My friend's H&A underhammer arrived yesterday from Blue Grouse. That is the Heritage model, still haven't seen a buggy rifle.
This rifle bears a strong resemblance to the old Hopkins & Allen of thirty years ago but has no parts in common with it. This is all new production.
Comparing it to an old H&A Heritage I noticed that the old rifles reciever appears to be a thick wall tube, smoothly bent and milled out at the bottom for hammer and trigger and with flanges brazed or silversoldered front and rear to accept barrel and stock. The new recievers are a solid cast piece, slightly smaller in diameter and with both sides flattened by milling. I think the hammer,trigger and trigger guard could be fitted to older rifles but that's just my eyeball opinion. The barrel is held to the reciever by a stub of the breech plug which slips into a hole in the front of the reciever and is bound there by three 1/4x28 screws, one from the top and one from each side. The old model used a tapered pin through the reciever and breech plug from left to right.
Blue Grouse is the distributor, they are actually made by Deer Creek Products, which also makes the barrels on the old Douglas machines. Twist is 1:66 on all calibers, .36, .45 and .50 at present. The reciever could accept barrels up to 1 1/8" across the flats.
My friend's rifle is in .36 caliber and I noticed some roughness when swabbing out the grease, so I pulled the breech plug and looking through the bore several areas show deep chatter marks on top of the lands. Whether that will be a problen, only shooting will tell.
This rifle is described as "in-the-white" but don't let that lead you to believe you need only sand, stain and oil the maple stock. You'll need a lot of rasp and file work first.
This .36 cal has a 7/8" by 32" barrel and weighs 7 3/4 pounds, maybe less than 7 1/2 once the excess wood is removed. I don't know if the .45 and .50's use a 7/8" barrel. The old H&A's were 15/16" barrels in all standard calibers plus 1 1/8" in the .45 target version and in .58 caliber.
One of the neat features of this design is that barrels can be easily interchanged. Just loosen three set screws, pull out the barrel, insert another, tighten screws and away you go. One could have a 12ga. trap gun, a squirrel rifle, a heavy bench rest gun and a light hunting rifle all for just the cost of the barrels and all of them would have the fast and reliable underhammer ignition.
This rifle came with a very good, crisp trigger which broke at a few ounces under 3 pounds. I had to do a lot of work on my old H&A to get the same trigger pull and mine is still a bit mushy.
I'm glad to see this rifle on the market. A real, all American made rifle for under $300.
Bruce Lingenfelter, who, with wife Karen, run Blue Grouse said he has heritage models, the 32" barrel, ready to ship and is just waiting for Deer Creek to run off a batch of 26" barrels for the buggy rifles. He expects that once production gets caught up he should also have barrels in various calibers available and ready to install on the customer's frame.
At present, barrels are the hold-up, since Deer Creek is also producing the new Mountain Rifle, formerly CVA, the Mowrey rifle and several others, that's a lot of barrels for a one man shop.
If you have one of the rifles it would be very simple to fit any make of barrel, although the forend would require some ingenuity since the H&A forend, new or old, is attached by pins drilled right through the barrel. :huh:
I think this is a neat, slim and graceful rifle, admittedly not a Hawken or Kintuck but a real late percussion era workhorse of a rifle.
This rifle bears a strong resemblance to the old Hopkins & Allen of thirty years ago but has no parts in common with it. This is all new production.
Comparing it to an old H&A Heritage I noticed that the old rifles reciever appears to be a thick wall tube, smoothly bent and milled out at the bottom for hammer and trigger and with flanges brazed or silversoldered front and rear to accept barrel and stock. The new recievers are a solid cast piece, slightly smaller in diameter and with both sides flattened by milling. I think the hammer,trigger and trigger guard could be fitted to older rifles but that's just my eyeball opinion. The barrel is held to the reciever by a stub of the breech plug which slips into a hole in the front of the reciever and is bound there by three 1/4x28 screws, one from the top and one from each side. The old model used a tapered pin through the reciever and breech plug from left to right.
Blue Grouse is the distributor, they are actually made by Deer Creek Products, which also makes the barrels on the old Douglas machines. Twist is 1:66 on all calibers, .36, .45 and .50 at present. The reciever could accept barrels up to 1 1/8" across the flats.
My friend's rifle is in .36 caliber and I noticed some roughness when swabbing out the grease, so I pulled the breech plug and looking through the bore several areas show deep chatter marks on top of the lands. Whether that will be a problen, only shooting will tell.
This rifle is described as "in-the-white" but don't let that lead you to believe you need only sand, stain and oil the maple stock. You'll need a lot of rasp and file work first.
This .36 cal has a 7/8" by 32" barrel and weighs 7 3/4 pounds, maybe less than 7 1/2 once the excess wood is removed. I don't know if the .45 and .50's use a 7/8" barrel. The old H&A's were 15/16" barrels in all standard calibers plus 1 1/8" in the .45 target version and in .58 caliber.
One of the neat features of this design is that barrels can be easily interchanged. Just loosen three set screws, pull out the barrel, insert another, tighten screws and away you go. One could have a 12ga. trap gun, a squirrel rifle, a heavy bench rest gun and a light hunting rifle all for just the cost of the barrels and all of them would have the fast and reliable underhammer ignition.
This rifle came with a very good, crisp trigger which broke at a few ounces under 3 pounds. I had to do a lot of work on my old H&A to get the same trigger pull and mine is still a bit mushy.
I'm glad to see this rifle on the market. A real, all American made rifle for under $300.
Bruce Lingenfelter, who, with wife Karen, run Blue Grouse said he has heritage models, the 32" barrel, ready to ship and is just waiting for Deer Creek to run off a batch of 26" barrels for the buggy rifles. He expects that once production gets caught up he should also have barrels in various calibers available and ready to install on the customer's frame.
At present, barrels are the hold-up, since Deer Creek is also producing the new Mountain Rifle, formerly CVA, the Mowrey rifle and several others, that's a lot of barrels for a one man shop.
If you have one of the rifles it would be very simple to fit any make of barrel, although the forend would require some ingenuity since the H&A forend, new or old, is attached by pins drilled right through the barrel. :huh:
I think this is a neat, slim and graceful rifle, admittedly not a Hawken or Kintuck but a real late percussion era workhorse of a rifle.
