TAC2, The original post queried as to whether a Brown Bess musket could be converted into a Committee of Safety musket.As I stated the Committe of Safety muskets were manufactured by gunsmiths in the various colonies in accordance with specifications dictated by the Committees of Safety in the individual colonies.I believe it would be exceedingly difficult to make such a conversion.These Committee of Safety guns are fairly rare having been mostly used up in the early days of the war.On the other hand we have the composite muskets both in full size{46" bbl. and approximately .75 cal.}and what some including George Neuman{"Battle Weapons of the American Revolution"}refer to as "Fusil Muskets" with a somewhat shorter barrel and British carbine bore of approximately .65 cal.These are the guns with mixed parts taken fron a myriad of guns including English,Dutch,French,German,and American guns to which I referred to as composite guns and which are found in far greater numbers than the few surviving Committee of Safety muskets.Quite a few are found in "Battle Weapons" as "American muskets".Some of these guns were also manufactured in the pre Revolutionary period as militia muskets and were put into service with the outbreak of war. These composite guns formerly were found in gun shows in large numbers for fairly low prices but they seem to be found now in smaller numbers and correspongly higher prices as I mentioned in my earlier post.I have always been fond of these composite muskets and I believe, without seeing your gun,that what you seem to have have done is to basically create a composite musket of the type which was very common before and in the first few years of the Revolution until the French guns began to appear in 1777.I do not doubt that some were made after that date but I do believe that after 1777 with the appearance of French guns that British styling, as evidenced by the distinctive hand rail butt styling of the Besses, began to be seen to a lesser degree.
The Fredericksburg{1776} and Rappahannock Forge {1780} muskets are exceedingly rare and a very few are known to exist today and should not be confused with other American muskets discussed above.
I hope this helps to clear up the confusion on these early American made muskets of the Revolutionary War period.
Tom Patton
I think I read on here some where that a guy can take a bess and converte it into a committee of safety musket. If that is true what is done to it and what does it cost?
