The India-made Untouchables

[coloradoclyde]

I suspect guns blowing up was a common occurrence on real battlefields.

 

[Billnpatti]

I don't know how frequently it happened with muskets but it did happen from time to time with cannons.

 

[Alden]

A little more than from time to time with cannon methinks.

 

[pargent]

:thumbsup: :applause: I feel you are correct and this firing failure and following toes cause what is called a SHAPED CHARGE this will lift the lid off any steel chamber or barrel and is a classic case of safety not being thoroughly thought out but rather bringing the level of competency down to meet the lowest level .

 

[Rifleman1776]

A little more than from time to time with cannon methinks.

My readings include many instances of where everything but the kitchen sink was sometimes shoved in the barrel to spread out and do the most damage to the enemy. Overloading with much junk could lead to excess pressure. And, I'll guess, war time hurry-hurry casting and manufacturing was geared more to quantity than quality.

 

[Alden]

I was thinking primarily quenching with water to cool hot guns distempering the metal, but, there were undoudtedly multiple reasons gunners had short life expectancy. Now, back to our topic...

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
I totally get folks wanting the India-made guns as well as other quasi-historical reproductions from Italy, Spain, and Japan. Traditional muzzleloading and 16th-19th century re-enacting are not growing very fast, and in many cases are declining from lack of new participants. For many new re-enactors, after spending a bundle on their clothing and equipment, they cannot afford $2-5K for a historically correct firearm that can compare with an original piece on inspection. Re-enactors are a diverse group, some of whom mostly want to go to events to fire off copious numbers of blank rounds and make noise and smoke, which is a lot of fun. Others are living historians who love to represent life at the time and teach the public. For that latter group, in my opinion, none of the imports pass muster by a long shot. I would love to see units pool funds and purchase at least one well made historically accurate gun from a builder who knows what he is doing or an original so they have a truly representative firearm with which to educate the public. If the unit disbands, they can sell the gun and share the proceeds. That is precisely what I am doing with one re-enacting unit, providing good examples of period work and a few guns for new folks to use as they get started. I personally don't pay much attention to the safety or quality of India-made or other imported reproductions, I'll never own one. I do have parts from a Miroku Brown Bess that I will turn into a credible copy of a model 1757 militia and marine musket after making a new English walnut stock, replacing the oddly shaped Miroku trigger guard, reshaping the butt plate, properly installing lugs for barrel pins and sling swivel, wiping out all marks and stampings, and engraving the hardware properly. When I am done, the re-enactor I give it to will be able to use it to demonstrate not only function but the quality and ingenuity of the period gunmakers, something that cannot be done very convincingly with a Pedersoli or India-made gun.

dave

 

[coloradoclyde]

The thing that amazes me is that we have to rely on foreign imports at all for mass produced reproductions.

We can produce modern handguns, rifle and shotguns, heck even modern muzzleloaders; But not affordable accurate muzzleloading replicas?

Whatever happened to American made?

 

[dave_person]

Hi CC,
I share your frustration but in all fairness, no company could make a truly accurate copy of a period gun, particularly those used before about 1850, for a price that most would find acceptable. Guns made during the hand-made era cannot be duplicated very well by machines. That said, it is too bad that some American maker could not at least produce something a little better than a Pedersoli. I guess if there was a big enough market, someone might try but I think the market is pretty small.

dave

 

[wayne terry]

What ever happened to America made? Nothing its just Americans want 15 and 20 bucks an hour where those people over there will work for a buck 50 a day or for food change and those 600 dollar Indian made guns made over here would cost 1500 dollars.

 

[coloradoclyde]

In India maybe, but an Italian factory worker makes the same as an American on average.

Plus I still can't accept the wage argument when you look at what $500.00-$600.00 will buy you in a modern rifle, pistol,or shotgun.

 

[Many Klatch]

A modern rifle or pistol is so much less expensive than a proper muzzleloader because of Volume. They probably sell 1,000 black plastic semi-auto super "tactical" guns or inlines for every wooden stocked side hammer muzzleloader sold. It isn't worth it to the manufacturer's to build new plants and hire new workers for a small niche market. Pedersoli manages to make it work because they are selling to the entire world. The Indians make it work because they are 3rd world and can pay their people accordingly.

 

[Alden]

A $1,500 gun in the US could buy you alot. Well, look how much nicer a Pedersoli is than India-made, and for less.

But India doesn't have the same government as a "partner" as we do in the US today, nor have the same union thuggery. Actually, half of Indians don't have access to a toilet...

 

[coloradoclyde]

:surrender: :surrender: :surrender:
Well, that train derailed fast.

I was sort of looking for solutions, not really interested in playing a blame game or turning America into a third world nation.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
It has nothing to do with volume. You simply cannot reproduce the quality of firearms made during the 15th-early 19th centuries with any kind of industrial production. Nobody can do it except those makers of custom guns who know the details. There are no American companies, or any other nationality that can do this for a price most modern folks are willing to support. I am a skilled gunmaker. I can make any historical gun anyone on this site could ask for. In fact, I can make guns way beyond the expectations of anyone on this site. But I cannot do it for the peanuts most of you are willing to pay unless I consider you a charity case. Although, I help charity cases all the time and I am glad I don't need to account for a profitable business.

dave

 

[Alden]

Whereas I don't subscribe to the narrow and arguably self-promoting premise I've read for some time that machines can't do what half-drunken men did 200 and more years ago there's also many'll argue...

...the Indians today, working on their forged steel bits by hand, are much closer to the period art of production than the modern science of replicating historic guns or even today's assemblers/kit-finishers that most have picked up as a hobby vs. trained in as a trade.

I'm not gonna disagree with that. 'course in India, being the best is probably little different from being average, so, as the Russians used to say:

they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. Flintlocks one day, door locks the next, whatever...

 

[dave_person]

Hi Alden,
You are correct. They are reliving our past but their work on the guns in question SUCKS compared to our past artisans. They in no way live up to our hertitage.

dave

 

[Dean2]

Hi,
It has nothing to do with volume. You simply cannot reproduce the quality of firearms made during the 15th-early 19th centuries with any kind of industrial production. Nobody can do it except those makers of custom guns who know the details. There are no American companies, or any other nationality that can do this for a price most modern folks are willing to support. I am a skilled gunmaker. I can make any historical gun anyone on this site could ask for. In fact, I can make guns way beyond the expectations of anyone on this site. But I cannot do it for the peanuts most of you are willing to pay unless I consider you a charity case. Although, I help charity cases all the time and I am glad I don't need to account for a profitable business.

dave

You may well be a great gun maker but to say that modern CNC machines are not capable of producing the quality of guns made 400 years ago, particularly the average or military weapons of the era, is plain hogwash. Even in the high end makers like Purdy, no matter how skilled the maker I defy them to make interchangeable parts machined to the same tight tolerances a CNC machine is capable of. A CNC machine can produce dozens of exactly the same part, accurate to .00001 of an inch across all of the specimens. I know some great craftsman and none of them could do the same.

I have said this before, if you look at the top end guns that were hand made in the past there is some truly exceptional work that was being done. That said, the average guy could no more afford a Purdy or Joe Manton built gun 200 years ago than he can today.

As far as producing the wood stocks the guns use, a top quality CNC drive duplicating machine can get a finished product that is the exact size and shape of anything you feed it for a pattern, and the inletting will be spot on as well.

The reason this high end technology is not applied to side lock muzzle loaders is there is no where near enough demand to make it viable. Set up costs for each model of gun and the equipment costs would require demand in the hundreds of thousands of guns to amortize the costs and make a profit. I doubt there are 100,000 traditional muzzle loaders of all kinds and descriptions sold in a year.

Quality of barrel steel, lock steel and brass are all much better today than even 50 years ago, as long as people use the best that is available. Unfortunately most ML shooters won't pay the $150 extra for good barrel steel and keep using the barrels made out of rebar stock.

Like everything else, you can have quality built guns made out of top end materials at a fairly reasonable price if there is a large enough demand. As demand drops the price per unit increases or the quality of work and materials must drop and that is where we are now with MLs made in India, Italy or most any place else.

Personally I will stick to guns made with top quality parts and pay the premium to ensure that but not all shooters feel the same way.

 

[dave_person]

Hi Dean2,
Thanks for the post. I am certainly aware of CNC. My neighbor is very skilled using that technology for metal work. If someone used that technology for wood, and spending an amazing amount of time setting up and programming, he could probably make a stock that duplicates the fine dimensions of early handmade guns. But in the end, unless he programmed all the little human nuances in its construction, it would still look machine made. It would also probably cost a lot of money.

dave

 

[Artificer]

The reason this high end technology is not applied to side lock muzzle loaders is there is no where near enough demand to make it viable. Set up costs for each model of gun and the equipment costs would require demand in the hundreds of thousands of guns to amortize the costs and make a profit. I doubt there are 100,000 traditional muzzle loaders of all kinds and descriptions sold in a year.

An example of that were the REAL Birmingham made Parker Hale Rifle Muskets. GREAT guns where the modern parts absolutely interchanged with the Interchangeable Pattern Original Enfields. However, PH stopped making them as they could not make enough money on them.

Back in the early 80's and before reproductions of the 1861 Springfield Guns and Locks came out, we investigated having just the Lock Plates and Hammers made by CNC so original 1861-3 internal parts could be used. (Those original internal parts were still pretty reasonable back then and readily available in NOS condition.) However even WITH a truly knowledgeable CNC programmer who offered to write a free program, the cost of the Lock Plates would have been $ 100.00 each at a minimum order of 10,000 lock plates. So much for that idea!!! At that time, there was a VERY competent NSSA shooter who personally machined, hardened and tempered M1861 Lock Plates that were as good or better than the Original Interchangeable Pattern Plates and he charged $ 65.00 each for them. So I got one, an original M1861 Hammer in great shape and an original breeched M1861 barrel in really nice shape.

The other real problem I see, besides cost for CNC production of Flintlocks, is getting across the really fine points of Flintlock Lock Geometry to the Programmer/s. I know it would be possible if they worked with a design that was really good, but I still wonder how difficult it would be to transfer that to CNC.

Thank Heavens Bud Siler modernized the Lost Wax technique of manufacturing or we would not have had the good flintlocks we have today. This method seems to have been the most economically friendly manufacturing technique for Locks.

Gus