Old Original ML Rifles

[mooman76]

I got lucky and found one here. Just a plain Jane hardware store gun but it's an original. You don't see them out here as much as back east. All it needed was a screw for the lock and a nipple. Still shoots good too. It has been through it's paces though.

 

[Billnpatti]

I recently got an original double barrel caplock 12 ga. shotgun that dates from around 1850. It needed some cleaning outside and inside but once that was done and it was given a nice light coat of oil, it looks very nice. It's in amazingly good condition for a gun of that vintage. The only repair that I had to do was to change the nipples to ones with a .010 larger thread. Many of these older guns seem to need a larger threaded nipple(s). I think that it is now a real showpiece. I don't know how well it patterns yet because it has just been too hot for me to want to go to the range to pattern it. The previous owner told me tht he had owned it for several years and had hunted with it many times. He gave me the various loads for the different game. I'm anxious to get to the range with it.

 

[AZbpBurner]

Fellow I worked with kept telling me about this old caplock rifle he had. I kept asking him to bring it in.

One day, he said to me: "Wait until you see that rifle! I got rid of the ugly brown on the metal, and gave it a nice new blue job. And I refinished the stock with a shiny urethane."

I told him not to bother bringing it in.

Similar incident with a well-meaning colleague at work. His Dad had spent a couple of years, a weekend at a time, building an Early Lancaster Rifle. It needed finishing, and he was just helping out Dad, who was recovering from a stroke. He wanted to surprise him when he came home from the hospital. Fortunately, the Krylon Clearcoat over bare wood was easily remedied, but the deluxe, mirror-bright bluing took some scrambling to fix.

I told him that what he had done to all those hours of hard work would likely kill his ol' man
from either heart attack or stroke. I took the barrel and lock plate back to the gunsmith who did the blue, and he stripped it off the same day. He told me he recognized the barrel and argued with the guy for nearly an hour that it wasn't proper to blue it ...

Anyway, an aqua fortis treatment and the same stain my Dad used to finish his rifle, some Plum Brown, and I was able to beat the clock. I arrived 1/2 hr before they rolled in with Dad. When he saw it, he nearly cried, since he was relieved that the well-meaning son didn't do anything to wreck it in his absence. I had a quick talk with the son's blabbermouth wife, and told her I would personally break her entire collector plate collection if she spilled the beans about our adventure.

He went on to recover enough to only need a cane to walk, and spent many hours in the last years of his life shooting that rifle (although I was only able to make it to the range once to watch).

 

[Rifleman1776]

where in Indiana did you used to live?

I'm hiding from the Mafia. Can't say.