Can a Muzzleloading Rifle Be Built Complete In A Week?

[EC121]

In his younger days Jack Garner could build one of his Tenn. rifles in 8hrs. using ready made parts and electric shaping tools. He inlet the lock,triggers, etc. mostly with a router and chisel clean up. The barrel channel on a spindle shaper, and shaped the stock with a side grinder and a hand held long-belt sander with the backplate removed to follow the stock curves..
He was supposed to deliver a rifle to our Brierfield shoot years ago, but forgot to make it. He left and went back to Corinth and returned the next afternoon with a finished poorboy. Not a lot of finish, but it was done.

 

[Archer 756]

Sounds like Forge in Fire.

 

[Capnball]

Reason I ask, is that I have recently been reading The Kentucky Rifle, written by John G.W. Dillon and published in 1924 by the NRA, and on page 29 there is an account by a Milton Warren an apprentice to gunsmith John Whitesides of Abingdon, VA, in which he states they turned out a good, well finished, but plain rifle in a week.

Which got me to thinking about how long current custom gunmakers take to complete a gun, and how long most of us take to finish putting together a kit, especially considering the account by Mr. Warren states building the rifles included fabricating the barrel and the lock and other fittings from bar iron, and brass or German silver sheet and forming the stock from slabs of wood seasoning in a corner of the shop. Makes modern gunmakers sound like pikers.

Anyone else familiar with this book? It seems to have a lot of interesting information on the origins and use of the "Kentucky" rifle as well as plates showing a number of American Long Rifles and their predecessors. I am wondering how accurate some of the ideas and speculation are that are included in this volume?

I think an accomplished gun smith back in the day, having served a good apprenticeship on all phases of production building, in a fully equipped and supplied shop could do it. I spoke to a guy who was building colonial muskets in Jerusalem MD who told me one fully qualified gunsmith with as little as two apprentice's could turn out three weapons a week during the revolution.

 

[Cpt Flint]

EC121, I believe every word about Jack Garner. He had the process refined to the nth
degree. I used to go to his shop in Corinth and pick up rifles that he and Brian Turner built on order in a few days. I would pick the stock blank from the woodshed out back. He would regale me with stories of his time with Turner Kirkland while I picked his brain about Longrifles. If I gave them a week to build it Brian wouldn’t start building until four or five days later. One of his tricks on a SMR was to heat the iron buttplate up and hot fit it to the stock. They were not as finely made as some, but to answer the question about building time, I submit the above.

 

[Carbon 6]

Weeks were a lot longer back in the old days. Like a month of Sundays.

 

[Mark Herman]

I won't mention a name but I have a friend, an accomplished gunmaker, who built a Fowler from scratch over a Thanksgiving weekend, 4 days. He did not make the barrel or hardware but it was still remarkable. He, as Mike Brooks, can do a Kibler in very few hours.

 

[theoldredneck]

As to how fast something can or can't be done I would not argue. Personally I would rather take my time or pay someone else that takes their time. Paying careful attention to task at hand. Growing up a older cousin owned a country welding/machine shop. He would laugh at me grinding welds, metal etc. Telling me "Boy you can take too much off in the wrong places faster than I can put it back". Same goes for wood. Being in a hurry/distracted causes me to make more mistakes than anything else. For those that can work extremely fast and still be precise go for it. I have great respect for your skill and talents. Modern mass produced materials and parts have come a long way. CNC programs allow precision repeat cuts with extreme accuracy. Modern guns are a product of that technology. I love the muzzleloaders because they remind me of a different place in time. My custom wildcats that push custom made jacketed bullets over 4000 fps sit in a safe. Haven't been shot in years. The muzzleloaders have taken their place. Flintlocks are more fun to play with. Could a turn of the century shop produce a rifle in a week from scratch? Probably, modern mass production evolved from one man shops to what we have now.

 

[BadDaditood]

I could build one by myself in a week, of course it would be pretty rough. The lock wouldn’t have to work smoothly and the barrel still round because there’d be no hole down the middle...

 

[Col. Batguano]

Modern gun makers turn them out in a lot less time than that. Their key is having lots of machines to do the work with jigs and CAD/CAM control. In the pre-computer WW II days they would have stations that only performed 1 operation. Make a bin of parts, move it to the next station to do the next operation. A dozen stations might be needed to, make a complicated part, like a bolt. The delay in getting an approved design (like the M1 Garand) in to production wasn't from the production itself, but the time it took to get the tooling set up required to make them. That's what production engineers do for a living. Design the manufacturing process.

The same thing could be done with hand-powered manufacture too, though human hands aren't nearly as efficient as power tools. The key is having lots of jigs and minimizing time when actual wood cutting or metal working isn't happening, like set up or measuring.

 

[rich pierce]

Just do the math and one can see that building a rifle including forging, drilling, reaming, filing, and rifling the barrel, forging, filing, fitting, hardening, tempering, and tuning a flintlock, casting, filing and finishing buttplate and guard, forging, filing, fitting trigger and plate, making nosecap and sideplate - before beginning to stock or finish the gun. I think it would be fun for those who say it could be done the way it was described, add up the time. Include firing up the forge, setting up tasks associated with drilling and reaming and rifling the barrel and so on.
What’s the fastest you’ve seen 3 men forge a barrel, straighten it, and get it to octagon shape?

what’s the fastest you’ve seen a barrel drilled and reamed?

It takes a good day alone just to rifle a barrel. Anyone here has done it faster using original methods?

how fast can one forge and thread a breechplug and drill and tap a barrel for it using period tools?

how long just to make a tumbler?

let’s see the math!

 

[Crow-Feather]

Watch "The gunsmith of Williamsburg" on You Tube. Clive Cussler builds a rifle the old way
.

 

[Cpt Flint]

The more time that one spends building a splendid Longrifle are golden hours. A man should be able to seclude himself alone in his shop and spend hours, weeks, months creating his masterpiece. Then, to prove it on the firing line in hot competition.
There is the true joy in Longrifle culture. That is what we have learned after starting at the bottom with the mass produced ones.

 

[Pete G]

accommodate

Watch "The gunsmith of Williamsburg" on You Tube. Clive Cussler builds a rifle the old way
.

That would be Wallace Gussler...not the inventor of Dirk Pitt

 

[nhmoose]

How many hours in a week? Now 36 hours is full time, used to be 40 hours in the last century the 1900's.

I worked 40 hours a week as an electrician and then 48 hours a week as a pro Firefighter.

Back then in the 18th and early 19th the workday was dawn till dusk at the least 12 hours per day and that was times 6 with 1 day off for prayer.

 

[bud in pa]

Some years back I talked to Eric Kettenberg at Fort Fredrick, he had a hand made rifle for sale. He made every part on that rifle. The price might have been $20,000, old age memory sucks,. I asked him how long it took him to build it. It sure as heck was more than a day, probably about a couple of months, as I remember him saying that using an average hourly wage, for that time back then, he under priced it.

 

[Eric Krewson]

The last time I was in Tip Curtis's shop he said it took him 3 days to go from a stock blank and parts to a gun in the white. He showed me all the specialized milling machines he had to make this happen, some machines were very ingenious that he had invented himself.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
That week estimation to finished gun is likely an exaggeration. Finish takes more than a week to apply and cure. Kit Ravenshear once wrote that a team of British ordnance workman could turn a rough blank into a musket stock ready for finish in one 10-hour day. However, that does not include the time for making barrels, locks, and hardware.

dave

 

[Keb]

From scratch? Possibly. With a pre-carve? Easily.
I've made them in a week with the barrel inlet in a blank but it took long days.

 

[tenngun]

How many hours in a week? Now 36 hours is full time, used to be 40 hours in the last century the 1900's.

I worked 40 hours a week as an electrician and then 48 hours a week as a pro Firefighter.

Back then in the 18th and early 19th the workday was dawn till dusk at the least 12 hours per day and that was times 6 with 1 day off for prayer.

They worked longer hours for sure, but it was more of when it was light. Before artificial lifting shops closed when it was too dark to see well. Over the year twelve hour days avarage. Winter was a break, and summer a chore
One smith and a couple of apprentice could invest a couple of hundred hours.
If you ever watched Kiblers gun building videos it’s amazing how much wood he can remove and how perfect his cuts are. He works three times faster and make lots better cuts then me in that time.
I’m sure an old ‘smith would chuckle or maybe swear at how slow most of us work today.

 

[Pete G]

Hi,
That week estimation to finished gun is likely an exaggeration. Finish takes more than a week to apply and cure.

dave

Finish on some of the working guns was most likely a quick application of aqua fortis followed with a rubdown of BLO. This procedure, while certainly expeditious does not produce a very durable finish, but it is quick and cheap.