Rebuilding a 1728 French Musket

[FlinterNick]

Hi everyone,

Well, I thought I’d be done by now… but my own rookie mistakes have gotten in the way.

First lesson… make the barrel bands to the desired shape first, THEN shape the stock to fit. I totally did this backwards, bringing the stock down to size and then thinking that (since I needed to reduce their size anyway) that I would just make the bands to fit. Turns out, I don’t have the skill for that yet! So I’ll need to go back a few steps and redo a bunch of work.

The front barrel band actually came out great - fits like a glove. I took off a whole lot of metal and thinned it out a bit. Very pleased in that one.
View attachment 355506

Middle band took a bit of fitting and frustration, but it’s nice and tight now. You can see I’ve had to sand the stock a bit to get this one to slide down. I’ll be thinking this one out soon too.
View attachment 355507

And the rear barrel band… was a bit of a miscalculation. I took off too much material. I’ll either make a new one from scratch, or try to patch it somehow.
View attachment 355508

Moving further down the musket, will be the wrist. I was super happy with it a couple weekends ago, but now that it’s been sitting for a week or so, I’ve noticed that it’s feeling a bit thick. I know the earlier French muskets were a bit thicker than the later ones, but it just feels a bit excessive. I measured the width of the wrist at 1.7in. My original M66 comes to about 1.55in.

Does anyone have an idea as to what the thickness on a M1728 should be?
View attachment 355509View attachment 355510

I can help with middle band pm me

 

[TF Black]

Wow, great work OP!

 

[Millford_P]

I spent quite a bit of time on the front porch today, and the musket is 98% done.

Today's work was mostly (fixing previous mistakes) and finishing the barrel bands. Let's start with the middle band.

Overall, this one fit OK, but I still wasn't 100% happy with the shape (it was a bit lopsided). I worked on it for a while, but eventually decided to size it down a bit by cutting it, filing the ends and soldering it back together. The fit was much better after that.

The rear barrel band was a bigger project. I used a small piece of scrap metal to remake the top of the band, since previously I had made the band too small. The wall thickness on this was also filed down to size and fitted to the musket.


All bands now (finally) complete. If I ever rebuild another French musket.. I think I'm definitely buying Rifle Shoppe parts!


Another task was filling the old pin hole in the tab of the trigger guard (just soldered a bit of metal inside), filing that, and then redrilling a new hole for the pin. This had to happen since there was a bit of wood removed from the belly of the stock, causing misalignment with the original holes. The fore end of the stock got some adjustments to fit the new bands after all the metal work was complete.

Last (but actually happened yesterday, mostly) was reducing the wrist. I had originally measured the wrist at about 1.75in wide, this was reduced down to just under 1.6in, which felt/looked a little more accurate and comfortable to hold. Once the height and width were figured out, I filed everything down to blend it.

Then sanding, staining and finish (not pictured).


At this point, I'm just waiting for the finish on the stock to dry. Hopefully I can get everything assembled later in the week and take some photos... and we'll be done! Last step (which I'll get to another day...) will be adding a front sight.

 

[rich pierce]

You’re getting it done!

 

[FlinterNick]

I spent quite a bit of time on the front porch today, and the musket is 98% done.

Today's work was mostly (fixing previous mistakes) and finishing the barrel bands. Let's start with the middle band.

Overall, this one fit OK, but I still wasn't 100% happy with the shape (it was a bit lopsided). I worked on it for a while, but eventually decided to size it down a bit by cutting it, filing the ends and soldering it back together. The fit was much better after that.

The rear barrel band was a bigger project. I used a small piece of scrap metal to remake the top of the band, since previously I had made the band too small. The wall thickness on this was also filed down to size and fitted to the musket.
View attachment 356422

All bands now (finally) complete. If I ever rebuild another French musket.. I think I'm definitely buying Rifle Shoppe parts!
View attachment 356420

Another task was filling the old pin hole in the tab of the trigger guard (just soldered a bit of metal inside), filing that, and then redrilling a new hole for the pin. This had to happen since there was a bit of wood removed from the belly of the stock, causing misalignment with the original holes. The fore end of the stock got some adjustments to fit the new bands after all the metal work was complete.

Last (but actually happened yesterday, mostly) was reducing the wrist. I had originally measured the wrist at about 1.75in wide, this was reduced down to just under 1.6in, which felt/looked a little more accurate and comfortable to hold. Once the height and width were figured out, I filed everything down to blend it. View attachment 356423

Then sanding, staining and finish (not pictured).
View attachment 356424

At this point, I'm just waiting for the finish on the stock to dry. Hopefully I can get everything assembled later in the week and take some photos... and we'll be done! Last step (which I'll get to another day...) will be adding a front sight.

Great job on the bands, that’s the hardest part.

FYI dont’ be fooled about the bands being robust and heavy, originals were not. Thick heavy bands is a reproduction thing.

I recommend looking at orignal 1728s as much as possible, the bands were ‘Paper thin’. So thin you could bend them with your thumb. Once i had seen how thin them were i started making my own from two pieces of steel folded over and welded .

I’ve made them from scratch, i the thickest barrel bands I’ve seen were on model 1774 and 1777 charleville for obvious reasons they began fastening screws to them for things like rammer spoons and barrel tenons.

 

[Millford_P]

Great job on the bands, that’s the hardest part.

FYI dont’ be fooled about the bands being robust and heavy, originals were not. Thick heavy bands is a reproduction thing.

I recommend looking at orignal 1728s as much as possible, the bands were ‘Paper thin’. So thin you could bend them with your thumb. Once i had seen how thin them were i started making my own from two pieces of steel folded over and welded .

I’ve made them from scratch, i the thickest barrel bands I’ve seen were on model 1774 and 1777 charleville for obvious reasons they began fastening screws to them for things like rammer spoons and barrel tenons.

That makes sense. Maybe one day I'll give that a try. I almost wonder if starting from scratch would have been easier than adjusting the existing ones.

 

[Clark Badgett]

I have to admit, you might turn that thing into a silk purse after all

You do have some skills. I bet you could hit a grand slam with a parts kit.

 

[Millford_P]

Alright, finish is dry and the musket is assembled! I'd say that I'm about 95% done - I just need to add a bayonet lug and bayonet (waiting to purchase a bayonet first). I'm also planning on adding a little bit of patina just so it looks "used, but not abused" vs "out of the crate", since I plan to use this for Revolutionary War reenacting. Ideally it should look about 25-30 years old. I sanded all of the metal up to about 240 grit, so hopefully when a patina as added it helps some of the scratches stand out a look a little more "used".

Nothing fancy was done with the wood - just some off the shelf dark walnut stain from Home Depot and sealed with a few coats of Danish oil. I tried to wipe a little bit of stain away from the raised areas to help with the "used" look, but didn't go in and add any patina of weathering. I didn't want to over do it, since I think it should darken over time.



The butt doesn't have as an extreme of a concave shape on the bottom as some pictures of originals I've seen, but it definitely fits within the realm of plausibility now, compared to where it started.

The new sideplate definitely helps give it that 1728 look, compared to how it started.


The flats on the barrel also now look 1000% better (they now exist, for starters).


Front and back of the rear - feels much better to hold now.

Still some thickness on the interior of the barrel, but I'm happy with the exterior dimensions. If I ever decide to have it reamed out, it would take off about 1.3lbs according to my calculations. But, for safety's sake I may just live with it for now.

I'm also happy with the barrel bands - my first time making/adjusting bands, so it took several hours longer than it should have, but I'm happy with it. Next time it should hopefully go much quicker, now that I (sort of) know what I'm doing.


For anyone who's curious, here's a look at the weight before and after work:
I forgot to weigh the lock/sideplate, but I don't think there is much of a difference at all since very little material was removed. Maybe just a few ounces.
Overall, the musket went from weighing just over 12lbs to just under 10 and a half lbs. I think if the barrel was thinned out, it would be pretty close to the original weight of just over 9lbs (or a little more with an iron rammer, instead of wood).

AFTER WORK:
Part	Weight in grams	Previous Weight	Difference g
Rammer	255	255	0
Barrel	2479	3016	537
Front Barrel Band	40	48	8
Middle Barrel Band	31	39.6	8.6
Rear Barrrl Band	30	42.5	12.5
Trigger guard Assembly	126	147.5	21.5
Lock assembly	524.5	524.5	0
Stock and buttplate	1250	1431.5	181.5
TOTAL	4735.5	5504.6	769.1
Part	Weight in lbs	Previous Weight	Difference lbs
Rammer	0.561	0.561	0
Barrel	5.4538	6.6352	1.1814
Front Barrel Band	0.088	0.1056	0.0176
Middle Barrel Band	0.0682	0.08712	0.01892
Rear Barrrl Band	0.066	0.0935	0.0275
Trigger guard Assembly	0.2772	0.3245	0.0473
Lock assembly	1.1539	1.1539	0
Stock and buttplate	2.75	3.1493	0.3993
TOTAL	10.4181	12.11012	1.69202

Thanks for all of the super supportive and helpful feedback on this project. More photos will be coming once it's fixed with a bayonet and I add a little patina.

 

[rich pierce]

Nice work. As a friend of mine used to say, it looks a lot more like it does now, than it did before!

 

[TF Black]

Really terrific job on the musket – I’m impressed.

Now if only someone would come along and actually make them like that out of the box, the world would be a better place IMO. ;-)

 

[Clark Badgett]

Is this a gap between the lock pan and barrel? If so, you REALLY want to correct that. The last thing you want is for powder to trickle into your lock inlet area and do what powder does when ignited.

 

[PathfinderNC]

Is this a gap between the lock pan and barrel? If so, you REALLY want to correct that. The last thing you want is for powder to trickle into your lock inlet area and do what powder does when ignited.

Indeed!

 

[Millford_P]

Is this a gap between the lock pan and barrel? If so, you REALLY want to correct that. The last thing you want is for powder to trickle into your lock inlet area and do what powder does when ignited.

Yes, a couple people pointed that out! It's better in real life than in the picture, but I'll definitely need to go in there to adjust the mortise and tighten the bolts a bit.

 

[Fitzhugh Williams]

Yes, a couple people pointed that out! It's better in real life than in the picture, but I'll definitely need to go in there to adjust the mortise and tighten the bolts a bit.

The bolts should be just snug with very little pressure needed to turn them. I watched Simeon England tighten them with only his thumb nail to make his point. It's the fit that matters.

 

[FlinterNick]

The bolts should be just snug with very little pressure needed to turn them. I watched Simeon England tighten them with only his thumb nail to make his point. It's the fit that matters.

This is an Indian made musket, its not a fine English sporting rifle or Fowler. The lock just needs to be tight against the barrel with a very limited or no gap between the pan and barrel, tight bolts or tight fit.

 

[Fitzhugh Williams]

It's up to the builder to make it fit.