The Rifle Shop :brown bess

[lexington1]

I sort of collect Brown Besses and have several originals. I had to look at all of my books after you posted this and I couldn't find any or recall seeing any that were by Willets until the 1756 patterns.

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi,
Just curious, can anyone show me an original Brown Bess marked "Willets" before 1760? Moreover, can anyone show me an original ordnance issued Brown Bess marked "Woldridge" that was not a single sealed pattern gun (not issued)?

dave

Negative, jess mellot said he customized the williets long land lock molds for another company to sell and track of the wolf ended up with the molds.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
There was a John Willets who is known as a contractor in 1762 and Benjamin Willets who was active near Birmingham during the 1790s but I've never found an example or reference to Willets as a contractor making any pre 1756 pattern Brown Besses. The same goes for "Wooldridge", which is the name on some Brown Bess plates sold by TRS. According to my references, he was an excellent contractor and inspector for British ordnance who was involved with developing early patterns for British muskets and inspecting contractor work in Birmingham. However, that was before the pattern 1730 musket was introduced and issued. As far as I know, he was never a contractor making any pattern Brown Bess musket. So it appears to me the same problem of incorrect lock markings on Pedersoli BB muskets also applies to many muskets made from supposedly historically accurate kits.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi,
There was a John Willets who is known as a contractor in 1762 and Benjamin Willets who was active near Birmingham during the 1790s but I've never found an example or reference to Willets as a contractor making any pre 1756 pattern Brown Besses. The same goes for "Wooldridge", which is the name on some Brown Bess plates sold by TRS. According to my references, he was an excellent contractor and inspector for British ordnance who was involved with developing early patterns for British muskets and inspecting contractor work in Birmingham. However, that was before the pattern 1730 musket was introduced and issued. As far as I know, he was never a contractor making any pattern Brown Bess musket. So it appears to me the same problem of incorrect lock markings on Pedersoli BB muskets also applies to many muskets made from supposedly historically accurate kits.

dave

Yes, typically your best bet for an Early Bess is ’Tower’. For my TOW Kit I actually purchased a Tower 1742 lock kit as the Willits kit was made from the molds that were copied at the Rifle Shoppe. I eventually will atempt to swap out the plates if it is feasible Or build the lock and see if it interchanges well enough.

Don’t know much about Woodbridge, I had always wondered by TRS never copied a Jordan lock or farmer lock as both of these were the most relevant to long land pattern muskets of any

But then again TRS does sell lockplates unmarked with just a Crown over GR, so you can engrave them.

Willits I’ve only seen on a 1756 long land And some pistol locks.

 

[lexington1]

The Pedersoli Brown Bess lock is a bit on the smallish side. Not much but a little. As far as the TOW lock, it's easy enough to file off the Willets and engrave another contractor or Tower. I have used parts from the TOW lock to repair missing parts from a couple original locks with decent success. I replaced a sear in a 1746 dated Jordon lock and it was virtually a drop in fit. I just had to take a little off of the nose. I like the Rifle Shoppe stuff and have used lots of it, but sometimes availability is a problem.

 

[Gordoncourtney]

I don't know if the photos are of any help,or give information I looked at some Bess locks around 1973 they were all £7 and I was on £22 a week....I decided on th one built between 1810 and 1820 as a stronger pattern version.......the steel that is struck seems to have a thin laminated steel I guess forge welded to it. It sparks very well from the massive Flint . It has a sear Spring missing. You cannot have everything......it's a bit dirty inside first time off in 40 years

I It was for the second rifle I built .650 bor 6 groove riffling hand done by a twisted rod 1 in 55 "

 

[springfield art]

A couple of members of my unit have the Rifle Shoppe's Long Land Pattern Musket, either from Narragansett Arms parts or from Rifle Shoppe kits. They are very good muskets. Unfortunately cost has driven most of the new members toward the Loyalist Arms muskets. As a unit reenacting the French and Indian War, we try to have all of us using the Long Land Pattern King's Musket.

Good to see the effort to arm uniformly and properly. So much easier to just get the common repro, the 2nd model. F&I enactors are a notch or two above some common units.

 

[Grenadier1758]

While we try to have everyone using a Long Land Pattern, we are also not going to be the kind of period correct/ historically correct kind of unit that we can't try to find a way to acceptance. One thing we do know is that when observers are more than 20 feet away, they can't tell if we have Long or Short Land Pattern Muskets. All too often we hear that the visitors didn't know that Confederates wore red coats.

 

[sportster73hp]

And the build begins

 

[Rudyard]

I don't know if the photos are of any help,or give information I looked at some Bess locks around 1973 they were all £7 and I was on £22 a week....I decided on th one built between 1810 and 1820 as a stronger pattern version.......the steel that is struck seems to have a thin laminated steel I guess forge welded to it. It sparks very well from the massive Flint . It has a sear Spring missing. You cannot have everything......it's a bit dirty inside first time off in 40 years

I It was for the second rifle I built .650 bor 6 groove riffling hand done by a twisted rod 1 in 55 "

The 7 pound lock is of the East India Co' Bakers' series of post 1818, probably via World Wide Arms / Weller & Dufty's or Westley Richards ? other than the coil spring .Full marks for effort I was getting India made locks of various sizes including plain Bess & Carbine locks early 70s still have some of the sporting ones they all worked up to be fine locks most went to make shotguns for UK market but a few J''ager style rifles .
Regards Rudyard

 

[sportster73hp]

Sorry been done about a week now. Shot / practice at rondevous this weekend
Nosecap not installed. I will be making one as the one in the kit looked too small

 

[LSU520]

Sorry been done about a week now. Shot / practice at rondevous this weekend
Nosecap not installed. I will be making one as the one in the kit looked too small

I‘ve built 7 Rifle Shoppe Brown Bess’s, including this second model. It appears you‘re using a pedersoli bess as your exhibit for determining pin locations.

One thing many builders do is try to copy their Rifle Shoppe kit using a pedersoli bess or miroku bess as their example, this is a terrible way of patterning your build. There is a second model Brown Bess print available with pretty good instructions by David Ripplinger. There are also several books available that will show the common pinning locations and patterns and stock patterns of a Brown Bess by Bailey, and Erikson And Goldstein.

Pedersoli Bess’s are also significantly smaller than any pattern the Rifle shoppe offers, they’re not really Brown Bess muskets as much as they’re Presented to be.

Trigger guard isn’t cut deep enough. The trigger guard on Brown Bess Muskets Was not pinned through the bottom lock panel, it was pinned through the lock mortise to connect with the trigger guard Front tab. Pedersoli and Mirouku Bess’s were pinned through the lower lock panel, this is historically incorrect and is done with precise machining.

I’ve seen many builders attempt pinning the trigger guard through the lower panel and And end up ruining the lock area With a split to the panel or a split inside the mortise. I wouldnt be shocked with that pin ends up splitting the bottom lock panel off at some point. i would never attempt to remove this pin.

Looks like the thumbpiece screw isnt aligned right too.

Trigger isn’t set centered with the trigger plate, too far Back.

Thimbles are not inlet deep enough, looks like their not even in the rammer channel, you can see a gap between the rammer channel and ramrod, the pins for the thimbles should almost be in direct alignment with the barrel pin lugs. Overtime this could put undesirable pressure on the forward thimble cracking the wood around the thimble.

the Nosecap from the Rifle Shoppe isn’t too small it is correct. Brown Bess Musket forearms were shaved down and rounded at the top contour of the barrel as a way of blending in the stock to the barrel, you have a lot of extra wood on that forearm, by shaving it down you will see the nose cap blend in.

Lock, assuming that you are going to polish that lock. I wouldn’t leave a lock made of 4140 steel in a rough finish, 4140 steel tends to corrode rather quickly. You will want to make sure its polished to at last 800-1000 grit. You can harden the parts if you want to, just be careful of the hardening process, 4140 steel stresses, you will need to almost always temper back hardened 4140 steel or it will crack.

The buttstock looks unsnapped, the flutes are not not long and wide enough and the nose typically had a more radical shape to it.

Larry

 

[sportster73hp]

Pin location was determined by measuring a full size drawing/picture from Dixie.
The trigger pivot is in lock mortice . I do agree the guard should have been deeper, still fixable. Trigger works where it is and i thought location allowed for gloves or fat fingers.
The nose cap would allow .100 or less of wood between it and the barrel, wasn’t happy with this.
I do have De Witt Bailey book and The Brown Bess by Erik Goldstein plus the previously mentioned full size drawing

 

[sportster73hp]

Upon looking at Goldstein’s book again pages 92&93 the trigger guard isnt sunk more than half its thickness and the barrel pins and thimble pins do not align. Thimble depth more like those on the Marine Musket ( p89). So, yes thimbles could have been deeper but i set them after inletting the entry pipe using the ramrod to insure they were aligned

 

[LSU520]

Upon looking at Goldstein’s book again pages 92&93 the trigger guard isnt sunk more than half its thickness and the barrel pins and thimble pins do not align. Thimble depth more like those on the Marine Musket ( p89). So, yes thimbles could have been deeper but i set them after inletting the entry pipe using the ramrod to insure they were aligned

Disagree on the trigger guards being cut shallow; You have to consider that you’re looking at 150 year old Brown Bess , the trigger guards in the picture were inlet much deeper than the pictures represent, I would even go as far as saying that the shrinkage on some of those originals is about 50%. I’ve viewed plenty of originals in person too. You don’t inlet a trigger guard with two tabs and a wrist plate screw shallow, you’ll never hit the front tab with a pin through the lock mortise with a shallow cut, and the rear part needs to be inlet some what deeper to keep it from ‘bowing’. Also I don’t see the British ordinance would have let that slip by, they were pretty strict on Meeting minimal standards with contractors.

The thimbles being cut shallow is a mechanical flaw, that will end up breaking the stock at some point, one awkward ram could split it away. That unfortunately you can only fix with the holes you’ve already drilled, by cutting you have already done deeper will require to to drill almost into the very lower part of the thimble tab, it could work but will be a challenge.

In Goldstein’s book if you look at where the pins are located for the thimbles you will have noticed that most are almost leveled with the barrel lugs, this was done purposely when measuring the depth of where to drill. The nosecap wood was generally thin under the nose cap and blended in with a taper toward the muzzle section, the sides were shaped equally.

Original Brown Bess’s were not that bulky on the forearm sections. You have to remember the forearms were only really there for the thimbles, the rear barrel lug is the only real lug that harnesses most pressure for securing the stock. The other three including the sling swivel lug not so much at all.

 

[sportster73hp]

Please show me on yours the underlug, thimble, nosecap area.

 

[florkinliege]

Dave,
Colonial Williamsburg has a cut down pattern 42 Bess with Willets 1746 1762 lock in it that they purchased in 1935 (typo edited)

 

[dave_person]

Dave,
Colonial Williamsburg has a cut down pattern 42 Bess with Willets 1762 lock in it that they purchased in 1935

Hi,
Willets 1762 but not Willets 1746 or even before the 1760s.

dave

 

[FlinterNick]

Hi,
Willets 1762 but not Willets 1746 or even before the 1760s.

dave

I think it’s possible willets made some contract locks before 1750 used on regimental contract muskets and carbines, the only known example is in baileys book, it’s measured at 6 1/2 inches long which is smaller than full sized Bess lock. I have to confess I don’t fully understand the meaning of a contracted musket vs infantry

 

[florkinliege]

My apologies, I had a typo and my post was full of failure. The Willets lock on this p42 Long land is 1746. See page 26 of Darling's Red Coat and Brown Bess for a Willets 1747 marked Dragoon musket.