mhb
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2011
- Messages
- 516
- Reaction score
- 256
I mentioned earlier that I have a custom flint duelling pistol on order, which I can't expect to see until, probably, next summer. So, in the meantime, I'd given some thought to acquiring an available stand-in to play with.
A few weeks ago, a Pedersoli LePage flint smoothbore appeared in the 'For Sale' forum - it looked good and the price was right. I bought it.
The seller said he'd shot it a few times and that it shot well, and said he'd been using a .433 ball with a ticking patch and approx. 25 gr of 2Fg.
When it arrived, I inspected it in detail to see how it looked and worked. The first item I noticed was that the lock seemed to have a good mainspring function and wasn't too heavy, but that the frizzen function was not good. In fact, the frizzen spring would have worked on a Brown Bess, so far as actual strength goes. The spring is fitted with a roller of good size, and which works, BUT: the 'foot' of the frizzen, which bears on the roller, was so long that it compressed the spring very heavily when lowered, and so shaped that the contact point with the spring was far behind the center of the roller, so that the frizzen, on opening, had to override the roller, compressing the spring even further, and all this made the frizzen entirely too hard to move - so much so that the frizzen wouldn't actually open when struck by the flint, remaining stuck at about the 2/3 point, so it couldn't fire at all, except by luck. The fix was to shorten and re-shape the 'foot' of the frizzen, and it now functions perfectly, so far as that goes.
It was now possible to try the spark, and it did, but unenthusiastically and with fairly few and reddish sparks. Eventually, I re-hardened the frizzen THREE times, and finally cased it, which makes it work much better. I contacted the parts guru at VTI, the factory parts source: he did have a spare frizzen ($62), but did not know of exactly what material it was made, or how the factory hardened it (though he has visited the factory several times, he'd never actually seen them heattreating the frizzen, and thought they outsourced them for simple casehardening) - I didn't spring for the replacement.
One of the first things I inspected thoroughly was the barrel itself, and in this case the results were mixed: the bore was perfectly smooth and even from end-to-end (good!), and was stated to be a .45 caliber, in the smoothbore version. In fact, it measures .475" (ah, those crazy Italians!), which isn't a show stopper, as I had a good supply of .457" balls on-hand, and they proved to shoot very well with a .013" super muslin patch and 25 grains of GOEX 2Fg, off a rest.
In detail stripping the pistol I discovered and corrected (well, those which could be corrected) several other things:
The inletting looked like it had been gnawed-out by a rat, in some places (not much to do about it, really).
The breakoff and tang did not mate properly with the breechplug and hook, though they made firm contact at the upper edge, and touched nowhere else but the intersecting corner at the top of the hook - this was not correctible without re-bedding the whole thing, which I didn't do. The wedge was a fairly good fit, and held the barrel in place firmly enough that it shoots O.K., though the loop on the barrel had been clobbered some to improve the fit.
The lockplate did not bear on the side of the barrel, leaving a gap through which much of the powder gas escaping through the touchhole made its way directly into the lock. I corrected this to an extent by noticing that the lock, held in the stock by a single screw, rocked fore-and-aft in its seat, due to poor inletting and the fact that the lock's inner top surface was not flat where it should have contacted the barrel. The corrections involved placing a filler in the rear of the lock mortise, to change the way the lock seated, and filing the contact surface inside the lock to bear against the barrel. These things helped some, but again, those crazy Italians had thoughtfully oriented the screwdriver slot in the touchhole liner so that one end of it points downward into the lock itself, ensuring that the crud gets there anyway. I could replace the bushing, but haven't.
The sights appeared adequate, and the rear sight was adjustable for elevation by means of a screw - the head of which enters from beneath the tang, meaning that one must remove the barrel and tang to make an elevation change, put it back together again, and hope that the change was right. If it wasn't you'd have to take the barrel and tang out again and repeat as necessary, until you got lucky or just said the hell with it. Actually, that wasn't too hard a fix: since the shaft of the screw protrudes through the tang behind the rear sight, I just slotted it for a jeweller's screwdriver, so I can make adjustments without disassembly of the gun.
Oh, the sight blade itself, which rises through a slot in the tang, had been given plenty of clearance, so that it could flop freely forward and back as well as sideways. This I fixed by judicious punchwork around the edges of the slot, so it is now easily moved, but not quite so independent anymore.
I've already mentioned (elsewhere) that I shortened the barrel to 9" to correct the muzzle heaviness and associated wobble. This operation was an unqualified success, so far as improving the handling of the pistol (for me, at least), and did not change the accuracy of the pistol at all (which is really quite good, when shot from a rest). In this process, I made and fitted a new, taller and somewhat wider front sight, and opened the rear sight notch to match: this, too was a success.
And, of course, in the process of 'improving' the pistol, I also stripped the lock and trigger mechanisms, de-burred and adjusted as necessary, and they now work fine. The lock, itself, was not actually badly made and finished, and, with the exception of the frizzen function and spark problem, could be said to be O.K.
The trigger mechanism is simple, functional and, with some work, also acceptable. It was, however, seated too deeply in its mortise at the rear of the triggerplate, so that the trigger bar contacted the lock sear and prevented its full engagement with the full cock notch in the tumbler - a shim under the tail of the trigger plate corrected that.
And, having done all these things, I still can't shoot this pistol properly offhand, because the grip-to-trigger reach is just too long. I know LePage made pistols to fit his individual customers, but why did the specimen from which Pedersoli copied this model have to have been built for a man with Shaq-sized hands? It is useless to speculate why nobody at Pedersoli noticed that it didn't really fit average-sized shooters: I've learned that they can't be bothered with minor details, and apparently believe that if it looks good enough (and sells well enough) it must BE good.
There are undoubtedly other things I learned in this exercise, but I don't really want to write a book, and I think I've touched on all the high (low?) points already.
And that is the story of my LePage smoothbore flinter. I frankly admit that I bought it as a learning tool, for interim use, and I can't deny that it's given me a postgraduate course.
But I'll be much happier when my custom flint dueller arrives.
mhb - Mike
A few weeks ago, a Pedersoli LePage flint smoothbore appeared in the 'For Sale' forum - it looked good and the price was right. I bought it.
The seller said he'd shot it a few times and that it shot well, and said he'd been using a .433 ball with a ticking patch and approx. 25 gr of 2Fg.
When it arrived, I inspected it in detail to see how it looked and worked. The first item I noticed was that the lock seemed to have a good mainspring function and wasn't too heavy, but that the frizzen function was not good. In fact, the frizzen spring would have worked on a Brown Bess, so far as actual strength goes. The spring is fitted with a roller of good size, and which works, BUT: the 'foot' of the frizzen, which bears on the roller, was so long that it compressed the spring very heavily when lowered, and so shaped that the contact point with the spring was far behind the center of the roller, so that the frizzen, on opening, had to override the roller, compressing the spring even further, and all this made the frizzen entirely too hard to move - so much so that the frizzen wouldn't actually open when struck by the flint, remaining stuck at about the 2/3 point, so it couldn't fire at all, except by luck. The fix was to shorten and re-shape the 'foot' of the frizzen, and it now functions perfectly, so far as that goes.
It was now possible to try the spark, and it did, but unenthusiastically and with fairly few and reddish sparks. Eventually, I re-hardened the frizzen THREE times, and finally cased it, which makes it work much better. I contacted the parts guru at VTI, the factory parts source: he did have a spare frizzen ($62), but did not know of exactly what material it was made, or how the factory hardened it (though he has visited the factory several times, he'd never actually seen them heattreating the frizzen, and thought they outsourced them for simple casehardening) - I didn't spring for the replacement.
One of the first things I inspected thoroughly was the barrel itself, and in this case the results were mixed: the bore was perfectly smooth and even from end-to-end (good!), and was stated to be a .45 caliber, in the smoothbore version. In fact, it measures .475" (ah, those crazy Italians!), which isn't a show stopper, as I had a good supply of .457" balls on-hand, and they proved to shoot very well with a .013" super muslin patch and 25 grains of GOEX 2Fg, off a rest.
In detail stripping the pistol I discovered and corrected (well, those which could be corrected) several other things:
The inletting looked like it had been gnawed-out by a rat, in some places (not much to do about it, really).
The breakoff and tang did not mate properly with the breechplug and hook, though they made firm contact at the upper edge, and touched nowhere else but the intersecting corner at the top of the hook - this was not correctible without re-bedding the whole thing, which I didn't do. The wedge was a fairly good fit, and held the barrel in place firmly enough that it shoots O.K., though the loop on the barrel had been clobbered some to improve the fit.
The lockplate did not bear on the side of the barrel, leaving a gap through which much of the powder gas escaping through the touchhole made its way directly into the lock. I corrected this to an extent by noticing that the lock, held in the stock by a single screw, rocked fore-and-aft in its seat, due to poor inletting and the fact that the lock's inner top surface was not flat where it should have contacted the barrel. The corrections involved placing a filler in the rear of the lock mortise, to change the way the lock seated, and filing the contact surface inside the lock to bear against the barrel. These things helped some, but again, those crazy Italians had thoughtfully oriented the screwdriver slot in the touchhole liner so that one end of it points downward into the lock itself, ensuring that the crud gets there anyway. I could replace the bushing, but haven't.
The sights appeared adequate, and the rear sight was adjustable for elevation by means of a screw - the head of which enters from beneath the tang, meaning that one must remove the barrel and tang to make an elevation change, put it back together again, and hope that the change was right. If it wasn't you'd have to take the barrel and tang out again and repeat as necessary, until you got lucky or just said the hell with it. Actually, that wasn't too hard a fix: since the shaft of the screw protrudes through the tang behind the rear sight, I just slotted it for a jeweller's screwdriver, so I can make adjustments without disassembly of the gun.
Oh, the sight blade itself, which rises through a slot in the tang, had been given plenty of clearance, so that it could flop freely forward and back as well as sideways. This I fixed by judicious punchwork around the edges of the slot, so it is now easily moved, but not quite so independent anymore.
I've already mentioned (elsewhere) that I shortened the barrel to 9" to correct the muzzle heaviness and associated wobble. This operation was an unqualified success, so far as improving the handling of the pistol (for me, at least), and did not change the accuracy of the pistol at all (which is really quite good, when shot from a rest). In this process, I made and fitted a new, taller and somewhat wider front sight, and opened the rear sight notch to match: this, too was a success.
And, of course, in the process of 'improving' the pistol, I also stripped the lock and trigger mechanisms, de-burred and adjusted as necessary, and they now work fine. The lock, itself, was not actually badly made and finished, and, with the exception of the frizzen function and spark problem, could be said to be O.K.
The trigger mechanism is simple, functional and, with some work, also acceptable. It was, however, seated too deeply in its mortise at the rear of the triggerplate, so that the trigger bar contacted the lock sear and prevented its full engagement with the full cock notch in the tumbler - a shim under the tail of the trigger plate corrected that.
And, having done all these things, I still can't shoot this pistol properly offhand, because the grip-to-trigger reach is just too long. I know LePage made pistols to fit his individual customers, but why did the specimen from which Pedersoli copied this model have to have been built for a man with Shaq-sized hands? It is useless to speculate why nobody at Pedersoli noticed that it didn't really fit average-sized shooters: I've learned that they can't be bothered with minor details, and apparently believe that if it looks good enough (and sells well enough) it must BE good.
There are undoubtedly other things I learned in this exercise, but I don't really want to write a book, and I think I've touched on all the high (low?) points already.
And that is the story of my LePage smoothbore flinter. I frankly admit that I bought it as a learning tool, for interim use, and I can't deny that it's given me a postgraduate course.
But I'll be much happier when my custom flint dueller arrives.
mhb - Mike
