Jaeger project rifle...

[rickystl]

Great job of restoration!! :bow: And that it turned out to be a good shooter is an added plus! There is always that little something extra you get shooting an original. Congrats!! And thanks for posting your progress. Rick. :hatsoff:

 

[Rifleman1776]

I'm with you. Keeping the original and doing what you did with the replacement forend was, IMHO, the correct move. It may not look perzactly like the rifle looked brand new but what it is today is all part of the story of it's life. Looks just fine and will be a proud piece for you to own and use. Very interesting rifle and is a shooter to boot. Congrats on a good find and skilled rebuild. :applause:

 

[bpd303]

Thanks to everyone for the comments. I think the work is finished by making the patch box cover. I used a piece of walnut that I cut off the cheek piece from another rifle years ago. A lot of file work & sanding for my first cover.

I left some marks on it to go with the use marks on the original.

I made the latch out of a broken hacksaw blade & soldered the catch to it. I'll darken the inside to match the inside of the stock. It is two piece BTW.

 

[Rifleman1776]

:thumbsup: :applause:

 

[bpd303]

I have a correction on the twist rate. It is 1:28 must have been tired when I posted that it was 1:14 sorry for any confusion.

 

[Heelerau]

Mate, you have done a fine job of cleaning up that rifle. Looks like it is going to be a real tack driver! that would have been quite a surprise. Often wonder how a quality rifle like that finished up in such a state before you got it.

Well done !

cheers
Heelerau :thumbsup:

 

[Bob J]

BPD303, you did a beautiful job with the old jeager! I would have never guessed that it would shoot so well. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[84bronze]

The first thing I had to do, was figure out how much powder would fill the chamber to come up to the top of the pillar in the breech. Started with 40gr of Goex ffg then dropped the ramrod down & got a metallic click when it hit the exposed pillar. Then set the measure to 5gr and added powder til I got a soft feel of powder then, wet the end of the rod with my tongue to pick up a few grains of powder. 70gr did it.

So figuring out the volumn to the top of the pillar puts you really close to amount of powder the barrel likes to shoot? Seems like it put you at optimum load just by a little tongue measure.

 

[84bronze]

Really nice job on the rifle!

 

[84bronze]

"figure out how much powder would fill the chamber to come up to the top of the pillar in the breech."

I've been trying to figure out what the term pillar is in reference to breach on a ml? I 've seen pillar bedding but being new to ml's I can't find any info. Thanks

 

[bpd303]

It is a breech with a post/pillar in the center of the chamber. Called a Thouvein Tige pillar breech. Mostly for hollow base conicals. Number 2 in the illustration here. http://www.davide-pedersoli.com/ri...he-19th-century-concal-bullet-revolution.html

Thanks to everyone for the attaboys.

 

[84bronze]

Thanks for the info. That's different from all the beach plugs I've seen.

 

[Zonie]

It was an idea that came and went. Not a very good solution to the problem of expanding a loose bullet after it is loaded into a muzzleloader.

 

[84bronze]

Looks fairly complicated for a simple muzzleloader. Sort of a permanent cartridge without a way to clean easily, especially black powder. I suppose there are lots of idea that seem to work great in theory!

Q: Does that mean this is an original or do they make reproduction of this breach plug? I don't see these on sites selling breach plugs.

 

[bpd303]

This one is an original. In my 50+ years of working/tinkering with muzzleloaders, it's the first one I have seen (other than photos).

The interesting thing about it that I found is once the proper amount of powder was found, it is impossible to over compress the powder, which may have something to do with the accuracy of the rifle.

 

[84bronze]

So this was a really good find in more ways than one. I can see why you cleaned it up as you did. Neat piece of history.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

At first that sort of breech was to give a round ball something to be smashed against to swell it up to bore size. Easier load and tight fit by bumping the ball against the pillar.

Have you looked up the gun smith? Wriezen is a town near Brandenburg Germany.

 

[bpd303]

I did a google search but did not find any Krueger name associated with gunsmith. Seems Wilh: is an abbreviation for Wilhelm (male) & Wilhelmina (female). I found about 6 Wilh Krueger names (male) immigrating from Germany/Prussia but all were listed as farmers in the 1850s-1870s.

I did find this but wrong first initial. http://archive.org/stream/gunmaker00satt/gunmaker00satt_djvu.txt

KRUEGER, H.”” 10 South 2nd St., Minneapolis, Minn., 1877-80.

I sure would like to know more on the history of this gun & maker.

 

[84bronze]

Have you looked up the gun smith? Wriezen is a town near Brandenburg Germany.

Not yet, I'll see what I can find also. thanks

 

[bpd303]

The last thing I had to do was fabricate a safety for it. I had no idea what one would look like and searching for pictures did not find any for the back action lock.

Thanks to Dusty Texian on another thread, I finally had a picture.

After a little forging and much file fitting my Jaeger has a replica of the Goellner Stalking Safety. The hardest part was finding a screw with the correct threads, but my large collection of screws came through. It works like a charm.