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Kibler Colonial

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Joined
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This rifle is one of the Kibler Colonial kits with the better than "best" wood upgrades. I normally don't mess with the kits, but when he posted that he had exceptional wood - I said why not. Just putting it here for your viewing pleasure. Now back to building from scratch.

Colonial a.jpg
Colonial b.jpg
Colonial c.jpg
Colonial d.jpg
Colonial h.jpg
Colonial i.jpg
 
Now, that is some beautiful wood! From what I have heard, Kibler tends to understate the quality of his wood, not a common sales tactic these days, but one that will certainly build a loyal customer base. I almost jumped on that one. Now I wish I had! Congrats on a great buy!
 
Wow is right!! Thanks for sharing the pics.
I'm new to muzzleloading and to this forum. I just received my Kibler colonial rifle kit with the upgraded highly-figured stock. I'm hoping mine comes out half as nice as your's. I've watched all of Jim's youtube videos on the steps to assemble it and, based on the fine job he does with the CNC machining, it looks like it hopefully should be a fairly trouble free assembly.
 
Very nice. Wish I could afford it. Ya done good.
I was just on Kiblers website. The kit prices seem pretty reasonable at $1050. That's not bad in today's economy. I spent $500 20 years ago on the TVM Lancaster kit I bought back then. I'm in about $900, on my current build, and that's using extra, leftover parts from a previous build.
 
I've spent much of this afternoon watching Mr Kibler on his Youtube channel working on his Colonial Rifle kit - what he calls a pre-finished kit. It is apparent that while there certainly is a shed-load of finer hand work needed to get rifle to be proud of, a very large proportion of the real work - the making and shaping of the long and slender stock, the assembly of the lock so that it sparks rather than clicks pointlessly, and more, has been done with great accuracy, necessitating handwork that anybody, or instance, who has average to slightly above average skills with hand-tools could manage. And that includes me. I build and run live-steam engines and the cars that go with them, as anybody who has seen some of my videos on Youtube would advise you, and I'm dead certain that I'm pretty much able to finish one of Mr Kibler's kits to a more than acceptable standard.

Sure, they seem to cost a lot of money, especially when you look at a ready-made from one of the European makers, like Pedersoli, whose products are just fine, but not true replication of an American long rifle. They are, of course, made in Italy, a place that is obviously NOT the natural home of the American long rifle.

So, to the point - a very telling point for those of us for whom the origin of the rifle they put up to their face counts.

Every part of Mr Kibler's guns is made in the USA, from wood grown in the USA to metal cast and fettled in the USA. Just like an American long rifle ought to be.

And that, Friends, is worth paying for.
 
Hi,
Five or six years ago, I got into a debate with someone on this forum about why machine-made reproductions could never produce the fine and unique features that were the result of hand work. The thin forestocks, finely shaped cheek pieces, correctly shaped and refined lock and sideplate panels, etc. I argued that even if computer assisted machines could do the work, programming them for that refinement would be much too expensive. Jim Kibler proved me to be totally wrong and ignorant about the process. He and Katherine, with some help from some technical friends, worked out details and constructed a business model that works. To me, it is a wonderful story and could not happen to 2 nicer folks. Jim will likely be out with another kit in the near future but he also is taking over much of the metal work and may have his own locks pretty soon. The precision with which he is able to machine the stocks presented him with a problem in that the metal castings and locks he used from other makers were not made with the same level of precision. Repeatedly cutting an exact inlet every time requires the metal parts to be fitted be the same as well, and they aren't. Modern cast parts vary a lot and after-production machining them to Jim's tolerances is not cheap. Consequently, he is starting to take over production of the metal parts and soon a whole series of CNC machined components will be made by Jim. I wish them the best. I have only one issue with the whole deal. Kibler kits finished by some folks have shown up on Track of the Wolf's gun consignment listings. In two cases of which I am aware, they were marketed by the finisher as hand-made products with no mention that they were assembled from Kibler CNC-machined kits. In both cases, the assemblers added some mediocre carving and engraving and charged a lot over the cost of the kit. I hope this doesn't start to become common because in my opinion it is gross misrepresentation at best and fraud at worst. Because Jim's kits are shaped to such final dimensions, there is no way you can make one that will not be recognizable as a Kibler gun. On another forum, someone posted photos of a Kibler colonial rifle carved and decorated in the manner of John Noll by the great contemporary gunsmith, Keith Casteel. Someone responded that it looked just like a John Noll. I try hard to refrain from snark but I really wanted to respond "Yeah, just like a John Noll, except for the stock architecture, hardware, and lock".

dave
 
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