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  1. R

    What Makes a "Better" Component?

    EC121 covered it but I gently disagree about the steel comment. GM barrels are harder than leaded steel barrels from many custom barrel makers. But TC barrels are as hard at GM barrels, or harder. I won’t attempt to re-cut the rifling on TC barrels using old time methods. Very hard.
  2. R

    Aqua Fortis

    Let us know what you mean by aquafortis. 1. Diluted nitric acid 2. Diluted nitric acid saturated with iron bits 3. Ferric nitrate solution.
  3. R

    Barrel Browning with Laurel MTN product

    I don’t worry about it and keep going. Are you using humidity?
  4. R

    Large Siler Lock Jaws to Frizzen Alignment

    It’s a “let’s trash this guy’s gun” melee. I know a lefty who outshoots most strong competitive shooters using TVM guns. They make him some long pull lefty flintlocks and he makes them look great with his shooting. We don’t all look for the same things in a flintlock rifle.
  5. R

    Custom pre inlet stock?

    I don’t think you’ll find a precarve for a specific club butt with a lock inlet. Expect to get a barrel inletted and ramrod hole drilled. Dave Keck seems to be backlogged. A client of mine is waiting 3 months after stock and barrel were delivered to forecasted completion.
  6. R

    Pretty patch box!

    Great work! That would take a while to inlet.
  7. R

    Short Barrel Rifles verses Long Barrel Rifles test. Details Below...

    It’s well established that longer barrels give small increases in velocity. This was a fun backyard test but not scientific - I think a shot passing practically through the same hole will penetrate further, as one example. Boards weaken when shot several times and are prone to splitting. Wood is...
  8. R

    dark area on cherry stock

    It’s hard to get uniform color because end grain being exposed sucks up more stain. That’s often the case at the wrist and toe where the slope of the stock exposes some end grain. Some like the variability and others like it less. A good buffing with 4-O steel wool in areas you think are too...
  9. R

    bending brass for patch box cover?

    Originals “never” had bent end plates. Flat on the side against the wood and filed on the exterior to match the buttplate. By “never” I mean less than 1 in 100. However, many ways to skin a cat.
  10. R

    bending brass for patch box cover?

    Bingo! No bending required.
  11. R

    Red Mapel

    Acer rubrum is the only red maple. It varies a lot in hardness, some of it overlapping sugar maple’s range of hardness. A lot of top makers use red maple, and carve it exquisitely. Keep in mind that walnut and red maple overlap in hardness and American walnut was THE gun stock wood in the...
  12. R

    Red Mapel

    At least 2/3 of the curly maple stock blanks out there are red maple. It often stains more honey and molasses than warm reddish tones with aquafortis.
  13. R

    Starting a Hudson Valley Fowler

    I hate looking at these threads and seeing how slow I am. Getting there though. The side plate side has near identical carving and cheekpiece which seems to be a feature of this maker, whoever it was. I’m guessing coastal Massachusetts or Rhodes Island with the nautilus shell carving. I’ll...
  14. R

    Kibler Colonial Trigger Guard Wrong?

    So few guns were dated. The guard fits in with guards on many originals guessed to be in the 1770s.
  15. R

    Smoothbore Barrel Identification Help

    Hard to say. Odd to find a smoothbore in that small a caliber. But the staple and tang lug look contemporary to me. Plus condition.
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