Colonial American militia musket: in progress

[dave_person]

Hi,
Attached are a few photos showing a militia musket I am building for a client. It represents what might be made for a NJ militia soldier just prior to the Rev War from old parts salvaged from an old British commercial musket originally purchased by New Jersey prior to the F&I war. It has a 46" 10 gauge Brown Bess barrel on which I will engrave "LONDON WILSON". I made the lock from TRS cast parts but removed all markings. I will engrave "WILSON" on it. All of the brass hardware was hand made or made by heavily modifying modern Bess castings. The gun includes upgrades to a steel ramrod, smaller ramrod thimbles, muzzlecap and a slimmer profile consistent with American-made Rev War muskets I examined in museums and collections. The stock is curly sugar maple logged in Vermont. The figure is moderate but very beautiful. The stock is still roughed out. I'll post more as I finish the gun.

dave

 

[Artificer]

WOW!!! I am so green with envy they could hang me from a wire and use me as a "Go" light for traffic. Can’t wait to see the finished gun.

I just LOVE the early Banana shaped Lock Plates, so for me that is a superb feature. Actually, your interpretation reminds me strongly of a P1748 Brown Bess. Maybe that is part of the reason I am awe struck by it.

OK, just have to ask, is there a reason you chose a 10 gauge barrel instead of say an 11 gauge? Now if the original musket had been a “Dutch” musket that the barrel came from, I could see the 10 gauge, though. On second thought, I guess a tight 10 gauge barrel would still be in spec. even for British Ordnance.

Any plans for a period correct bayonet? I think some of the India ones with the loose sockets would work well on that barrel, though one would have to modify the reinforcing collar a bit higher so the front sight would pass through.

I’m sorry, but I can’t see the rammer pipes well. Are they Brown Bess military type? The reason I ask is because Wilson often used the “bulbous” rammer pipes, that are often known as “Jaeger” Pipes today, on his Para Military Muskets. Though that was more often for Wood Ramrod Muskets.

I have only seen one Wilson Paramilitary Musket up close and that’s the one on display at Valley Forge. I seem to recall besides Wilson, it had a date of 1758 on the lock? It had a Wood Ramrod, the bulbous Ramrod Pipes and the Flat Bottom P1755 style lock.

For others who may be interested, here is another Wilson Para Military Musket that you can click on the photo and it will enlarge. http://www.adirondackbasecamp.com/2013/04/rare-french-indian/

Gus

 

[Wes/Tex]

Great job, ought to make a dandy representation of militia muskets of the day. It'll be a fairly close copy of a King's Musket. Some of the more interesting I've seen have been a grand combo of mixed parts. Believe an "atta boy" is appropriate here! :hatsoff:

 

[dave_person]

Hi Gus,
There were a number of shipments of muskets by Wilson to the colonies. They all varied somewhat. Some of the earliest to NJ and NY had copies of pattern 1742 locks, which this gun has. They all generally had that simplified buttplate and wooden rammers. Some did not have rear ramrod pipes. This gun uses parts from a very early Wilson commercial musket to NY or NJ and upgrades it for a steel ramrod and brass muzzlecap. As such, those components are meant to be locally made. The nose cap is soldered sheet brass, not cast. The ramrod thimbles are simply cast and drilled for a steel rod with the forward thimble having a slight funnel front, similar to an original at Fort Ti. I paired down a long land pattern butt plate to look like the commercial plates and will highly modify a long land pattern trigger guard to look like the commercial product (that is tomorrow's task). I will drill the guard for a sling swivel but no swivels will be mounted, although I soldered a lug for the forward swivel on the barrel but did not drill the hole. That way the owner can add a swivel if he chooses. Apparently, swivels and slings were not common on colonial made pre Rev War militia muskets. I don't know why. I have an appropriate bayonet. It does not have the reiforcing ring and looks like a simple colonial product. I have to split it to open it up for the barrel and then weld the seam. The barrel is Colerain's long land Brown Bess barrel, which is 0.775 caliber. It is a beast with the breech 1.4" in diameter.

Now, because this is a colonial restock, I can take a few liberties in design. It will be slimmer and more elegant than a pattern 1742 or 1748 Brown Bess. More importantly, it has more drop at the heel. This baby is a shooter and way more comfortable and fitted for shooting than any repro or original Brown Bess. This gun makes a Pedersoli feel like you are shooting a 2 X 4. The irony is that it will likely never shoot live ammunition during its life except for the rounds I shoot testing it.

dave

 

[coloradoclyde]

WOW!!! I am so green with envy they could hang me from a wire and use me as a "Go" light for traffic. Can’t wait to see the finished gun.

That makes two of us.... :thumbsup: :hatsoff:

 

[Artificer]

Hi Dave,

I spotted the drop in the butt plate right off, just forgot to mention it. (Still in awe of the gun.) I bet it would be dandy to shoot live rounds. Well, if the current “soon to be” owner will never shoot it live, perhaps the next owner will and fully appreciate the drop?

OH, OK, the 0.775 caliber is right in period spec even for British Ordnance between .76 to .78 caliber. I bet it is a beast with the breech 1.4" in diameter. May I ask what the diameter is at the muzzle just to satisfy my curiosity?

I really like the fact that you made the nose cap soldered sheet brass, not cast. Definitely a nice touch as is the design of the rammer pipes.

Can’t wait to see the bayonet when finished. My first Mentor was a very advanced Bayonet Collector and he had quite a few 18th century civilian made socket bayonets, so I’m really looking forward to seeing your interpretation. Oh, I want to thank you for that inspiration. I purchased two of the cheap India bayonets years ago because the price was so much better than for one and fitted one to the gifted loaner Bess I reassembled and fixed for my unit. Always thought I was going to fit the other to another Bess, but never got around to doing it. Now you opened up another possibility for using it I should have thought about before, but didn't. Thank you!

Gus

 

[spudnut]

wow really nice
:thumbsup:

 

[Col. Batguano]

Because Vermont is more northerly than most of the sugar maple that places like Tiger Hunt, and Dunlap's get theirs from, do you find the rings are tighter together, and / or the wood is any harder than those other stocks?

 

[dave_person]

Hi Folks,
Thanks for looking. I am busy today on the guard. David, I don't find maple from Vermont to be any better or worse than blanks from Dunlap or even TOW. I just happen to have local maple because I often barter work and I built a nice rifle for a local logger who is slowly paying me back in curly maple boards. For work I have bartered, I get venison, elk, sweet corn and other garden vegetables, fresh baked bread, maple syrup, apple cider, hard cider, bourbon, scotch, firewood, snow plowing, lifetime of free haircuts, and stock wood. Moreover, folks seem happy to see me wherever I go so life is good.

dave

 

[pargent]

:applause: :applause: :thumbsup:

 

[Pete G]

I can smell the history in this one. I really like real guns that are not built to hobbyist's "perfection".

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
I finished shaping and inletting the trigger guard. For those familiar with Brown Bess guards, you can see how much this guard was simplified and thinned. It is much weaker than the ordnance version but that is how the commercial musket guards were made. They were cheaper but weaker. My pattern is close to one used on those guards. It is clear from my research that the patterns varied even within shipments so there was no strong standardization.

dave

 

[Artificer]

Dave

OK, OK, gotta ask.... :haha: What trigger guard did you modify for this musket? I like the "flow" of it very much. It looks to me like you left a better balance of strength to weight reduction than on at least some commercial musket trigger guards and certainly better than Number 4 listed as a "private commercial musket trigger guard" in the link below.
http://www.11thpa.org/Bess.html

Also is the trigger guard held by cross pins going through brass studs in front and rear?

Gus

 

[dave_person]

Hi Gus,
I modified a standard 1756 long land pattern guard. I made quite a pile of brass filings before I was done. I used a pattern found on some commercial muskets by Wilson, particularly likely from an early shipment to NY, but the example in your post is probably more common because it was simpler and thinner. Mine is modeled after some excavated from the HMS Boscawen, a British F&I war vintage sloop that sunk near Fort Ti. It is assumed to come from one of the commercial muskets thought to be aboard the ship. It is a far better and more robust guard than the typical commercial guard by Wilson but I also had to speculate a bit because the original was in a deteriorated condition. Moreover, it could be from a light infantry carbine not a commercial musket, however, it is very similar to the guard TRS sells for their commercial musket. It is held on by cross pins front and rear and then a wood screw will go through it behind the bow which also anchors the tail of the trigger plate. It is where the bolt would go on a Brown Bess that anchors the guard, trigger plate and the wrist plate. Other commercial Bess guards often just had 3 cross pins.

dave

 

[Artificer]

Fascinating Dave, Thank you.

I sure like your version of the commercial trigger guard MUCH more than the skinny one in the link.

Gus

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
I did not discuss this previously. My lock copies a commercial British Bess lock. As such, it is a little smaller in all dimensions. I bought an early convex Brown Bess sideplate from TOW meant to mate with a pattern 1730s Bess lock. My modified lock is sufficiently smaller such that the lock bolt holes no longer fit, which shows how dumb I can be. I had to downsize the plate a little. I cut off the original plate at the narrow behind the forward lock bolt, shortened the plate to allow for casting shrinkage, soldered the pieces together and used them to make a mold. Using Delft clay, I made the mold and cast the part. The result was perfect.

dave

 

[Artificer]

Very interesting, Dave.

Thank you for posting that, it brought up a couple things I have wondered about over the years.

The first is matching a similar "British Military" Style side plate to something like a Chambers' Colonial Virginia Flintlock/Round-Faced English Flintlock. That lock is nominally within the dimensions of a British Carbine lock and an Officer’s Fusil lock. However, I do not know of a source for the military type side plate that would match these locks.

May I ask if you used two or more sprue holes for the mold that cannot be seen in the pictures you provided? Also, may I ask how you heated the brass? For example did you heat it to a molten state in a clay crucible in a heat treating oven or perhaps in a forge?

Second thing is the more I have studied the period tools/techniques, I have wondered how they got the side plate flat under the screw heads and matched the side plate screws and “flats” to hand made lock plates. I have looked at quite a few original Military and Civilian guns that had these “flats” on the side plates and they are almost always very well centered on the holes for the side lock screws. I think for the flat areas under the side plate screw heads, they would have used a piloted cutter with a pilot that matched the holes for the body of the side plate screws, but that is sort of the easy part to the answer.

The other part of the answer most likely was they used some kind of hardened plate or fixture as a guide to drill the holes in the lock plates and side plates for the side plate screws and thus kept the distance between holes “uniform” enough for mass production when they were still building these guns by hand. However, that is speculation on my part.

Bailey wrote that the locks purchased by British Ordnance were first delivered unhardened, so the parts could be inspected, acceptance stamped and engraved before hardening. Bailey does not mention it, but I bet British Ordnance workers also drilled and tapped the side plate holes in the lock plate ”“ to match casting they purchased from other contractors, in which I think British Ordnance Workers also drilled the side plate holes. Though I cannot document this, it seems the only way British Ordnance had to ensure the side plate holes in the lock plates and side plates would match?

Gus

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
Well it is almost ready for stain. I've got final scraping to do and then a bit of metal work and polishing. I also have to fit a bayonet and bayonet lug.

dave

 

[Artificer]

WOW !! Just love the way the tail of the "banana" shaped lock plate keeps that part of the plate (and parts underneath) more in the middle of the grip from top to bottom, when there is more drop in the butt stock. Looks to me like was intended on the earlier Besses and then the flatter bottom P1755 Lock Plates caused the stock wrist to be straighter?

Of course, that may be merely my justification because I really prefer these earlier banana lock plates.

Gus

 

[dave_person]

Hi Gus,
Thanks for looking and I apologize because I did not answer your previous questions about the sideplate. I cast the plate using Delft clay to make the mold. It is just like sand casting but the clay produces a finer surface and can hold on to finer detail. I used a single large sprue heating the brass in a ceramic crucible using my oxy-acetylene torch and borax flux. The process is very straight forward but it is a challenge to estimate the shrinkage that occurs. I got that just right so the side plate counter bored holes line up perfectly with the holes in the lock. I have quite a bit of experience at this casting stuff. I suspect British ordnance had precise drilling templates for lock holes and sideplates, and they probably had tight standards for the plates. However, they also could have bought the plates with unbored or finished forward holes but finished and bored rear holes. That would allow them to adjust each plate to each lock but simply boring and filing the forward hole.
Gus, this project has been a pile of fun for me. I visited West Point Museum, Museum of the American Revolution, Valley Forge, Washington's Crossing, and Fort Ti doing research for this gun. I also examined every book available with information about militia muskets. This has been a wonderful voyage of discovery and understanding. Wait until you see the slight dimples in the sheet brass muzzle cap and the big copper rivet holding it in place, the simple ramrod thimbles with a colonial gunsmith version of a forward trumpet thimble, the simpler and cruder bayonet, and the curly maple stock. It is really going to look right.

dave