This is great information! I've been looking into stock information. Anyone familiar with the different grades of curly maple? That is the stock of the gun I am trying to match (mind you, without actually seeing the rifle). THe premium grade has "extra curl". Need more information on this before I put in my order. Thanks.
Pardon me Firedanse, but did we just switch gears? The simple kits I was referring to don't have Curly Maple as an option ::. They have European Walnut Stocks.
If we are speaking of the the kind of pistol 'kits' which have Curley Maple stocks, we are talking a whole different game.
The only "kits" that I am aware of that have Curly Maple, or Cherry stocks are the kind sold by Track of the Wolf, Pecatonica River, Jim Chambers... In other words, the Hard Kind, where you often have to do a lot of work to install the lock, the barrel, the trigger, the trigger guard, the ramrod pipes, the sideplate, the barrel breech plug, the sights.....
In other words, there is a LOT of work envolved even if you pay the supplier to do things like mill the dovetails for the sights, breech the barrel, inlet the lock, trigger, barrel...
I'm sure there are some folks at this Site who could build this level of pistol in less than 2 months, but I am not among them. I would figure at least 150 hours of work.
As I have said before, building one of the Top of the Line Pistols is almost as much work as building a Top of the Line Custom Rifle.
If I may make a guess, because you said you were trying to match a gun with a curly maple stock it most likely is patterned after a period later than a Queen Anne (1710ish).
The "Kentucky" style might be more in order (1780-1830ish).
On the other hand, anyone who has a Curly Maple muzzleloader would be more than happy to get
any new gun, be it Kentucky style or Queen Anne for Christmas whether it matched what they currently have, or not. ::