Greetings and gimme some ideas!

[Shelby Skinner]

I'm a newbie to these forums but not a newbie to BP guns or flinters. My name is Jeff and I'm from the area around Louisville KY. I made my first BP gun from a CVA kit over 30 years ago and have been shooting and hunting with flintlocks and caplocks (though not exclusively) for as long. I've shot modern HP service rifle and shoot in master class. I've won a state championship when I lived out west in New Mexico and when I was in the service shot on the Army skeet team and was the Armed forces champion in A class for a couple of years.
Never have competed with a BP gun though...

My current go to front stuffer is a .50 Cal Southern poor boy flintlock rifle I made from a stock blank, Green River barrel and Siler Lock about 15 years ago.
I hand forged the trigger guard and ramrod thimbles myself. Its taken a deer just about every black powder season since I finished it.

Recently I've become enamored with the concept of a smooth bore gun and today the Big Brown truck of happiness delivered a TOW Fusil-de-Chasse kit with a 44" 20 gauge Colerain smooth bore barrel. I decided on a walnut stock and steel furniture. Though I opted for a steel Fusil-fin side plate (with the scroll work).

My thoughts on this gun are to do a traditional rust blue instead of brown. I also think the RE Davis lock as it came lock needs a lot of tuning.

Anyone have any comments about the gun or ideas for this kit? I also picked up Russel Bouchard's book "The Fusil de Tulle in New France 1691-1741"

Also need recommendations for some wood rasps (source, size and grade) since mine were lost in a divorce. I have an awesome set of chisels and some medium and coarse Habilis file sets along with some gunsmith in-letting/bottoming files. and a spring vise. I also have a drill press with a full index and good set of taps, a good heavy bench vise and some old in-letting black.

I had TOW go ahead and solder the lugs and front sight and the Colerain barrel came with the breech pin installed.

Expect I won't be in a position to finish the metal until April which is just as well since it will need to be a little warmer and more humid for a good rust blue to take. Plus, who wants to boil rusty parts outside in the snow? :winking:

All thoughts/comments/ideas appreciated.

 

[Doc Arroyo]

Also need recommendations for some wood rasps (source, size and grade)

Welcome!

Personally I have been useing Microplanes and an old sureform instead of traditional rasps. try Woodcraft or Microplane woodworking

 

[tg]

That gun parts set is a good one, I put one together a couple of years ago, the barrel would not have been blued or browned on the originals but left in the white and polished to some degree depending on the grade of gun, the lock does need some cosmetic work there should be some pics in the archives of the lock I re-worked. the book you have is a good one to go by, the barrel should also have a short section of 16 sides before the round section which is an easy fix, the plans for the gun if you got them are not realy very good for this gun use the book you have for the number of screws on the buttplate and tg and other details, enjoy the project, there are many others here with a great deal of knowledge about these guns and building them I am certain more will chime in.

 

[Shelby Skinner]

That gun parts set is a good one, I put one together a couple of years ago, the barrel would not have been blued or browned on the originals but left in the white and polished to some degree depending on the grade of gun, the lock does need some cosmetic work there should be some pics in the archives of the lock I re-worked. the book you have is a good one to go by, the barrel should also have a short section of 16 sides before the round section which is an easy fix, the plans for the gun if you got them are not realy very good for this gun use the book you have for the number of screws on the buttplate and tg and other details, enjoy the project, there are many others here with a great deal of knowledge about these guns and building them I am certain more will chime in.

I was wondering about the finish. I couldn't find a reference to metal finish in the Bouchard book.
But since the Tulle factory made so many military contract arms for the king of France it seems fairly decent to assume they finished the Fusil-de-chasse metal armory bright as was the custom for military arms of the day.

Do you know any good places to read up on tuning the lock. When I built my poor boy flinter I got a real Siler built/tuned lock directly from old man Siler at Friendship before he sold out to Jim Chambers and its a FAST lock. This was back in the 80's of course...and it took me over 10 years to put that lock to use...

I also learned that most of the original Fusil-de-chasse hunting guns were 28 guage. While most of the Tulle military contract guns were 18 guage.

WHile this is a hunting gun its much beefier than a Pennsylvania rifle or a southern poor boy. Not as meaty as a Brown Bess but its got some heft to it in the buttstock and wrist!

 

[Shelby Skinner]

Also need recommendations for some wood rasps (source, size and grade)

Welcome!

Personally I have been useing Microplanes and an old sureform instead of traditional rasps. try Woodcraft or Microplane woodworking

Thanks Doc,
I've not seen the Micro-plane rasps before. I have used to old Stanley Surefoam (SP?) rasps in the past for rough shaping the stock but found you have to be careful as they have a tendency to create tiny chips or in some case gouges. How do the micro-planes seem to work?" They seem relatively reasonably priced...

 

[paulvallandigham]

The micro planes address all the concerns you have with the soreforms. YOu will like them.

As to browning, why not simply heat the barrel with a propane torch and then swap on the browning compound. It works beautifully, gets the job done in hours rather than days and weeks, and you are ready to go. I used B/C Plum Brown to brown a shotgun and I was done in a couple of days taking my time, and only working in the evenings after finishing work. I did use the good morning light to check the finish carefully, and after the first application, found some bare spots, and a couple of streaks where the steel had chromium, or some other trace metal in the surface that did not want to brown. I heated those areas hotter, and swabbed on more browning solution until it took. I did a third application just to be sure, but it frankly was not necessary. I used WD 40 to cool the barrel down when I finished putting on finish over the entire surfaces of the barrels. It sizzled, steamed, and smelled bad, but it help produce a rich, dark brown finish and I still draw comments and looks to that gun whenever I take it out at the club. The stock is aweful, but everyone wants to know where I got that dark chocolate brown color to my barrels, hammers, and lock plates.

 

[Shelby Skinner]

Paul,
I've used BC Plum brown before--actually on my first gun. It works as you describe. I think, though that if I decide to color the metal it will be with a rust blue just because.
On my southern poor boy I just used the Laurel Mountain stuff and left the parts hanging on coat hangers on the back porch of the cabin. Some days it only took a day sometimes it took a couple-a-three days. No hurries.
From what I've read more guns were blued in the period from 1770 and earlier than browned. Browning didn't really become fashionable until the after the Revolution. Certainly many guns became brown over the last two centuries mainly because they rusted.
The Fusil-de-Chasse dates from a much earlier time period. So in my mind I'm thinking either Armory bright (but maybe "aged") or traditional rust blue...which really works exactly like browning except you boil the parts for a little while between applications and cardings.
I think the B/C Plum Brown is a dandy product and you are right it does make a deep chestnut brown. I'll probably stay away from the B/C product with the Fusil mainly because the lugs are soft soldered to the barrel and heating with a torch might cause them to come "unglued".

Thanks for the suggestion though!

 

[BillinOregon]

Shelby: I'll be watching your progress, as I just ordered a plain-Jane Tulle fusil de chasse kit today from Pecatonica. Mine will have the L&R lock and a plain maple stock, neither of which is correct. But I am more interested in finishing a good, durable hunting weapon that is evocative of the time and design than a truly period correct piece. Think I will try to age my otherwise bright finished parts to dull the shine a bit. You're right about bluing being more correct for the period of the fusils than browning.

 

[George Holton]

:hatsoff: Paul, Welcome to our happy band of under achievers. If we were over achievers we would be dangerous ! Sounds like you are ready to go. Microplanes are super. the fact that you can do your own work and need not depend on kits and such,makes you better able to handle the good stuff. Welcome Bob

 

[paulvallandigham]

I did a double barrel with soft soldered ribs between the barrels, and found no such problem. For the gun you are making, using a blued finish rhat than a brown, makes sense. You could also knock down the bright finish with any light acid to get a Patina, and just leave the gun well oiled and let the patina darken with age.

Solder melts at about twice the boiling point of water, and if you get the metal hot enough that drops of water sizzle, its good enough to take the browning solution. The nice think about using a propane torch is that the flame is directed to a relatively small area, and that sweeping it across 4-6 inches of one flat, or a 1/4 arc of a round barrel at a time and then swabbing on the browing compound is a nice slow way to heat the area where you are working, while leaving the rest of the barrel to cool.

If you dunked the whole barrel into a hot vat, you would heat the entire barrel at once, and lose any margin for error you might otherwise have concerning those solder joints. I have known more than one gunsmith cuss over the problems of blueing the barrels on a double barreled shotgun, or other barrel with soldered sights.

 

[tg]

"I also learned that most of the original Fusil-de-chasse hunting guns were 28 guage. While most of the Tulle military contract guns were 18 guage'

the French hunting guns had quite a leeway in bore size and still be classified as a gun of 28 balls to the lb (French livre for these guns) this translates unto a gun that shot a ball of about .562 and had a bore size from .577 thru .623 or there abouts so a bore of what we call 20 gauge or 24 guage would both be correct, I went with the smaler bore as I already had a .62 smoothrifle, I did not tune the internal works of the lock as I wanted a lock with a little stiffer trigger than most use today to closer duplicate what would have been around in the past, I only cleaned up the external appearance, there are some guys here with a lot more depth of knowledge than I on these French guns who will likely post as time goes on. Another good (cheap) book you may want is (Colonial Frontier Guns) by Hamilton it has a lot of info on these guns and is usually under 20 bucks.

 

Tried to give you a direct link, but couldn't get it to work, but if you google "muzzleloading mail list" and then go to their FAQ's there is a session on lock tuning.

Bill

Aspire to inspire before you Expire

 

[renovato]

Shelby, I live in a dry climate so I had to find a way to rust metal reliably. I stuck a cold mist humidifier and a small 300 watt electric heater in a spare closet. Wow, that works great! You can also use the bathroom and run a hot shower for humidity, but it's not as controllable.

Welcome aboard!