Tacksman45
Pilgrim
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2014
- Messages
- 372
- Reaction score
- 161
Hi again everyone,
After doing research for more than two years, I have decided to pursue the project of having a Scottish National Longarm made! I am going to make posts periodically to ask for advice from the folks here on the forum! I have read several books including two from my good friend and fellow forum user MacRob, as well as Scottish Firearms by Blair and Savage, and The Scottish Pistol by Martin Kelvin. I have also have talked with Steve Krolic, who has very graciously answered a number of questions I had about the details of this project. I am still doing research for this project but I will layout where I am at on this project so far:
Fellow forum user "Deep Creek" Dale Nincehelser has agreed to build this gun for me. He has built a beautiful Spanish Escopeta for me before, and he does fantastic work!
I am going to base this build off of a musket catalog# LNA32 in the Seafield Collection at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. One of the curators at the Museum was kind enough to send me some photos of this musket in it's display case for reference. The majority of the extant Scottish Longarms are stocked with what is referred to as "Brazilwood." This may refer to any number of hardwoods from South America including Paubrasilia echinata commonly know as Brazilwood or Pernambuco wood, however this wood is endangered and no longer reasonably available. There is at least one example of one of these guns being stocked with walnut however, and I was able to purchase a large enough English Walnut blank from Ron Scott, which I attached a picture of below.
For the barrel I contacted Bobby Hoyt, who agreed to make the custom barrel and breechplug for me. If you are in the market for a custom barrel, I highly recommend him! I decided to follow Steve Krolic's advice and not try to exactly match the dimensions of the barrel since nothing about the guns were standardized. The barrel is 48 inches overall and .75 caliber, as the LNA32 is described in Scottish Firearms. The barrel has the distinctive "step" transition on the top of the barrel, and I will have a wedding band filed into the barrel forward of this (see attached pictures below.) For the lock Dale is going to customize a snaphaunce lock from a Rifle Shoppe parts set.
For the rest of the hardware I am going to branch out somewhat from the original gun. The original gun has a conventional shaped trigger, instead of the "ball trigger" that most of these guns have. MacRob is of the opinion, and I agree with him, that the triggers on these guns which are not ball triggers are likely replacements, and I am going to have Dale make a custom ball trigger for this gun. Another source I am using for this project is the painting of Alastair Grant Mor, Laird Grant's Champion, by Richard Wait. the Scottish longarm pictured in this painting is actually one of the guns in the Seafield Collection but I do not remember which one it is. As is typical for these guns, I am going to omit a triggerguard, and a sideplate. I am going to use three 1/2" dome headed lock bolts, and I may have washers inlet under the heads of the lockbolts to give the wood some extra protection. The painting appears to show brass ramrod pipes similar to the bulbous jaeger type ramrod pipes available from Track, so I am going to these with some slight alterations. The painting also shows a large brass tulip type ramrod tip so I will use one of these one the end of the ramrod. The only other tricky detail is the sights. The LNA32 has a very large rams horns type rear sight, with extensively curled rams horns. Track sells a number of buckhorn type rear sights, however if I use one of these it is not going to look right, so I will have Dale make this sight with some creative license. The original does have a small soldiered front sight, for which I will use standard brass fusil sight from Track. I am going to use standard soldered lugs for the pins.
I will give more updates as things develop!
After doing research for more than two years, I have decided to pursue the project of having a Scottish National Longarm made! I am going to make posts periodically to ask for advice from the folks here on the forum! I have read several books including two from my good friend and fellow forum user MacRob, as well as Scottish Firearms by Blair and Savage, and The Scottish Pistol by Martin Kelvin. I have also have talked with Steve Krolic, who has very graciously answered a number of questions I had about the details of this project. I am still doing research for this project but I will layout where I am at on this project so far:
Fellow forum user "Deep Creek" Dale Nincehelser has agreed to build this gun for me. He has built a beautiful Spanish Escopeta for me before, and he does fantastic work!
I am going to base this build off of a musket catalog# LNA32 in the Seafield Collection at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. One of the curators at the Museum was kind enough to send me some photos of this musket in it's display case for reference. The majority of the extant Scottish Longarms are stocked with what is referred to as "Brazilwood." This may refer to any number of hardwoods from South America including Paubrasilia echinata commonly know as Brazilwood or Pernambuco wood, however this wood is endangered and no longer reasonably available. There is at least one example of one of these guns being stocked with walnut however, and I was able to purchase a large enough English Walnut blank from Ron Scott, which I attached a picture of below.
For the barrel I contacted Bobby Hoyt, who agreed to make the custom barrel and breechplug for me. If you are in the market for a custom barrel, I highly recommend him! I decided to follow Steve Krolic's advice and not try to exactly match the dimensions of the barrel since nothing about the guns were standardized. The barrel is 48 inches overall and .75 caliber, as the LNA32 is described in Scottish Firearms. The barrel has the distinctive "step" transition on the top of the barrel, and I will have a wedding band filed into the barrel forward of this (see attached pictures below.) For the lock Dale is going to customize a snaphaunce lock from a Rifle Shoppe parts set.
For the rest of the hardware I am going to branch out somewhat from the original gun. The original gun has a conventional shaped trigger, instead of the "ball trigger" that most of these guns have. MacRob is of the opinion, and I agree with him, that the triggers on these guns which are not ball triggers are likely replacements, and I am going to have Dale make a custom ball trigger for this gun. Another source I am using for this project is the painting of Alastair Grant Mor, Laird Grant's Champion, by Richard Wait. the Scottish longarm pictured in this painting is actually one of the guns in the Seafield Collection but I do not remember which one it is. As is typical for these guns, I am going to omit a triggerguard, and a sideplate. I am going to use three 1/2" dome headed lock bolts, and I may have washers inlet under the heads of the lockbolts to give the wood some extra protection. The painting appears to show brass ramrod pipes similar to the bulbous jaeger type ramrod pipes available from Track, so I am going to these with some slight alterations. The painting also shows a large brass tulip type ramrod tip so I will use one of these one the end of the ramrod. The only other tricky detail is the sights. The LNA32 has a very large rams horns type rear sight, with extensively curled rams horns. Track sells a number of buckhorn type rear sights, however if I use one of these it is not going to look right, so I will have Dale make this sight with some creative license. The original does have a small soldiered front sight, for which I will use standard brass fusil sight from Track. I am going to use standard soldered lugs for the pins.
I will give more updates as things develop!
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