Hiya good folks!
Thank you all so much for your warm welcome..........I think there is something magical about guns that forms a common link, regardless of country!
Hopefully I've managed to upload some pics, but I'm not the greatest photographer or computer buff, so it's all a bit hit and miss for me!
The Baker was always a dream of mine. I belong to a Masonic Lodge called the Bloomsbury Rifles (I'm a Royal Navy man myself) and the Lodge is attached to the Bloomsbury Rifles Regiment, which was part of the Queen's Rifles, which was part of the Victoria Rifles Regiment which were originally known as........yup, the 95th Rifles Regiment, which totally destroyed Napoleon's Imperial Guard at the Battle of Waterloo, their first defeat. And they did it with the Baker rifle.
After much searching and research into the rifle I finally found The Rifle Shoppe, in the good ol' US of A! Don't believe a word you hear about TRS, they are fantastic! Jane and Jesse are wonderful folk who did everything possible to fulfill my dream.
But beware anyone buying a kit. The kit is absolutely accurate in every detail, but it comes very rough, everything must be machined and worked to fit. So unless you are a skilled metalworker, machinist, gunsmith, blacksmith and carpenter, with the appropriate workshop, you'll be best to do as I did, farm out the tricky bits to an expert. The lock must also be hardened and tempered to the correct tolerance otherwise your frizzen and main springs will snap. The sling was made from the correct original design for the early 19th century version. I decided on the sword bayonet as that was what was used at Waterloo. After Waterloo, the rifles were adapted to receive the triangular, lug bayonet.
Anyway, without further ado, the pics, please forgive the quality!!!