My 1756 Long Land Pattern Kit - TRS

[FlinterNick]

Hello,

This is my first post in these forums, and I am a novice with BB and flintlocks. I have always wanted to own a realistic reproduction and did some research. I ultimately decided to go with what I could understand being the most historically accurate kit out there which is the one from The Rifle Shop. I was lucky because they had the 1756 pattern in stock and received it in 2 weeks! Now that being said I have been spending much time reading, looking at videos and ordering tools! Again, I am a novice at this, and you may be wondering why did I purchase such a kit which seems a little more involved than other options? No worries I ask myself the same question! I must also add that I have purchased the entire set of Kit Ravenshear's books and the good old Brown Bess book for reference. I also bought the Ravenshear's Brown Bess plans which should be full size but did not validate that yet.
That being said, I am in no hurry and intend to take this build one step at the time and learn as I go along.
The major worry I had with this kit was the lock assembly and as you probably already know, TRS does not do assemblies at the moment. They did say that they could have heat treated the lock pieces for me and drill the lock plate for the correct geometry. That is a great help, but they also mentioned that I needed first to:
- Inlet the barrel
- Inlet the lock plate with screws including facing the lock.

Now at first, I thought "not too bad", but then I started to think about all of the things that need to be done in order to reach this point.
From what I can figure out I need to do the following more or less in order:

1. Inlet the barrel without the breech plug. This is throwing me off a little because I would assume "facing the lock" would have an impact on the inletting of the barrel. So do I face the lock beforehand? Also do you straighten the barrel on both sides or just on the lock side. Looking at pictures of the originals it seems as if the barrel was faced on both sides (Or maybe my eyes are pulling a trick on me!).
2. Install the breech plug. This seems simple but I yet have to run by a definitive answer about lubricating the plug. How do you install the breech plug? Do you use an anti-seize like blue. I saw a video of one guy building a rifle and used Copper grease so I bought that. But it would be great to know what you guys used on a Brown Bess kit to fix the plug.
3. Inlet the barrel with the breech plug. Kind of straight forward if you can get it right. However, I do have a couple of questions:
   1. Is there any tapering (filing) that needs to be applied to the bolster or do I just leave it straight?
   2. Do you bend the tang do the curvature of the stock like I have seen done on rifles or do you keep it straight and then just file the excess at the end of the tang. The Brown Bess book seems to show fairly deeply filed tangs. Uncertain if they were bent.
4. Face the lock. This one is tricky. do you start at the breech and straighten forward? Is there a measurement of how long the facing needs to be? Or is this just "enough" to allow for the pan to fit straight against the barrel?
5. Drill the holes for the lock plate. This means through the plate, wood, and what I did not realize initially also through the breech plug bolster!!
6. Solder the barrel lugs. Not sure this is necessary for the initial step but at some point I will need to solder the bottom lugs. Does anyone know at which distances from the breech for the 1756 pattern?

Guys I know this is a lot of details I am requesting but as you most certainly already know this is just a few steps in the beginning!
I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me with any information that could help my journey. If this is productive I will update you on this thread as the project proceeds.

Thanks,
Patrick

I would make sure the breech plug is installed before i start fitting it to the stock, the breech plug should be a pretty close fit to the barrel from the rifle shoppe too, not much work should be needed to do, occasionally on some of their muskets the plugs are a little longer, but they’re pretty good about it.

Once the breech face interfaces with the bore and the tang is a snug fit and there are not naked threads in the breech then you’re all set to witness mark it.

I use dykem layout Blue to find the hight spots on the plug and tang.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Patrick,
I am starting a thread under "Gun Builder's Bench" about making a pattern 1756 from TRS parts. I started it a little earlier than I planned so it could help you with your project.

dave

 

[patrickhatton]

Hi Patrick,
I am starting a thread under "Gun Builder's Bench" about making a pattern 1756 from TRS parts. I started it a little earlier than I planned so it could help you with your project.

dave

Thanks Dave! This is great news. I will be following closely!

 

[3Setters]

The books I was referring to are the Kentucky Rifle building books.
Recreating the American Longrifle
The Gunsmith of Grenville County
The Art of the Pennsylvania Longrifle (Dixon’s book)

Which of these books would you recommend the most for a first time kit builder. Hope to starton my trade gun early January after my kitchen remodeling is finished.

 

[patrickhatton]

Per De Witt Bailey the barrel lugs are 11 15/16”, 20 15/16” & 39 13/16” from the breech, the swivel lug is 31 13/16” from the same.

Thanks! That what I also read I have just received that book in the mail!

 

[hawkenhunter50]

Which of these books would you recommend the most for a first time kit builder. Hope to starton my trade gun early January after my kitchen remodeling is finished.

Dixon's book is the simplest to understand from a rookie point of view. Gives the basics that will get you going. The other 2 have a lot more detail but can be a little overwhelming at first. Once you start learning and understanding everything, the extra info in them is valuable. If you can afford it I'd get all 3, they are all worth reading. If I could only have 1 I would probably choose Recreating the American Longrifle.

 

[54ball]

Which of these books would you recommend the most for a first time kit builder. Hope to starton my trade gun early January after my kitchen remodeling is finished.

Dixon's book is the simplest to understand from a rookie point of view. Gives the basics that will get you going. The other 2 have a lot more detail but can be a little overwhelming at first. Once you start learning and understanding everything, the extra info in them is valuable. If you can afford it I'd get all 3, they are all worth reading. If I could only have 1 I would probably choose Recreating the American Longrifle.

I agree if getting one book, Get Recreating the American Longrifle.
Grenville County is a good book. I poke fun at Alexander’s writing style as I say “It’s written in Canadian. “
Grenville tends to be wordy but Alexander goes into detail, sometimes too much detail. So it takes several reads “To get it” or understand what he is trying to say.

By far the best teacher is experience. If you can, take a class under a builder. Many are offered throughput the country. Most are East of the Mississippi.

 

[bjarard]

Just finished a TRS 1742 model...with a little help on a half-cock issue.

1. Inlet the barrel without the breech plug. looks like you are past this already.
2. Install the breech plug. I used brownells anti sieze...but that is not the issue with install. You need to make sure you get a tight fit on the plug face to the internal barrel shoulder. There should be inletting color all the way around the plug face. Don't go off what TRS sends you...you have to check this and most likely will need some fitting. Once fitted...polish plug face shiny bright.
3. Inlet the barrel with the breech plug.
   1. taper all the edges of the tang...make sure you trace your inletting outline with a sharp knife to these smaller dimensions...you'll get a nice fit. You will need to bend the tang slightly to fit the curve...but that will only go so far. You'll be filing the tang down to match the wood.
4. Face the lock. I fit the lock till it was tight to the barrel.
5. Drill the holes for the lock plate. YOu may find that it does not go through where you will need to drill a hole. Mine only intersected a small portion and I just used a round file to open an area to allow the bolt to go through. I did make a mistake on the top bolt. I used the hole as a guide to actually drill the bolt hole...mistake. It wandered and came out the top. I had this fixed(welded the hole...redrilled...polished). I should have just run the bold down with some inletting black ...seen where it touched and then drilled the plate hole outside of the gun on the drill press. Live and learn. The other hole came out fine.
6. Solder the barrel lugs. There are others that might know more but I used the TOW large 1742 instruction sheet with full size pictures. It showed where the pins go. I cant imagine they'd be that different. Actually...the soldering...pin drilling was probably the easiest part of the build. I have a fence on the DP. I set the fence with the bit in so the bit would hit exactly where I wanted on the lug. When barrel installed I just put the barrel against the fense and drilled...hit right were it was supposed to. Just make sure you get the lugs well inletted.