket. Before showing it I wanted to show you this. I removed the breech plug and found they drilled the vent hole into the face of the breech plug.

That groove, which is most of the diameter of the hole will pack with fowling and cause misfires. So I filed a large and smooth notch in the plug to eliminate the groove and reduce the risk of misfires. I also installed a 1/4" white lightning vent liner. That should keep things going smoothly. Here is the bolster of the plug. These skinny tapered bolsters are a PIA and not authentic.

Moreover, look at the inlet for the bolster in the barrel channel.

Look at how much wider it is than the bolster plus notice the lock bolt across the back. There is no notch in the back of the bolster so it butts against that bolt leaving a gap between the back of the bolster and the back of the inlet. Thank god for Acra Glas.

Here is the finished musket. It was scraped and sanded but we left scratches and some tool marks just like the originals. It was stained with alkanet root infused in mineral spirits but Laurel Mountain Forge walnut stain was added to the the polymerized tung oil finish. I did a little shadowing with bone black. It came out nicely. The lock is reworked, polished, and tuned and the trigger pull is about 3.5 lbs.

dave

Incredible ever think of offering classes?

 

[FlinterNick]

Great project Dave.

Ironically I have an older pedersoli lock and a newer one. It makes me wonder why they changed their pattern from the Bicentential lock to the current one. The bicentential lock was much more authentic in terms of size and shape.

I’ve been able to collect a pile of pedersoli parts recently and am considering doing a colonial restocked bess with a more New England type fowler look. Just waiting on a barrel in the correct size and caliber.

 

[John Spartan]

As an owner of several Perdersolis all vent holes “are drilled into the face of the breech plug” unless I am taking you out of context.

 

[maillemaker]

My Pedersoli is also drilled into the breech face.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Guys,
On all the Pedersolis I reworked from the 1970s and 1980s, none were drilled into the breech plug, which is a very bad practice.

dave

 

[John Spartan]

Guess I’m thinking this is a “feature” and not a mistake...?
Must be doing something. Never had a misfire with any of them...that was the guns fault anyway!

 

[dave_person]

Hi John Spartan,
Sounds like the Pedersoli is a perfect fit for you.

dave

 

[fireman1]

Dave,

Why is it a bad practice? Weakens the breech plug?

<---knows nothing about this stuff

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
No, it is not a strength issue but rather risks powder fowling blocking the channel and vent hole. A narrow groove like that is not easily cleaned out and being narrow, can fill with fouling quicker. A wider and smoother notch reduces that risk. Moreover, adding a white lightning vent liner really reduces risk of mis and hang fires.

dave

 

[fireman1]

Hi,
No, it is not a strength issue but rather risks powder fowling blocking the channel and vent hole. A narrow groove like that is not easily cleaned out and being narrow, can fill with fouling quicker. A wider and smoother notch reduces that risk. Moreover, adding a white lightning vent liner really reduces risk of mis and hang fires.

dave

Thanks for explaining it.

 

[John Spartan]

Hi John Spartan,
Sounds like the Pedersoli is a perfect fit for you.

dave

Uhhh. Thanks?

 

[dave_person]

Hi John,
I wrote that because you have 2 so you must be very happy with them and I am glad to read the grooved plug has not caused any problems for you. On this one the depth of the groove was about 2/3s of the drill bit used to drill it so it actually was undercut. That would be hard to keep clean.

dave

 

[John Spartan]

Actually I have four Pedersoli’s (all with the groove) but I am thankful for the “heads up” if I should have ignition issues in the future. Sometimes nuance can be difficult with the texted word but any black powder information, and certainly about my favorite brand, is appreciated.
The reason I piped up at all is I took your original post as indicating the groove was a manufacturing error.

 

[maillemaker]

My Pedersoli Bess has the grooved breech face. I've probably put 100 rounds through it so far, probably no more than 30 in any given shooting session. I have not had a problem with the fire channel ever.

I've had problems with coke buildup in my percussion competition guns when I quit using a breech face scraper for a while when cleaning at home. But I suspect that things might be slightly different with a flintlock. I suspect when the main charge goes off there is a high-velocity jet that exits the barrel through the touch hole. I would imagine this effectively "self-cleans" the touch hole passage. But, I'm a relatively new flintlock shooter.