I finally found my unicorn

[chorizo]

I have been searching for a 50 cal carbine percussion with a fast twist. I have a 24"50 Cal Traditions Frontier Carbine (in a plastic stock ..yuck..) with a 1:48 that shoots well but given my 2 gun obsession, I keep looking.

Well, I think I finally stumbled across the unicorn...it has good wood...some very nice Turkish walnut, German silver furniture, 21" barrel . It is a Ardesa Heritage Carbine with a 1:32 twist. I paid a little much for it, but as I say I am not going to die with money in my pocket so I went for it.

The bore is decent and with work it will be bright and shiny. Took some cleaning today, but there are no pits and the lands are sharp. At first I thought it had surface rust, but it turns out it is copper fouling, so I am not overly worried. The overall condition is very good with only some minor rusting around the drum on the barrel. It has a date of proof code of I*2 which means it was made in 1989..not bad for a 33 year old gun.

The seller poorly packed it in 2 pieces (barrel separate from stock) and the drum dinged the crap out of what would have been an exceptional condition stock, but I am not going to cry as it has been pre-dinged so I won't baby it in the field.

It will take some more scrubbing, a ghost ring firesight install and off to the range I will head.

For comparison purposes I have it laid out alongside my T/C 54 cal White Mountain Carbine

 

[TDM]

@chorizo that is a fine, compact, little brush rifle. You could carry that one all day.

 

[chorizo]

@chorizo that is a fine, compact, little brush rifle. You could carry that one all day.

I am a carbine fanatic. With that fast twist it should spit out the Hornady GP 385gr conical real well.

 

[TDM]

Yes it should.

 

[64Springer]

I don't care what anyone says, those Ardesa/Jukar rifles shoot well.

And never a problem with their locks failing.

Congrats!

 

[chorizo]

In all my searching, here are some following observations:

Trust, but verify bore condition. I know you all know that, but even sellers with super high ratings talk out of their butt on bore condition. Burned once, but was able to recoup my money. Told like new and advertised like new.....like hell it was!

Very few used 50 cals have decent bores, 54 cals for the most part are taken care of....something to do with experience of the gun owner I believe.

There is an inverse chance of finding a gun in good condition and finding a gun with fast twist. The early imports had 1:24; 1:32; 1:38 and because they are early guns the chances of quality bore care is greatly reduced, especially in 50 cal.

Searching for a traditional ML is becoming increasingly more difficult with all the MML out there.

 

[Brokenbear]

Nice!

Bear

 

[TDM]

Good advice. Never thought about the commonality of .50s leading to poor bores but it makes sense.

 

[ppg1949]

chorizo, very nice pair. I really like shorties. The first bp rifle I shot was a buddy’s Ardessa 54. It had the same star on its stock like yours. I might have missed something but what is the top rifle in the picture? Congrats again on a fine pair.

 

[chorizo]

I might have missed something but what is the top rifle in the picture?

T/C White Mountain Carbine 54cal. Easily weighs 1.5 lbs more

CORRECTION: 1.2 lbs weighed by scale.

 

[ppg1949]

Thanks

 

[ElkStalker]

Good find!!!!

 

[Centurion]

Don’t want to hijack this thread, so i think i need to start another one on my love for carbines.

Did i ever tell you fellas about my carbine-izing of an old Nepalese Enfield P53…?

don

 

[chorizo]

Don’t want to hijack this thread, so i think i need to start another one on my love for carbines.

Did i ever tell you fellas about my carbine-izing of an old Nepalese Enfield P53…?

don

Hijack away. To me, the carbine muzzleloader is the pinnacle of gun design for open sight hunting. As 125 yards to me is my max range with my open sights the associated loss of muzzle velocity and sight radius vs the gain in usability (weight and packability..if that is a word) the gains far outweighs the loss.

I have two that some people call carbines...26" barrels..and 2 with 24" barrels and 2 with 21" barrels 58 cal to 50 cal. I have found the shorter barrel carbines are more accurate with the faster twist with the lighter concicals I shoot. Likely more a factor of fast twist with conical, but I only have so much room to get them spinning too, so I think that helps the short barrels also. As I am primarily a hunter, they all sport Williams Ghost Ring fire sights.

Hopefully this little beauty shoots as good as it feels and looks.

 

[Whitworth]

T/C White Mountain Carbine 54cal. Easily weighs 1.5 lbs more

Wow, that's one light rifle, my White Mountain carbine comes in at 6 1/4 lbs.

 

[Centurion]

Ahh, the WMC! Found one almost new at an auction in .50 a couple of years ago and went crazy, buying it for a too-high price of $325. Don’t seem too high these days…

Almost new. Ever see what a stray piece of barbed wire will do to a stock? Never saw it coming… invisible it was!

don

 

[chorizo]

Wow, that's one light rifle, my White Mountain carbine comes in at 6 1/4 lbs.

Just weighed them. My WMC is the 54 cal, 1 In across the flats 22" barrel with a beefy stock. 6lbs 15.5 oz

The Ardesa is 15/16 across , 50 cal with a 21" barrel with a svelte stock. 5lbs 12.5oz

So not quite 1.5lbs in weight difference, rather 1.2lbs

Them damn OZ's add up! Get enough of them and you got your self a pound or two!

UPDATE: Sights are installed, barrel scrubbed some more with coarse steel wool then followed with bronze brush with bore scrubber. Cleaning up nicely. Cleanout screw was buggered badly so I couldn't get it out to replace it, so filed it smooth and at the same time draw filed the corrosion off of the barrel by the drum. Blued both areas. Threads chased on drum for nipple and musket nipple installed with anti-seize. Steamed and raised the dents and some of the gouges and repaired as best I could on the stock dings. Recoil pad was a little stiff so treated it with a special treatment for rubber gaskets on RVs and it is softening up nicely. Got some surface corrosion off of the lock and it looks new. Cleaned and greased lock. She is back to her old glory while still showing that she ain't a rookie. As a friend of mine, an old master gunsmith in Eiber Spain used to say, a "Lavada de cara". (Face wash)

Quite happy with this purchase (as long as it shoots and I see no reason it shouldn't)