It is a discontinued Traditions kit, I found a wholesaler that had some in stock. .45 caliber, just like the percussion one he has been shooting. Length of pull was OK (13"), so I left the stock alone. It fits him better than this picture shows.
The hardest part was chopping 5" off the end of the barrel. This was new territory for me, and quite scary. A new hacksaw blade, a straightedge, and I had this;
A lot of work with a file, emery cloth, and a round grind stone ended up with this:
I then had to cut a new front sight dovetail, and I had a 1/2 pound lighter barrel.
The worst part of this kit is the 2-piece stock. It fits in a smaller package that way. The nice part of it? I was able to cut the 5" off that split part to keep the dimensions of the rifle appropriate. It came with a ugly brass insert. I thought I could smooth the wood up enough to skip the joiner. I was wrong.
Oh yeah, that lock. See the big hole in the plate? The frizzen spring was stuck in that hole, cocked up at a 45 degree angle. Looked wrong and didn't work. I filed a notch in the bottom of the plate and the spring fit better.
It came with a huge toeplate. Since it is a boy's gun, I figure the more armor on it the better.
I had no idea how they wanted to do the rear ramrod thimble, so I modified it. I like how it turned out. And there is the ugly band again.
The kit came with a couple brass washers to hold the lock in. It looked completely wrong for the period, so I got a sideplate from the Log Cabin Shop and cut it down to fit. Wish I had gotten both screws centered...
And it came with this big ugly brass nosecap that screwed into the barrel! Ugly and not correct. So I went all out and made a poured pewter nosecap instead. This was the second try...
The stain is Miles' choice. A few more coats of linseed oil and it should be good to go.
Still to do:
- Sight it in for a light load.
- Virtually unbreakable ramrod on order
- bought an inlay or two, must decide if I am going to put them in or not
- work on the trigger pull. It's about 6 pounds right now.
