LYMAN GPR Users Unite and tell us your story

[UndeadPoet]

Well, it is official…Black Powder Maniac Shooter, Mark’s GPR is a tack driver.

Good video, Mark! I guess the value of your rifle just went up by hundreds of dollars. LOL

‘Poet

 

[Y2GREY]

I have a matched set aid .54 GPRs. One is in the blue as most are the other is in brown. Both are flintlocks. I’ve never fired the blue and don’t plan on keeping it. The GPR is a lot lighter than my JBMR. I’m planning to take the Browning out to .58

 

[Stykbow]

I have a matched set aid .54 GPRs. One is in the blue as most are the other is in brown. Both are flintlocks. I’ve never fired the blue and don’t plan on keeping it. The GPR is a lot lighter than my JBMR. I’m planning to take the Browning out to .58

Let’s see a pic!

 

[Y2GREY]

Let’s see a pic!

The Browning is on the bottom

 

[Stykbow]

Yep, just as I suspected. I like them all!

 

[Y2GREY]

Yep, just as I suspected. I like them all!

The Brownings were completely American made big bucks back in the day probably why they didn’t sell many but they set the factory produced standard for fit finish and performance but god they are heavy. I paid $300 for mine 2 years ago. It’s a .50 and was a never shot wall hanger so it’s got a few dings. Really shoots well…

 

[Loja man]

So I’m jumping in because I should have one headed my way in the next few days!! Would love to know what you all have done about improving the sights on yours. Pics would be great! I have read they are maybe a little chunky???

 

[deerstalkert]

i'll limp in too. i don't have a complete GPR but i did just acquire a .54 unfired flint barrel for one. if i live long enough to finish the fowler i am working on, my next project will be a Hawken built from the Hawken Shop plans, and built around this barrel.
am contemplating defarbing it. what do you all think?

 

[Stykbow]

@Loja man I ended up leaving the factory, adjustable buckhorn on mine. I was on the fence about it, but after I got used to it I’m all good. I did paint the back of the front blade with brite pink nail polish so I could see it better. Front blade is a bit thick.
@deerstalkert I know nothing about flint guns, but if your barrel is like mine it should shoot pretty well.

 

[nkbj]

Only GPR's I have right now are left hands, a .54 flinter and .40 bore percussion. Oh, yeah, and a .54 GPH barrel that might get a liner to a smaller caliber. Being full length to the original factory barrel the .40 bore is heavy, just about to the limit of what I care to shoot with. That said, the .54 GPH barrel might be better taken out to smooth bore, a .55 or .56 using 9/16" shot cards interchangeable with .535 patched ball.

 

[Loja man]

@Loja man I ended up leaving the factory, adjustable buckhorn on mine. I was on the fence about, but after I got used to it I’m all good. I did paint the back of the front blade with brute pink nail polish so I could see it better. Front blade is a bit thick.
@deerstalkert I know nothing about flint guns, but if your barrel is like mine it should shoot pretty well.

Thanks Skybow,
As I have yet to see them in person I am just going off of what I have read. I just remembered how chuncky my TC New Englander factory sites were. I’m going to wait and see how I feel about the factory sites on the GPR but would still like to see some other ideas.

 

[Stykbow]

@Loja man mine came with two sets of sights. One is the adjustable buckhorn and the other was a more primitive that you’d need to file similarly to the front. The buckhorn is of course the blockier of the two, but nothing near as bad as the old stock sights from T/C or CVA. Back a couple pages in this thread someone had posted a pic of the buckhorn.

 

[burlesontom]

So I’m jumping in because I should have one headed my way in the next few days!! Would love to know what you all have done about improving the sights on yours. Pics would be great! I have read they are maybe a little chunky???

I have a .50 cal GPR I bought from Natchez Shooters Supply way back in the mid to late 1980s. I was into building guns from kits but Natchez had the finished rifles for about $30 more than the kit and the price for the finished gun was around $250. So I bought the finished gun thinking if I didn't like it I could always take it apart and redo the finish and not have to do all the sanding on the stocks.

Turns out I really liked the job the factory did so I just left it alone. Except for two things. The first was I removed the front sight blade and thinned it to .080 in thickness and also shortened the blade so that the rear sight was just a click off the bottom. That way I had all the elevation I could get from the adjustable rear sight. Thinning the blade made a good fit in the rear sight notch.

The second thing I did was fix the slow ignition. It took me a bit to figure that one out because I had two other Investarms guns that fired instantly. I looked through the clean out screw while shining a light down the barrel. I could only see the tiniest sliver of light. So I got a drill bit that fit the clean out screw and ran it in and the bit snagged and then broke through. The factory hadn't drilled the clean out screw all the way through. Once the hole was open the ignition was as fast as my other guns.

I have shot this rifle at least 300 shots. It has been very accurate with a PRB and more than accurate enough for 100 yard deer hunting with a REAL or Minnie bullet at 100 yards. I typically use 80grs of 2F and with that load I use a firewall patch under the lubed ball patch. If shooting a 50gr target load with PRB I leave out the firewall patch. A firewall patch is like some who use hornets nest under a ball. I just use a second ball patch when using a heavier load. My fired ball patches look good enough to almost reuse.

 

[burlesontom]

Howdy fellas,
I bought my .50 caliber percussion GPR kit sometime around 1979 or 1980, don't recall for sure, and the earliest target I have from it is dated Sept., 1980. I bought it from a guy who had a table at a gun show at the National Guard Armory in Boulder, CO, the town I'm from originally. I paid $160.00 for it out the door. He told me he had to buy three in order to get a best price from his distributor, kept one for himself and was selling the other two at his cost. (Who knows if that was really true, or not!) The AE stamped on the barrel indicates it was proofed in 1979. Being my first 'kit', it took me a while to assemble and finish it up the way I wanted. I had built other stocks before for some 'unmentionables', so this stock was not my first rodeo.

I did not care for the supplied adjustable rear sight, so opted for an adjustable long classic Buck Horn. I cold blued all the metal, so it wouldn't look too good. I favored the worn look of thinning blue that resembled a patina of sorts. I cut a shadow line accent around the cheek piece and both the front and rear of the stock's side flats. I cut round bottomed accent lines all along both sides of the belly of the stock and all along both sides of the forearm just below the top edges of the barrel channel. I know that none of this is period correct, but to me at least, I could care less about that aspect of things because this is how I wanted 'mine' to look. They seemed to have real nice wood back then.

I can't tell you what it prefers to shoot because over all these years I'll bet it hasn't had much over a hundred PRBs through it. Haven't had the time to shoot any of my guns the way I'd like too, so maybe now in semi-retirement I'll find more time to devote to the sport. Great thread! Thanks for sharing!

View attachment 90559View attachment 90560View attachment 90561View attachment 90562View attachment 90563View attachment 90564View attachment 90565View attachment 90566View attachment 90567

My Gosh what a pretty rifle that is and what a nice build this poster did.

 

[S.Kenton]

This old girl has an interesting story. It’s an early Lyman GPR in 54 caliber. It has replacement sights, I’m assuming from a hawken. I got it a several years ago, traded it off, then traded back for it. It shoots amazingly well. The nose cap is pewter, wood is plain walnut, barrel is browned as is the rest of the furniture. I had thought of selling it… but now I don’t think I will. In the last photo it’s the one in the middle.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

i'll limp in too. i don't have a complete GPR but i did just acquire a .54 unfired flint barrel for one. if i live long enough to finish the fowler i am working on, my next project will be a Hawken built from the Hawken Shop plans, and built around this barrel.
am contemplating defarbing it. what do you all think?

 

[kansas_volunteer]

My gpr is a flinter from a kit. At the time I had mote money than I needed so I splurged and bought a L&R rpl look for it and deer slayer triggers which turnd out nice, But the rifle is still is a work in progress. I keep workng on the stock working IN others good ideas. I think about putting some finish on her and calling it good. I'm thinking a maple stain, which is said to give the Euopean Walnut a reddish tone to the wood.

 

[FiremanBrad]

We have 2 righty’s and one lefty, all percussion 50’s, and then a flinter in 54 that’s a kit that I really need to finish!

Some of the top shooters in the nation in 4H Muzzleloading shoot the GPR!!

 

[stevew]

Great looking rifles! Where might I find a pewter nose cap for my 54 GPR?

 

[CARIBOUPETE]

I have a Great Plains Rifle in .54. I bought it from a fellow I was stationed with in Alaska who couldn't get it to shoot straight. I put a wooden dowel down the bore and discovered that the bore was off center and pointed up. I got the rifle very cheap and later on shipped the barrel back to Lyman who recognized the problem and replaced the barrel with a new one and it shoots fine now. It's been sitting in my safe for quite a few years now since when on those rare occasions I do hunt the late Wisconsin muzzleloader season, I've been doing so with a scoped inline. Hey, I'm old and the eyes not so good!