While Micrometers and Calipers were invented long before, it took the Industrial Revolution until the 1840’s to make a set of precision calipers that were inexpensive enough for gunsmiths and machinists to use. Prior to that, riflesmiths had to go about making their rifles accurate from what they could control and use as comparative measurements.
While we cannot be absolutely certain how early Riflesmiths got the accuracy and precision in making their rifles, we have some documentation for clues and that includes probate inventories of their tools they left behind. Those inventories show a large quantity of cherries to cut molds in different sizes and many rough barrel reamers. There were also finish reamers and rifling benches that were adjustable for different size rifle bores.
Taking these things into account, I speculate it was most likely when the Riflesmith got “bespoke work” or an order for a rifle, the first thing he did was choose the mold cutting cherry as close to the size/caliber the customer wanted. Then he cut and made the bullet mold. He used the balls cast from that mold as a primitive gage to make the barrel for those balls. We know that the adjustable finish reamers they used could cut the bore with shavings “as fine as face powder,” so they could get as close to the fit of the ball as they wanted. But then things get more uncertain”¦.
We know that in every area gunsmiths worked, Weavers (normally men, but also women on the frontier) wove some fairly uniform cloth. The gunsmith most likely bought that cloth so he could use it to wrap the balls from the mold he made and “try” it in the bore of the gun he was making. Thus the gunsmith would provide a barrel and bullet mold that would fit the cloth that was available for the customer.
We also know from the experiments of our Dearly Missed and Departed Forum Member LaBonte (Chuck Burrows) conducted, that animal greased brain tanned buck skin works VERY well in rifles even with balls as close as .005” under the size of the bore. Not sure if the 18th/Early 19th Riflesmiths made the bores that close to bore size, as no original rifle barrels in original condition are available with the original molds made to fit them, but they could have made them that close if they wanted. The usual speculation is they did not make the ball to bore size quite that close though.
If gunsmiths had to make a replacement mold for a rifle they had not provided the original mold for, that could/would have been expensive, unless they already had a cherry that would make ball that fit the rifle. If they had to “start from scratch,” they probably made the cherry “ball” before cutting the teeth in it and wrapped the available patch material cloth around it to “try” it in the bore, before they cut the teeth into the Cherry “Ball.” Once they got the Cherry Ball the correct size for the patch material and rifle bore, then they cut the teeth in the Cherry Ball to make the cutter that would then cut the correct size mold for that rifle.
Gus
