I'm admittedly a fan of the Indian flintlocks. Well, the Loyalist Arms finished ones. I have a Brown Bess and two pistols from them. The finishing done on the one Indian pistol I have from Veteran Arms I was not impressed with, so I'm not recommending their products. I'm always surprised by the amount of bad-mouthing of the Indian guns that occurs on these forums. A lot of it is out of ignorance and most of the people making the worst comments don't own one and are passing mostly hearsay. Nevertheless, I figured I'd see what was so great about a Pedersoli.
First off, it was over twice the amount I paid for the same model I purchased from Loyalist Arms. Now, some of that is offset by the fact that I didn't have to wait 8 to 12 weeks to get it like for the Indian guns. But I'm still paying twice the amount and I was expecting twice the value. To be honest, I was totally UNDERWHELMED by the Pedersoli.
Wood fit and finish were better, yes. The cutouts in the stock for the lock are cleaner and more precise. But things went downhill from there for me. It still had some finish flaws and I absolutely despise the finish Pedersoli uses. It has almost a plastic look to it and it is considerably lighter in color than on any of my other guns. So that was the first strike against it (well, technically the price was the first, but I'm going to ignore that for now). The finish would need to be stripped and redone. It would bug me eternally otherwise. The second strike was that none of my spring clamps will work on the frizzen spring. They just slide off the spring due to the design of the spring. I don't have that issue on any other flintlock I have but this one. So getting a different spring clamp just for this pistol is another negative. The third strike was the pan was brass and not steel. The pan surface looked like a freshly plowed farmers' field and would require far more effort to polish it smooth than I've ever had to do on my Indian flintlocks. The fourth and final strike was the fit between the pan and the barrel was terrible. There was a gap sufficient to allow significant amounts of powder to fall between the lock and barrel. Tightening the lock did nothing, so I would need to remove wood to seat the lock deeper. Something I might expect (but haven't yet encountered four firearms later) on the cheaper Indian guns, but certainly wasn't expecting on an $850 pistol. It looks like while they take exceptional care on the wood fitting they seem to lack quality control where it really matters (like the lock and pan to barrel fit).
Personally, I'll stick with my Loyalist Arms Indian guns. This Pedersoli is going back to Dixie Gunworks. Pedersoli just doesn't seem to be worth the money considering you still have to "fix" them.
