• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

First time FL pistol build

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Goldhunter

54 Cal.
Joined
Mar 27, 2006
Messages
1,596
Reaction score
6
So after building my 2 flintlock rifles I decided I wanted to try my hand at a pistol.

I met Ryan Roberts from MBS at a winter camp/ shoot last January and talked parts, thoughts, likes/dislikes, and recommendations with him. I settled on 28ga (.54 cal) so this could be a companion piece to my Dickert rifle. I also wanted a smoothy for shot. Grouse are plentiful here and often give a close shot if you do your part. :grin:

A month or so later I contacted Ryan and ordered an 7.5” octagon to round barrel in 28ga and one of his stocks. The lock is a Chambers small siler I did a slight mod to. The trigger guard I ordered from TOTW (I think). Each build I’ve tried something new and I wanted to try my hand at making as much of this as I could. So this time I made the side plates, thimbles, barrel underlugs, trigger and plate; the trigger/ trigger plate being the parts I’ve not tried making before. :grin: Not too bad for a first go I think.

I also decided to add a cow horn tip to the rammer. I made a small front sight for this but decided at the last minute to not use it. It can be added in the future if I really need it as the barrel was cold blued (easy touchup).

I also wanted a very simple pistol. I wanted to get the shape/form down first before I tried any carving on a pistol. I found a pistol to base this one off in the book Accouterments II by James R. Johnston. The pistol was by J. Resor.

The stain is Ferric Nitrate using denatured alcohol for dissolve the crystals. A thinned sealer coat and couple thicker coats of a Seedlac violin varnish Eric Kettenburg wrote about in MuzzleBlasts years ago followed. I used this same varnish on my .50 Lehigh I made a couple years ago and liked it. The final finish is rubbed in oil (linseed I boiled myself as per a recipe I found on here somewhere I think).

Lessons learned. :cursing: I got a bit heavy handed with the scraper in a couple places and had to go back touch up the entry thimble and one of the side plates (they were now sitting a skosh proud). The varnish dries quick and it can be a bugger to knock the high spots off without damaginge the finish below so some areas don't appear as smooth as others. I need to work on a better way in the future (good thing I have somemore maple scraps). I still need to work on my soldering. It's not as clean as I'd like.

My pictures aren’t the greatest, my apologies. :wink:

Here is the original.
resorpistolbig.jpg


And mine.
2011-12-31151226-1.jpg

sideplate.jpg

noseview.jpg

tangview.jpg

thimbles.jpg


A couple I took with more sun to try to get the grain to show more.
bottomsun.jpg

viewsun.jpg

2011-12-31151428-1.jpg


Any thoughts or suggestions for next time?

Now, to take apart that horrible Traditions percussion I put together years ago and redo it. :rotf:
Thanks for looking.
 
I think ya did a EXCELLENT job. I like it. After deer season is over Im gonna get started on a flintlock pistol an you have given me a idea. Great job :thumbsup: :hatsoff:
 
Uh oh, I hope it was a good idea! :rotf:

Thanks for the kind words. I shot it today just make sure it works. I may need to enlarge the touch hole a bit, but I don't have anything smaller than a 1/16" and I'm not sure I want to go that big.

Now the fun really begins, working loads.
 
I think ya did a Great job on it. Very nice looking pistol & one I would be proud of.
For me, a 1/16" vent hole would be the minimum dia. hole for it.

Nice work. :thumbsup:

Keith Lisle
 
Goldhunter, that's really nice looking work!

I like the horn tip on the ramrod, too.

Go out and make good smoke!
 
You need a maker's mark and date on the barrel. A hundred years from now folks are gonna be wonderin' who made such a fine piece :thumbsup:
 
Birddog6 said:
I think ya did a Great job on it. Very nice looking pistol & one I would be proud of.
For me, a 1/16" vent hole would be the minimum dia. hole for it.

Nice work. :thumbsup:

Keith Lisle

Keith, I've drilled all my liners out to 1/16 on my rifles. This one has a small 1/4" liner. A 1/16 seemed big. Guess I'm over thinking it. :hmm:

Thanks for all the comments, Gents.
 
My point was, the loaded bore & the powder don't know anything but what size the hole is feeding the flash...... Doesn't matter if the barrel is 8" long or 48" long, it still needs reliable ignition...... thus give it what it needs to make it work properly & reliably, be it a rifle or a pistol. The charge doesn't know what it is loaded in... :idunno:

Keith Lisle
 
Birddog6 said:
My point was, the loaded bore & the powder don't know anything but what size the hole is feeding the flash...... Doesn't matter if the barrel is 8" long or 48" long, it still needs reliable ignition...... thus give it what it needs to make it work properly & reliably, be it a rifle or a pistol. The charge doesn't know what it is loaded in... :idunno:

Keith Lisle

Ya, I understand what you're saying.
 
Wow you did a great job. That's a nice looking pistol. Now go shoot it, and see if it earns a name!
 
Back
Top