Dixie Jager

[Tahquamenon]

Folks FYI,

According to Dixie, the Dixie Jaeger was designed to be influenced by 19th century styles and never was intended to be a period correct ML.

Read below the reply from DGW:

"The answer to your question the Pedersoli Jaeger rifles is NO. The Jaeger - is not patterned after a specific original gun, rather it was basically designed by the people here at Dixie Gun Works to be a moderate twist, short barreled hunting gun for those who hunt whitetail in areas such as our southeastern U.S. brush country.

The unusual 1:24 twist was decided upon so that hunters could use both lubed bullets AND patched round balls...and with a little judicious testing by the shooter, it WILL shoot both, no matter what you might have read, or what the prevailing thoughts on the subject might be.

As for authenticity, YES, the Jaeger meets all the criteria for LOOKING LIKE an early American, copy of the authentic Jaeger...the German hunting rifle of the 19th century. As you know, gunmakers of this period used their own thoughts to produce guns of a particular STYLE, but with their own characteristics. So...

Best to you,

Sharon Cunningham
Marketing Manager
Dixie Gun Works, Inc.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I shouldn't . . . I shouldn't . . . I shouldn't . . . But!

The answer to your question the Pedersoli Jaeger rifles is NO. The Jaeger - is not patterned after a specific original gun, rather it was basically designed by the people here at Dixie Gun Works to be a moderate twist, short barreled hunting gun for those who hunt whitetail in areas such as our southeastern U.S. brush country.

Translation: "The guy in the mailroom liked the short barrel on his Knight and we saw a marketing opportunity".

The unusual 1:24 twist was decided upon so that hunters could use both lubed bullets AND patched round balls...and with a little judicious testing by the shooter, it WILL shoot both, no matter what you might have read, or what the prevailing thoughts on the subject might be.

Translation: "The manufacturer wanted $7 more for a longer barrel with different twist. Everyone's buying conicals now anyway. It must be you if your round balls pattern like a pothole splash".

As for authenticity, YES, the Jaeger meets all the criteria for LOOKING LIKE an early American, copy of the authentic Jaeger...the German hunting rifle of the 19th century. As you know, gunmakers of this period used their own thoughts to produce guns of a particular STYLE, but with their own characteristics.

"Meets all the criteria for looking like"? Is that newspeak for "It looks like" or is that some end-run for "the wavelengths for certain materials in the construction are absorbed at similar rates to wavelengths absorbed by true Jaegers". Which year, or decade even? They're still making guns for hunters in Germany, so technically a HK SLB 2000 is a "J

 

[Tahquamenon]

Obviously I should not have either. Thanks for picking things apart. :applause:

I figured that some folks might be interested, especially folks that might consider these for re-enacting and the like. Dixie confirms that they did not intend for this to be an period correct re-enactment ML.

No skin off my ashtabula. ::

 

[Stumpkiller]

http://www.culturalresources.com/MP_Muir49.html

Here's another fun exercise to try at home, kids. Try and stick a pin in "Germany" in either the 1795 or 1807 maps at this site.

"Germany" or even "Deutschland" did not exist as a single unity until 1871. Prior to that it was a collection of semi-hostile states, territories, kingdoms, etc. loosly held as the Holy Romam Empire, with Prussia and Austria vying for the first spot throughout the colonization of the Americas up to our Revolution.

http://www.imperialcollegeofprincesandcounts.com/

I guess I'll have to concede before Claude runs out of disk space. J

 

[tg]

Well Stumpkiller I did not repeat the quote about authenticity, but she did have a healthy mouthfull of mush in that paragraph... It is authentic but is not a replica, but is representitive of the early hunting guns but is 19th century influenced ...and who's on first ..no thats second base...

 

[mike alexandre]

A heathly mouthfull of mush - sounds a bit sexist - but what woman hasnt. Apologies to the other half of womanhood.

 

[pcrum]

I used to think I had great metal, (still do) and "some" skill at wood, as far as shaping it. I got the kit from TOW, and wound up over my head, and had to send it to a rifle maker to rescue it, and me from disaster. I'm convinced now that I have no rifle-making skills.

But I also now have a fine .61 calibre Jeager that still makes me whisper "wow" everytime I pick it up.

Previously, I had built a Brown Bess carbine kit from a Pedersoli kit, and it turned out great. But it was a pre-assembled, (for the most part) "in the white" kit.

The TOW kit definately takes some real skill, and again was over my head. It's not a kit rifle in the same sense that an "in the white", or pre-assembled rifle kit is.

If you can find a maker who will take your kit, and make you an "in the white" rifle, you can save some bucks, wind up with a really nice rifle, and still take pride in doing the finishing work.

Whether you do that, or just have a maker build the rifle from the kit for you, it's worth every single penny in the long run.

At any rate, the SECOND you discover you are in over your head with a TOTW kit, GET HELP! ADMIT DEFEAT!! I have a friend that would not give up on a Hawken kit he had. He made a butt-ugly rifle that he hated, and then finally gave it away. !! That had to be a heart breaker, not to mention the money down the drain. I came close to doing that with my Jaeger.

Rat.

I second the notion, I started on my TOTW Jager kit a while back. I'm still waiting on some major parts (Barrel and Lock! :curse, so I'm currently limited to cleaning up and shaping the brass and iron parts. One thing I started to tackle was the buttplate inletting. It was sort of half inlet, but required a lot of skill to inlet properly. For those of you not familiar with the TOTW jager kit, it has some really nice but hard to inlet parts such as this, which are asymmetrical, and have to be inlet from the top down rather than from the butt in. Add the curvature of the actual plate, and It wasn't long till I realized that I was beyond my skill/experience. Since this is a once or twice in a lifetime thing for me, and I want something my grandkids will be proud of (don't have any yet- I'm not that old ::, but you get the point) I decided that this would be best left to the experts. For a small sum I sent it off to Alan Adolphensen http://www.midcoast.com/~adolglen/guns/ who inlet the part for me. I'm absolutely confident that I can do the rest myself.
That said, I'm crossing my fingers as I type,(that's a skill on it's own!) I have no experience with Alan, but on conversation and his representation on the website, I felt confident that he will do a good job. He e-mailed me last night and said that the stock will be headed my way today. I'll know in a couple days what his work is like.
Now, If I could just get that barrel and lock!!!! :curse:
The lock is supposed to be here around the end of this month, the barrel is slated for "summer delivery."

And back on subject, I thought long and hard about getting the Dixie/Pedersoli Jager, but eventually decided on the more authentic TOTW kit. (Thanks J. James/Jagermeister, and others! :thumbsup I'm into it around a grand (or so the wife thinks!!,) but that isn't much more that I would have ended up spending on the Dixie one, and I think I'll be much happier with the end product!
Cheers,

 

[Bob J]

BTW, I just posted a custom .50 Jaeger for sale on the Classifieds section.