Trying to find correct frizzen & spring for a 40 year old Pedersoli Kentucky .32 rifle

[David LaPell]

I have a 40 year old Pedersoli Kentucky rifle (made in 1984) in .32 and eventually it will need the frizzen rehardened but I always like to have spare parts on hand, so I ordered a replacement frizzen and frizzen spring, neither of which look remotely what is on the gun now. The replacement frizzen is shaped differently, the base is wider and it's shorter. The frizzen spring is thicker in not only material, it's wider so that the current spring won't seat it and the forward mounting pin that aligns the frizzen spring into the lock face is too thick and would need to be filed down just to seat it. What I have noticed is the frizzen and frizzen spring on this gun look closer to what's on the Pedersoli Frontier than the Kentucky rifle. Does anyone know where I can source older Pedersoli parts (nothing on Ebay that I've found) or what gun might use the same parts as the older Pedersoli Kentucky rifles? The new spring and frizzen that doesn't fit came from VTI and Deercreek doesn't stock anything from Pedersoli, only CVA and Traditions.

My Pedersoli .32 Kentucky with the frizzen it came with and the new frizzen I ordered under it.

My Pedersoli Kentucky from 1984 in .32 with the original frizzen spring and the one that doesn't fit to the left of it.

A new Pedersoli Kentucky rifle with the newer style frizzen and frizzen spring.

A new Pedersoli Pennsylvania rifle with the same newer style frizzen and frizzen spring.

A brand new Pedersoli Kentucky rifle lock with the newer frizzen and frizzen spring

A Pedersoli Frontier with what looks like the same style frizzen and frizzen spring as on my 40 year old Pedersoli Kentucky

 

[J.D.]

Dixie MIGHT have something that fits. Maybe? Personally, I don't remember any frizzen spring going bad, so IMHO, that should not be a problem. As to the frizzen, some lock parts for Dixie's 2nd model brown Bess muskets fit the Pedersoli 2nd model, with some small modification, so parts for one of Dixie's rifles might fit yours.

As an alternative a little grinding and fitting might bring those new parts to better fit your lock. If you rework the frizzen spring. remove material from the side of the spring, as opposed to removing material from the thickness. Removing material from the thickness reduces the power of the spring by a factor of 7. Removing material from the width, reduces the power of the spring by a factor of 1. For example, removing 1/32nd of an inch of material from the width, might reduce the power of the spring by 1 pound. In this scenario, removing the same 1/32nd of an inch from the thickness, would reduce the power of the spring by 7 pounds.