dobletroble
Pilgrim
- Joined
- May 23, 2004
- Messages
- 5
- Reaction score
- 8
I've got the ramrod hole drilled. I wasn't sure I was going to be capable of this and I probably wouldn't have been without the help I've received from lurking here for several months. And so - thanks to you all for providing this valuable resource.
Background: I put together a SMR flintlock from a TOW kit about 15 years ago. I didn't do a very good job, but it did result in a gun. "Sparky" is in 45 cal with a straight barrel. I killed one deer with it and scared away several more by waving it around in a tree stand. It's unbalanced and unwieldy (once I managed to drop it climbing out of a stand in the dark and it augured into soft soil muzzle first about two feet deep - I've only hunted with it a couple of times since and haven't seen anything).
Over the years I've toyed with the idea of cutting it down or building something better suited to the type of deer hunting we do here. Somehow earlier this year I came across a picture of a shorter "Jaeger" flintlock that seemed to be just what I needed. And so the seed was planted and has been growing wild since last spring. I was happy to discover that although many parts were hard to come by that TOW had a 31" 54 cal swamped barrel in stock along with a large flintlock that seemed appropriate to the Jaeger theme. I found a plain walnut blank from someone over on the American Longrifles board for $80 shipped. I figured that if I screwed it up that I wouldn't have to be too sad about it, and maybe I'd learn something.
I got the stock sometime in May and struggled with what to do with it. I have a table saw and enough experience with it that I know I can't cut straight with it. I had a few chisels from last time that I didn't really know how to sharpen and a rusty, cheap, plastic handled Stanley cross cut saw. So I found Paul Sellers on YouTube who taught me how to sharpen a chisel and recommended a Spear & Jackson handsaw that would rip. Along with the barrel and lock I got the TOW Jaeger plans which have been a help, although the blank I have is not quite capable of accomodating it without modification, and so I'm pretty-sure that (assuming I manage to produce another gun) that it won't be "period correct". But I do expect that it will be suited to its purpose.
So I got started ripping the forestock to bed the barrel halfway down. The barrel is made by Rice and has the breech plug installed. They must have a gorilla on staff in charge of breech plug installation because I couldn't budge it without marring it - even with a barrel vise and action wrench (I do have some metal machining experience - but woodwork has been a nemesis). So after ripping I bedded it with the tang installed. Of course I kind-of screwed up some but think I managed to recover with only a modest gap on once side that I've already filled in by gluing gouge chips and sawdust. So I surprised myself by semi-successfully bedding the barrel. It took time but wasn't really that bad.
Then came the ramrod channel that I penciled out and boldly used a very sharp marking knife to score in. The idea to do this came from a helpful YouTube video posted by Golden Mean Longrifles. I gouged-out between the scores and it worked-out beautifully. I finished with an antique 3/8" molding plane that was `~ $30 on eBay. This didn't get it quite down far enough and so I finished with 100 grit sandpaper around a ramrod. So I managed not to screw the channel up. So on to how to drill the ramrod hole.
This is where some machining work paid off - and the Shumway "Recreating the American Longrifle" that I'd had since putting together the TOW kit years ago. There was a description of a spade bit machined into the end of drill rod that I used on a 36" piece of 3/8" O1 that the local Fastenal had in stock. I milled down a 0.08" paddle, ground a bit of a point on it and stoned reliefs on the cutting edges. I didn't bother heat treating it. The 36" rod was long enough for this Jaeger application without extension. It went through pine like butter. I wasn't so sure about walnut.
I took my time with it, about 1/2" at a time. About 30 min later I was a bit past the end of the barrel. It didn't break through anywhere obvious and so I think this actually worked acceptably well also.
Again, thanks much for all of the help to this point. I'm sure that I'm going to screw-up some more, but I'm also becoming confident that this is actually going to become a functional firearm. And I have ideas about how to do things better next time.
Background: I put together a SMR flintlock from a TOW kit about 15 years ago. I didn't do a very good job, but it did result in a gun. "Sparky" is in 45 cal with a straight barrel. I killed one deer with it and scared away several more by waving it around in a tree stand. It's unbalanced and unwieldy (once I managed to drop it climbing out of a stand in the dark and it augured into soft soil muzzle first about two feet deep - I've only hunted with it a couple of times since and haven't seen anything).
Over the years I've toyed with the idea of cutting it down or building something better suited to the type of deer hunting we do here. Somehow earlier this year I came across a picture of a shorter "Jaeger" flintlock that seemed to be just what I needed. And so the seed was planted and has been growing wild since last spring. I was happy to discover that although many parts were hard to come by that TOW had a 31" 54 cal swamped barrel in stock along with a large flintlock that seemed appropriate to the Jaeger theme. I found a plain walnut blank from someone over on the American Longrifles board for $80 shipped. I figured that if I screwed it up that I wouldn't have to be too sad about it, and maybe I'd learn something.
I got the stock sometime in May and struggled with what to do with it. I have a table saw and enough experience with it that I know I can't cut straight with it. I had a few chisels from last time that I didn't really know how to sharpen and a rusty, cheap, plastic handled Stanley cross cut saw. So I found Paul Sellers on YouTube who taught me how to sharpen a chisel and recommended a Spear & Jackson handsaw that would rip. Along with the barrel and lock I got the TOW Jaeger plans which have been a help, although the blank I have is not quite capable of accomodating it without modification, and so I'm pretty-sure that (assuming I manage to produce another gun) that it won't be "period correct". But I do expect that it will be suited to its purpose.
So I got started ripping the forestock to bed the barrel halfway down. The barrel is made by Rice and has the breech plug installed. They must have a gorilla on staff in charge of breech plug installation because I couldn't budge it without marring it - even with a barrel vise and action wrench (I do have some metal machining experience - but woodwork has been a nemesis). So after ripping I bedded it with the tang installed. Of course I kind-of screwed up some but think I managed to recover with only a modest gap on once side that I've already filled in by gluing gouge chips and sawdust. So I surprised myself by semi-successfully bedding the barrel. It took time but wasn't really that bad.
Then came the ramrod channel that I penciled out and boldly used a very sharp marking knife to score in. The idea to do this came from a helpful YouTube video posted by Golden Mean Longrifles. I gouged-out between the scores and it worked-out beautifully. I finished with an antique 3/8" molding plane that was `~ $30 on eBay. This didn't get it quite down far enough and so I finished with 100 grit sandpaper around a ramrod. So I managed not to screw the channel up. So on to how to drill the ramrod hole.
This is where some machining work paid off - and the Shumway "Recreating the American Longrifle" that I'd had since putting together the TOW kit years ago. There was a description of a spade bit machined into the end of drill rod that I used on a 36" piece of 3/8" O1 that the local Fastenal had in stock. I milled down a 0.08" paddle, ground a bit of a point on it and stoned reliefs on the cutting edges. I didn't bother heat treating it. The 36" rod was long enough for this Jaeger application without extension. It went through pine like butter. I wasn't so sure about walnut.
I took my time with it, about 1/2" at a time. About 30 min later I was a bit past the end of the barrel. It didn't break through anywhere obvious and so I think this actually worked acceptably well also.
Again, thanks much for all of the help to this point. I'm sure that I'm going to screw-up some more, but I'm also becoming confident that this is actually going to become a functional firearm. And I have ideas about how to do things better next time.
