• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Lyman Great Plains Rifle not a review

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Ive got a nice "primitive" sight picked out the adjustable aint gonna cut it and the one that came with is probably going to get sacrificed when I zero it

I peened around the screw hole in the base that tightened up the screw quite a bit, and it doesnt show :v not a bad design at all I like the way it looks (way better than a T/C or Cabelas adj rear), just the way it was manufactured was poorly executed.

I mean really, whats the point in an adjustable sight that wont hold its adjustment I wont win many matches that way!

will post pics of the re worked stock next started hand sanding (60 grit!) and the butt stock and cheek piece areas are shaping up nicely
 
(a huge sigh of relief is heard in British Columbia)
i got a good one!
a nice piece of lumber was used for the stock. nice matte finish that could probably stand a few more coats of oil. inletting is nicely done, even if the tang is in a wee tiny bit deep. the set trigger is not overly hard to pull. the front trigger lets off light and crisp. i could tell by looking at the frizzen that the lock had been tested. this will be my first flinter so lock tuning (if needed) will have to wait till i learn a bit more stuff.
i have to wonder if maybe investarms takes a bit more care in putting together a flintlock than they do on their percussion guns.
 
That wouldn't be right if they do. The extra money should be for the lock. Not workmanship for the rest of the gun.

With that said. Who knows?
 
DarenN said:
(a huge sigh of relief is heard in British Columbia)
i got a good one!
a nice piece of lumber was used for the stock. nice matte finish that could probably stand a few more coats of oil. inletting is nicely done, even if the tang is in a wee tiny bit deep. the set trigger is not overly hard to pull. the front trigger lets off light and crisp. i could tell by looking at the frizzen that the lock had been tested. this will be my first flinter so lock tuning (if needed) will have to wait till i learn a bit more stuff.
i have to wonder if maybe investarms takes a bit more care in putting together a flintlock than they do on their percussion guns.


Congrats on your new rifle! A LH GPR Flinter has been on my want list for a while now so that report is good to hear.

Looking forward to your range report and pics. :thumbsup:
 
BrownBear said:
The big distinction is what the company does about it. Thumbs up to Lyman on that account! :thumbsup:

I have a Lyman GPR in .54 cal & flint, and my experience is similar, but positive. Had to adjust the pins to attach the barrel & stock, and the fit at the tang was a little disappointing, but otherwise the trigger pull was quite acceptable and she shoots true. Looks like, in general, Lyman relies on its customer base for quality control. :hmm:
 
It's likely one of those "squeaky wheel" things. I looked at 4 GPRs and two Trade Rifles on the shelves of a couple of stores yesterday. Fit and finish were just fine, easily on par with my TCs. From the sound if it, some of the next 6 I look at might not be.

Here's the deal for me. If I was ordering and got a stinker, I'd send it right back to Lyman. But in fact I'd much rather fondle a gun on a rack before buying, even if I paid more.

Gotta support local vendors if we expect them to carry this stuff. I talked to the owner of a major gunshop in my rounds yesterday, asking him why he didn't stock a single muzzleloader and darned few supplies. "Guys can buy cheaper on line than I can sell them. Let em, then I don't have to hassle returns and dead stock."
 
You guys are really making me jealous, you have stores that actually carry these??

I live in Dallas not a small town, maybe its too big and too urban you can find maybe one or 2 models of traditional muzzleloaders around here, Cabelas and Bass Pro. None of our local shops carry trad ML let alone Lyman.

As noted I would have prefered to not buy one over the Internet.
 
I hear ya. Of course, even when you find them in stores, you kinda hafta watch your hiney. One of the shops had an Austin Hallack on "sale" as a RARE rifle for a reduced price of $950. When I laughed at it the guy blushed and said "Of course that's negotiable."

I didn't say it, but I was thinking "Negotiate this." :bull:
 
Thank you all, I was going to order a GPR kit tomorrow morning. After reading this thread I'll shoot the one I have and buy a centerfire. The comment just send the part back if its bad finished it for me. If there is a bad part it should never be sent out. Lyman never again. Frank
 
Sorry for your troubles Just J.

However, I've been dealing with Lyman for the past 10-15 years and they've always been very professional and attentive to my needs.

My four year old niece lost the two keys to my Lyman GPR. I looked all over for them to no avail. I called Lyman up and they sent a pair of keys to me right away, free of charge.

I've purchased either T/C Hawkens or Lyman GPR for practically every male in my family. Never had a problem with either one.
 
I've been happy with every Lyman rifle I ever bought including two Trade Rifles, one right hand and one left hand GPR's. I too lost the barrel wedges and a screw from the stock, which Lyman sent to me free of charge.
 
FRJ said:
If there is a bad part it should never be sent out. Lyman never again.

Now that's funny to me. TC built their rep for service for standing behind bad parts they sent out. Lyman is doing the same.

Not picking on you cuzz I own and enjoy both.
 
Point 1 to be fair, this was a Lyman "ready to shoot" rifle in a box. It was obviously assembled by semi skilled or careless workers.

If youre buying a kit, maybe you can take better care not to remove so much wood from the mortised areas and leave sanding marks going in one direction on the barrel. I had to reshape the pregnant looking buttstock too which resembeled a deflated football.

Point 2 I sent it back to the retailer and got anohter one, it was somewhat better the work mentioned above was performed on it. It came out looking rather nice, aside from the big gaps around the lock and trigger where I cant add back some wood but a lot of folks dont care about this sort of thing nowadays.

Point 3 I ended up having to remove some wood under the tang area as the barrel and the breech hook area were not even parallel (even though the top surfaces ie flats were ground off parallel) making the wedges almost impossible to install and remove. I had originally attributed this to warpage.

Point 4 it shoots pretty good now after doing some minor smithing on the rear sight as described in another thread. My Jonathon M Browning Mtn Rifle has what appears to be the same sight. It works just fine and was made pefectly. The Lyman sight was made crooked, I mean the leaf (rear blade) was cut higher on one side than the other and not flat (parallel) to the barrel. I fixed most of this problem but its ground crooked around the profile. Most people on this site at least prefer grinding down the primitive sight supplied (cast iron) to fit one load I reckon.

Conclusion, I dont accuse Lyman of sending out "bad parts" I doubt they even know how bad some of these rifles look when they go out. Sure they are responsible regardless of who assembles these for them. They never responded to emails I sent through their "contact us" website. (no I didnt bother calling let them figure it out) The idjits that put these together for Lyman (never could find out where) are probably "paid by the piece" they didnt even wait for the cheap oil stain finish to dry before assembling both of the ones I got, the first was glued together so badly I feared I would damage it trying to drive the lock out, the second was still sticky and required a lot of clean up. I refinished it with tung oil it came out looking great but the cheap azz wood being used is somewhat pulpy in places and will never be "great" upon close inspection.

In other words I think by design and maybe former standards this is a good rifle, I think Lyman just abandoned any attempt at quality control on their pre-assembled guns and have probably outsourced their assembly to Myanmar or rural China. These current offerings are just not up to the standards of even the low end Investarms products that I have owned or have seen.

By all means build the kit, in hindsight I shouldve done just that but time being a factor for me due to job and family it would take me months but it wouldve been a lot more detailed as far as fit and finish.
 
A small wedge of wood under that "adjustable sight", after the gun has been " zeroed" for a particular load, is the cheap and easy remedy for any sight " Movement". You can only make springs so strong.

If you look at modern peep sights, by Lyman, Redfield, etc., you will find they have screws that are run down to lock and support the sight after you zero the sight on the gun. Same idea, but using a wood wedge instead of another screw. :hmm:
 
Your post worried me so much I had to go pull out the GPR I bought last December and look at it again. I have to say, I haven't experienced any of the problems you describe, with the exception of the barrel fit into the stock. The fit/finish is not perfect by any means, but it is very close, and exactly what I would expect from a production rifle. One thing I can tell you is that the accuracy is better than I expected, which for me, is the important thing. My guess is that yours is an anomaly.
 
I bought a used perfectly cared for GPR in 54.So just for fun wanted to see if the italy 58 cal barrel would fit the stock.It did so with a little barrel work for the pins I now have a very nice beefy looking fire stick in two cals.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top