MSW said:
Mike makes a good point ... one of the fellows at the mill where i worked asked me what it would cost if i were to make him a flintlock, and when i told him he was shocked. his take on it was that since you could buy an El-Cheap-O brank 12 guage pump at WalMart, why does it cost three time that for just the parts of a flintlock rifle?
Absent a lengthy discussion of economies of scale, i told him that if i could get the parts for less, i'd be up to my neck in gunbuilding and happier than a pig in swill, but i couldn't dictate what the retail price of much of anything was, and i couldn't give away parts just to compete with a whole different system. I even offered to lend him a ML for the primitive season, but i think he got one of those zipgun inline thingies ... too bad.
make good smoke!
To expand somewhat...
The difference between a sidelock type 18th-19th century gun, one made traditionally with flat springs etc etc. And a modern made firearm is that the modern made firearm is designed to have all the parts machine made and then assembled by anyone off the street (or from the union hall) that can be trained in a short time and then the gun is done. The run of the mill modern rifle can be assembled and then function checked and its done. It needs no "tuning" in most cases. If it does its done by someone with the skills to do this. The stock is invariably full shaped or nearly so and only needs sanding.
Prior to about 1850 this was not the case. The firearms, even after "interchangeable parts", still required someone with long training (as opposed to 5-15 minutes spent telling the new employee "put this part in this slot") to make them work.
The side hammer Sharps is a case in point. If made to the original pattern there is "tuning" done on every one made.
Now if you design a sidelock ML with coil springs a lot of this goes away. If you make a Sharps as Sile did, with a coil lever spring, some tuning goes away and "put this part there" will work. If you simply screw in breeches torquing them till they are "timed" with the top flat rather than fitting them you can cut costs.
If you actually pull the breech (if its not too tight to move) from most factory made MLs you will find what I would call "no workmanship" installation. But they can't afford to spend 1-2 or more hours fitting a breech right.
The locks on many of the factory made flintguns look like they were designed to look like a "Picasso" flintlock by some one who only knew it had to have certain parts but had little idea of how they were really supposed to work.
But this is not really new.
Here is a "Connestoga Rifle Works" rifle, apparently unfired, from 1840.
Its made to sell cheap.
The lock below was made by a friend of mine back about 1975-1980. Mostly shop made. Its a much better lock.
These are better still being circa 1800 high quality English locks on a Manton.
These rank with the best flintlocks ever made. Very fast (by actual electronic testing), reliable and easy on flints.
So sloppily made firearms are not new. The Connestoga (low end Leman) rifle was pretty sloppily assembled and the lock was very poorly designed. Like many modern design factory locks the parts are all there but the shape and location are a little "off". I would not trust it.
I did not have the level of access that would allow pulling the breech so I have no idea how this was done.
No matter what anyone says it is impossible to make a "good" ML rifle (by *MY* standards) for 500-600 bucks. The stock shaping is 20th century factory, in other words poor for a "traditional" ML, the stock design is 20th century "model 70"). The inletting is 20th century "state of the art" (as opposed to 1860 when machine inletting was MUCH, MUCH better, the breeching virtually always has fouling traps.
THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO MAKE THEM "RIGHT" and sell them for (239 or 349 or 425 and now 5-600+) and put any actual work into them.
So "good" and "quality" are RELATIVE terms.
"Good" to someone who considers ALL parts of the firearm. The lines, the inletting, the internal fit and finish, the angles of the cock and frizzen, the speed of the FORGED leaf springs etc etc. Is different than the average consumer who wants a entry level, mass produced
MSW said:
Mike makes a good point ... one of the fellows at the mill where i worked asked me what it would cost if i were to make him a flintlock, and when i told him he was shocked. his take on it was that since you could buy an El-Cheap-O brank 12 guage pump at WalMart, why does it cost three time that for just the parts of a flintlock rifle?
Absent a lengthy discussion of economies of scale, i told him that if i could get the parts for less, i'd be up to my neck in gunbuilding and happier than a pig in swill, but i couldn't dictate what the retail price of much of anything was, and i couldn't give away parts just to compete with a whole different system. I even offered to lend him a ML for the primitive season, but i think he got one of those zipgun inline thingies ... too bad.
make good smoke!
To expand somewhat...
The difference between a sidelock type 18th-19th century gun, one made traditionally with flat springs etc etc. And a modern made firearm is that the modern made firearm is designed to have all the parts machine made and then assembled by anyone off the street (or from the union hall) that can be trained in a short time and then the gun is done. The run of the mill modern rifle can be assembled and then function checked and its done. It needs no "tuning" in most cases. If it does its done by someone with the skills to do this. The stock is invariably full shaped or nearly so and only needs sanding.
Prior to about 1850 this was not the case. The firearms, even after "interchangeable parts", still required someone with long training (as opposed to 5-15 minutes spent telling the new employee "put this part in this slot") to make them work.
The side hammer Sharps is a case in point. If made to the original pattern there is "tuning" done on every one made.
Now if you design a sidelock ML with coil springs a lot of this goes away. If you make a Sharps as Sile did, with a coil lever spring, some tuning goes away and "put this part there" will work. If you simply screw in breeches torquing them till they are "timed" with the top flat rather than fitting them you can cut costs.
If you actually pull the breech (if its not too tight to move) from most factory made MLs you will find what I would call "no workmanship" installation. But they can't afford to spend 1-2 or more hours fitting a breech right.
The locks on many of the factory made flintguns look like they were designed to look like a "Picasso" flintlock by some one who only knew it had to have certain parts but had little idea of how they were really supposed to work.
But this is not really new.
Here is a "Connestoga Rifle Works" rifle, apparently unfired, from 1840.
Its made to sell cheap.
The lock below was made by a friend of mine back about 1975-1980. Mostly shop made. Its a much better lock.
These are better still being circa 1800 high quality English locks on a Manton.
These rank with the best flintlocks ever made. Very fast (by actual electronic testing), reliable and easy on flints.
So sloppily made firearms are not new. The Connestoga (low end Leman) rifle was pretty sloppily assembled and the lock was very poorly designed. Like many modern design factory locks the parts are all there but the shape and location are a little "off". I would not trust it.
I did not have the level of access that would allow pulling the breech so I have no idea how this was done.
No matter what anyone says it is impossible to make a "good" ML rifle (by *MY* standards) for 500-600 bucks. The stock shaping is 20th century factory, in other words poor for a "traditional" ML, the stock design is 20th century "model 70". The inletting is 20th century "state of the art" (as opposed to 1860 when machine inletting was MUCH, MUCH better) the breeching virtually always has fouling traps.
THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO MAKE THEM "RIGHT" and sell them for (239 or 349 or 425 and now 5-600+).
So "good" and "quality" are RELATIVE terms.
"Good" to someone who considers ALL parts of the firearm. The lines/shaping, the inletting, the internal/external fit and finish, the angles of the cock and frizzen, the speed of the leaf springs etc etc. Is different than the average consumer who wants a entry level, mass produced ML to shoot.
This is NOT intended as an insult to ANYONE.
I am attempting to explain why Mr Brooks and others have a different view of factory mades than others here. My only factory made ML was a Belgium made DGW Squirrel Rifle in 40 caliber. I hunted with and shot it a lot. It was similar to the Connestoga rifle, a little better perhaps and a caplock. But I had a 32 caliber custom that was my first rifle circa 1966. It ranked as a decent custom by the standards of the day. The DGW, once the bore was shot smooth in about 50 shots, shot VERY well. But it did convert me to flintlock when a nipple blew out. I have shot flint almost exclusively since about 1969.
So reader YOUR OPINION will likely differ from mine. My perspective on ML guns is far different. I have had drums break off at firing, I have had a nipple blow out. I have had vent liners leak around the threads. I have had a vine catch a cock on a fairly good quality flintlock pull the cock to near full cock and then drop it firing the rifle before I could stop walking. POORLY TUNED LOCK. Was standing about 10 feet behind a guy (he was at the firing line) when his TC or copy (copy IIRC) went off while he had it butt on the ground. The cheap lock either fell out of 1/2 cock or did not properly enter 1/2 cock. I was amazed it did not put a hole in his hat brim.
So when I say certain things it is not something I dreamed up the night before.
I have made mistakes in my ignorance, I have had them thrust on me again due to my ignorance/innocence not allowing me to know what I was looking at. But I learned from these mistakes and took corrective action.
I don't make drum and nipple guns, I make darned sure nipples fit right. I only use flys if really needed and they ARE properly shaped. I fit any threaded part exposed to powder gases carefully to seal the threads if at all possible. I eliminate any fouling/solvent/oil traps. I don't cut deep dovetails. There are a HOST of things that the factory does "wham-bam thank you mam" that the custom builder takes a lot more time with or does differently because it makes a BETTER, more DURABLE and SAFER firearm in the long term.
Most custom makers make the gun to a quality standard not a standard of how much the gun must retail for and THIS is really the bottom line of this discussion. Custom makers do not make firearms based on some bean counters estimation of how much it *must* cost at retail to get buyers at Wal Mart to write a check.
Sorry this is long but I am trying to give some background for statements made by myself and some others that get people up in arms.
I get a little bent when people make statements to the effect that a factory made is as good as a custom when I spend more time just breeching a barrel and putting in a vent than it takes to assemble the whole factory made.
The factory mades fill a need. I consider them "entry level" MLs. They are a place to start. They have brought a lot of people into the sport.
They have done all these things.
I am sure this is going to ruffle someone's feathers. It is not intended to do so.
It is a simple explanation of why people who custom make firearms sometimes respond in the way they do.
I made some comments recently about collecting TCs. It makes no sense to *ME*. But thats *ME*. I have a right to my opinion and it should be accepted as such. In many cases its a "your mileage may vary" thing. Its America, you wanna collect TCs go for it.
Comparing a mass produced ML to a custom is apples and oranges. The only common ground in many cases is that they load from the muzzle.
Regards
Dan