New guy with questions

[JiminTexas]

Is it correct to say that the bore of a pistol is measured from groove to grove, as opposed to from land to groove or land to land? Is the correct ball size for a pistol the land to land measurement? Is the proper patch thickness for a pistol the size that fills the diference between the bore size (measured groove to groove) and the ball size (measured land to land)? If all of the above is as I think it is, is there any reason that I couldn't have my 12 mm smoothbore flintlock rebored and rifled to 50 cal.? 12 mm is .472, so the boring would be hardly more than a truing up of the bore and then cut some grooves in it leaving the lands for a .015 patch. I know what you are thinking, why not just rebarrel it, but it has some really nice engraving that at first I though was rolled on, but after a closer inspection after a thotough cleaning and verification by a gunsmith, we determined are all hand cut. The engraving alone is worth four times what I paid for it, so I'd kind of like to keep it. Anyway, is this just a brain fart or is there any merit in what I'm asking about?

 

Barrels are measured land to land. If your pistol is .472 then a .454 or .460 would work with a .15 to .20 patch. You may have to get a custom mold for it but that would be cheaper than reboring the pistol. It being a pistol I would start with 15-20 grains of FFFG powder, and work up a load from there. Being a flint gun you need to use real black powder, as the synthetics don't work in flint. Pictures would be cool also.
Bill

 

[JiminTexas]

Thanks for the response. Yes a .454 ball with a .010 patch is what I'mk starting with. I'll probably just leave the barrel as it is for a while anyway. I dopn't really believe that there is a lot of inherent accuracy to be gotten from this pistol without completely rebuildig it anyway and I just like the way it looks right now. Here are the pictures that you asked for.[url] http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0193.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0194.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0195.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0196.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0197.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0198.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0199.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0200.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0201.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0202.jpg http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0203.jpg[/url]

This last one shows the part of this pistol that concerns me the most. [url] http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p155/JiminTexas/DSCF0204.jpg[/url]
Note that the pistol is at half **** and the frizzen is down all the way, but there is no room for the flint in there. That means that I have to keep the pistol unprimed all of the time because with the flint, any flint, in the **** the pan is pushed up and the priming powder falls out. I am also not happy with the cross hatch waffle like scoring on the frizzen. I'm thinking that if I grind off the scoring and smooth up the frissen and then re-harden it, while it is red/white hot I can bend the frizzen up slightly, making it a little more vertical. I could then compensate for this by filing the bottom of the **** so that the flint had a slight downward angle. That should give me more room for the flint to protrude out of the **** and get rid of the crosshatching that eats up flints like popcorn. Is there an easier way of doing this without spending the Aga Khan fortune, or am I just completely off base?

 

[Flintandsteel]

Jim,

Have you put a flint in that pistol and tried to fire it?

While someone has spent an incredible amount of time and talent to extensively decorate this piece. ( and pretty well done at that), the geometry of the whole lock just looks wrong. You know,.... the old silk purse/sow's ear thing.

Before I spent a whole lot more time and money on it, I'd check out the mechanics. If it doesn't fire fast and consistently...... it just might be a wall hanger.

The types of modifications you're talking about doing are not cheap. But I'm afraid you will spend more on the barrel and the lock than a brand new custom pistol might cost.

I can see why you might be tempted though.

Good luck

 

[renovato]

That's some exceptional engraving! Why not keep it a smoothbore? Having it rifled is going to be costly, especially if you need to have the lock reworked also. Smoothbores can be pretty accurate when you find the right load for them. If you need more accuracy, you might look into adding another pistol to your stable.

 

[JiminTexas]

You are probabloy right. What I'm trying to do is compensate for an inherent design flaw in the lock. The root cause of the lock problem is that the **** is built too close to the frizzen. If I could re-set the halfcock point re-filing or replacing or reforming swomething internally, that would satisfy me. And, like I said in previous post, I'll probably leave it as a smoothbore. I don't think that it is going to be a threat to win any olympic medals, especially in the rapid fire events :haha: . It just bothers me that the pistol can't be carried primed and inh the halof **** position. But after all is said and donefor $250. I think that it's a bargain. It does what that sort of pistol waqs meant to do. It looks good and successfuly converts FFFFg into smoke and noise.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I would suggest that you get a shorter **** for that lock, so that there is room for a flint in the jaws of the **** when the frizzen is down. The flint should strike the frizzen about 2/3 of the way up from the pan, and scrape down on a 60% angle. The **** shown is too tall, and the **** and frizzen are set too close together. Someone made this lock from an old movie picture, or prop gun, and not based on any working gun I have seen. I would not be surprised if they intended this to be mounted on a wall, and never shot at all. We had some of that kind of thing floating around the USA back in the late 1950s and 60s, but when import regulations were changed in the 1968 gun control act, the European exporters of this junk decided that the regs. would require they spend too much money, unless they sold the guns to be shot. Contact Dixie Gunworks, and see if you can find a replacement **** from them that will fit those lock dimensions.

 

[CrackStock]

Paul gives one very good solution. Another would be to look at replacing the tumbler so that the half **** and cocked positions are further rearward.

There are people here who could do that work, I am sure.

Is it possible to see the lock internals in cocked, half **** and rest positions?

CS

 

[BLAHMAN]

I think if I were to try a solution to this puzzle would be to remove the frizzen, lock it up into a vise, take an oxy-acytelene torch with a small brazzing tip anf gently heat the frizzen where it meets the base and bend it ever so gently.

Doing this would mean to reharden the frizzen, but I think it could work.

 

[don getz]

Someone must have had a lot of extra time on their hands. Kind of compares to someone doing a super engraving job on a Mossberg, trying to make
it look like a Perazzi....Don

 

[JiminTexas]

The frizzen will have to be rehardened no matter what I do because I'm going to have to grind off the waffle shaped cuts in the face of the frizzsen. It's eating up flints like popcorn. If I bend the frizszen forward the flint will be contacting the frizzen at nearly a perfect right angle and that can't be good for flint life either. I'm thinking now that if I make a cut in the front edge of the hammer righ at where the hole is drilled through it and then bend the hammer down to close up that cut and re-weld it, it will give be enough clearance for a flint. I think that there is enough room to do this. If you notice the hammer touches the frizzen at a point well above the recommendd 2/3rds point and witht he flint in it, the flint touches the frizzen at the very top, so I may kill two stones with one bird here (or something like that :winking: