TVM Early Virginia

[Thorman]

I know that TVM's Early Virginian rifles have straight barrels as their standard offering. My question is this, is a octagon to round barrel PC or is the straight barrel ok? Plus your thoughts on the Barrel length, 36" or 42"?

 

[Bob J]

Don't personally know about octagon-to-round for that time frame, however, straight or swamped barrel would be PC :imo:

 

[tg]

Sraight barrels were a later thing, the swamped and probably the oct to round would be best for an early gun...and not browned. I have seen pics of the TVM Early Virginia and have not figured out what makes it an Early Virginia, a Colonial lock and English type furniture is genraly associated with such a gun but this is not a fast rule as there were German builders there also so a early Virginoa could look like an Early Lancaster depending on the builder.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

I know that TVM's Early Virginian rifles have straight barrels as their standard offering. My question is this, is a octagon to round barrel PC or is the straight barrel ok? Plus your thoughts on the Barrel length, 36" or 42"?

IMHO

as of 1803 the Harper's Ferry had tapered barrel, so if your going for an ealier date, dunno. Swamped is PC of late Virginies, Im making one.

If you use a straight barrel you will be nose haevy compared to teh swamped. I packed an 1803 around for years. Tho it has a tapered barrel. They put a rib under it. That used to be for strength. Now its looks. Well Its heavy as the July day is long.

Barrel length has to do with twist. If yer shooting round ball. The slower the twist and longer the barrel, the better you are. If you are shooting conicals. You want a faster twist. The ideal range for round ball is 1/66 to 1/72. If the formula that a half a twist or better is ideal. Then you will be in the ball park with either.

I bet the 36 wieghts a tad less. I went with 42 because I wanted a "Longrifle" and maximun powder burn.

Your talking about a TVM which is a store bought. You get what they give you. I checked for years on every type of production firearm.
I came to the conclusion that if I wanted the best I could get. Id have to make it. I bet teh barrel and lock I have are better than my shooting ability. So Ill grow into it.

For what I paid I got the best stuff money can buy. period.

If I spent lots more. I could have had a profession build my rifle, and use the best stuff out there.

Its only money

 

[CrackStock]

<<<Barrel length has to do with twist. If yer shooting round ball. The slower the twist and longer the barrel, the better you are. >>>

Only to a point -- the logical conclusion of what you just said would be that a straight rifle would be perfect. Not so. You need to stabilize the projectile with the correct twist for the size and shape involved.

<<< If you are shooting conicals. You want a faster
twist. >>>

Generally true, but I have a Lyman which is fast twist and still does well with round ball. Go figure.

<<<The ideal range for round ball is 1/66 to 1/72.>>>

This would be good for a .50. Smaller bores like a faster twist.

<<<I bet the 36 wieghts a tad less. I went with 42 because I wanted a "Longrifle" and maximun powder burn.>>>

I went with a 42 because I liked the look and I liked the long sight radius. The modern powders are still pretty good and do not need the extra barrel.

<<< Your talking about a TVM which is a store bought. You get what they give you. >>>

This is not true, I bought a kit gun made to my specs for a reasonable price from Matt and Toni. They sell kits, in the white and finished guns. Spoke with them the other day and this is still true. You may need to wait for a while, but quality is worth a bit of a wait. Their barrels are Green Mtn or LongHammock. I have 3 Gr Mtns and one LongHammock -- no complaints.

You can see the guns at:
http://www.avsia.com/tvm/virginia.htm

CS

 

[CrackStock]

<<< pics of the TVM Early Virginia and have not figured out what makes it an Early Virginia, a Colonial lock and English type furniture is genraly associated with such a gun but this is not a fast rule as there were German builders there also so a early Virginoa could look like an Early Lancaster depending on the builder. >>>

I see a lot of differences between these two:

http://www.avsia.com/tvm/virginia.htm

http://www.avsia.com/tvm/earlylancaster.htm

butt plate, stock shape,set trigger, trigger guard, material of all furniture...

In fact, I see few similarities.

CS

 

[Thorman]

So Basically to be PC or pretty close, I could have a TVM Early Virginia with a oct. to rnd barrel 36" long, and in .58 cal.?

 

[Johnny Tremain]

I have 3 Gr Mtns and one LongHammock -- no complaints.

Like I siad, I reseached. I bought the best I could find. My Rice, 42 inch, 1/70 twist, 45 cal, swamped & stress relieved barrel is more than Ill ever use. So when I miss I know whos fault it is

What Ive read this Rice barrels will out preform Green Mtn barrels of the same grade. I have used Getz barrels in the past. Never had a problem.

Oh yeah I had a 54 with 1/48 that flung round ball just dandy out to 150 yards. I made mine 1/66 and I got better groups at range.

I go with what I know. Im no expert. I learn from you all each day. The above post was from the info Ive gathered over the last 6 months.

Im betting folks like TVM are selling the best product in thier price range. That Virginy is nice. Ive spent the same money for just parts. My logic is that I got better parts.

 

[tg]

My point was, what identifies this gun as a Virginia gun? (pre Rev War) aside from the maker calling it one?

 

[CoyoteJoe]

TG, I think that is a fair question anytime one tries to attribute a piece to some particular school or time period.
I once had a book on Kentucky rifles of the Golden Age. The author would describe the characteristics of a school of gunmaking for a certain region then there were photos of rifles positivly attributed to that region and time.
Very few of the rifles pictured seemed to share all of those characteristics and many didn't even slightly resemble others of the same positivly identified school.
:hmm: :hmm: :hmm:---Go Figger----- :m2c:

 

[tg]

I have always been curious about this particular gun from this maker as I have not seen one up close,I was wondering what "early Virginia" traits it had... not TVM bashing here, as I think they are well made guns, just wondering about the "authenticity" so to speak, so many guns are labeled as being this or that with little foundation in the way of similarities/characteristics to the originals they are intended to represent. I am certain it is not the Siler lock or the browned barrel and furniture that puts this gun in Virginia circa 1760 maybe someone else that has seen one up close can share the details of this gun, it is a nice looking gun.

 

[rich pierce]

A straight barreled rifle of 36" or even 42" is not characteristic of rifles made before 1790. Pre-Revolutionary War rifles were typically outfitted with swamped barrels. "Smooth rifles" (guns built like a rifle but w/o rifling in the bore would have either swamped octagonal barrels or octagon to round barrels. The Siler lock is and has become a standard but it's styling is not particularly characteristic of pre-Revolutionary War vintage. In this case, it looks like the maker has done what they can to provide a high quality, very affordable gun made from excellent parts that has some characteristics of a particular time and place. These are production or semi-custom guns made to fill a great need, but they are not truly "period correct" in many features. But as my Dad used to say, "looks good from the road!" Actually these guns look good close up as well, just not authentic in all features. If they were, they would cost at least 50% more.

 

[tg]

That was my take on it, I was most interested in the furniture as to whether it resembled anything thought to be early southern., buttplate, entry thimble finial, and such.
it is hard to tell from the pics.

 

[Thorman]

OK! Tell me, to be PC for the 1750-1760's what rifle would you reccomend with in a limited budget, up to $850. And I maybe able to do a kit if easy enough but my time is limited od to my job. U.S.ARMY Infantry

 

[rich pierce]

You really cannot get a "PC" 1740's to 1760's rifle built for that price range. The parts cost nearly that much. And there are no known signed rifles from anywhere in the colonies from that period. So any gunsmith trying to do you right would be going by guess and by golly. Chambers has a nice Mark Silver designed early Southern rifle in kit for about $800 plus shipping. Some guys will put together a Chambers kit for a flat fee. That might be a way to go. I'd never build such an expensive gun as my first try, in case you were thinking of going that way. It's easy to turn $800 worth of parts into a $350 gun.

If starting from scratch (huge amount of work) I'd go with just about the same parts as Chambers puts in his kit. A swamped barrel heavy at the breech in .50 or larger, a Chambers English or Virginia lock, a sliding wooden patchbox or none at all, and English styling.
$250 for the barrel
$125 for the lock
$150 on up for a stock blank, more for a pre-carved
$100-$150 for other parts- buttplate, sideplate, trigger, guard, pipes, nosecap, sights, rammer, screws and bolts and such.

That's over $650 for the parts and that's no kit, the smith is looking at 100 hours of work. Give the guy minimum wage and the gun is $1350 minimum. But worth $1800 if plain, more if carved, much more if engraved.



I suggest you get what you can afford and enjoy it. The main thing is to be doing your thing, as soon as you can. You can always build up your outfit more in the future.

Of course a fusil or musket could be had that would be OK for such an early timeframe and could be cheaper, depending on what you decided to use.

 

[Okwaho]

Rich and Tg are correct in their posts.There are NO known signed Southern {including Viginia}that can be dated into the pre Revolutionary period let alone the F&I War priod although there are several Southern guns which could date into those periods.{Shumway,Rifles of Colonial America Vol. II nos.118 and 124}The Mark Silver rifle kit by Jim Chambers is the closest kit gun you will find and I think it would fall into the post F&I period and pre Rev. War period.At about $950.00-$1100.00 for the kit including extras {patch box etc}and an assembly charge of $350.00-$500.00 or more for a total of about $1500.00-$1800.00 or more if you wanted carving and/or engraving you would have an excellent rifle.TVM and Rustic Arms make nice relatively inexpensive rifles but can't compare with custom or semi custom guns from Chambers, Cabin creek and others.Makers such as David Dodds, Ken Nettig,and Eric Kettenberg make excellent guns in the $2500.00-$3000.00 and up range for relatively plain guns with a wood box and a ittle carving.The old saying "You get what you pay for" applies here in spades.Remember too that the more you spend {assuming you spend wisely}the more you can get out of the gun should you decide to later sell it.
Tom Patton :m2c:

 

[Slash]

I don't quite know the definition of custom and semi-custom. We start with a board and barrel, no duplicator stock, use the same parts that most of the other builders use such as Siler or L&R locks, Davis or L&R triggers, etc. We don't inlet with any duplicating type machinery and use cast parts like the other builders mentioned. Also each rifle that we build whether for a customer or the rack at a show has a specific length of pull, drop in the stock, and possibly cast-off. Each part is hand fitted and cannot be exchanged from rifle to rifle. Production rifles built with duplicated stocks do not generally offer these things.
TVM's VA is built to resemble the rifle Hershel House built for the Smithsonian. The furniture on his rifle was used for the trigger guard & buttplate mold, and double door patchbox we use.
Octagon to round barrels were documented in Early American Flintlocks by Hartzler & Whisker and also in George Shumway's Rifles of Colonial America.
I know that for every reference book there can be found another that may dispute the one quoted at any given time. We do not anytime say that our rifles are exact copies of any original. We try to build as closely as possible so that average people can afford to own a reasonable historically correct muzzleloader.
Toni Avance TVM,Inc. :m2c:

 

[rich pierce]

Toni,
No argument and no disrespect intended by using the term semi-custom. I still believe there's nothing wrong with semi-custom guns. Anyway, I had no idea you varied the guns according to a customer's needs. Should have known that before shooting my mouth off. Keep up your good work.

 

[Greg Walden]

I sure am happy with my TVM Virginia rifle with custom touches!

(Toni - I've had it for 14 months - 771 rounds, 15 flashes in the pan and that's less than 2% and they were my fault, it fires fine in rain and high wind, the finish still almost looks like when it was new and that's with being carried through the scrub in Florida, and one of these days I'll win the postal match on here with it! Tell Matt thanks again!) :front:
Regards,
Greg Walden

 

[tg]

"TVM's VA is built to resemble the rifle Hershel House built for the Smithsonian"

What provenece or documentation connects the House gun with "Early Virginia" guns?