Long Land Mod Bess India Gun

[Stumpkiller]

Authentic Bess reproductions are out there. They're just not cheap.

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

BD, you have good advice from Zonie, and especially JV Puleo as well as Stumpkiller with his illustrations of good if not excellent quality reproductions.

If you do decide to slim down your Brown Bess, and I strongly recommend you do if you want it to match up to the rest of your gear, you will need to do some serious work. Here is what I would do:

(1) The forearm - way too heavy in appearance. You will need to first remove the ramrod pipes and plane the forearm down to the correct thickness and width, this will probably practically remove the original ramrod groove.

(2) Now you must deepen the ramrod groove. Then re-inlet the pipes - all of them including the rear pipe. Simple enough but this will, guaranteed, show that you need to re-drill the ramrod hole higher - in other words, closer to the barrel. You will not be able to do this with a standard 50 inch long ramrod hole drill, it will want to wander off course almost immediately and jump into the original hole. You will probably have to go in from the barrel channel and cut it there. Not the best way of doing things but it is done occasionally on modern reproduction guns and will work. It looks ugly but you will be the only one that sees it. We can hope....

(3) Once you have done the above two steps you will find that the forearm behind the rear pipe back to the lock inlet needs to be slimmed as well. Easily enough done with wood files and sanding but..... you may find that the original ramrod hole was drilled too low for this and you may when removing the extra wood here, find that you will cut into the original ramrod hole. That wood will then have to be replaced with a matching patch. It happens and can be done successfully with matching wood correctly oriented as to grain structure of the stock. If done well it will hardly be noticeable to anyone but you. But of course you will need to find the proper wood and, having never seen one of these, I am not sure what wood is being used for the Indian guns.

After slimming the forearm from the lock forward, final shaping and refinishing needs to be done or you can move back to the rest of the stock which will also require much reshaping and slimming as well. But that can be discussed later if you decide to take all of this on.

Before you start all of this, please buy the books that JV Puleo and I recommended, you can't do the work without them and, more importantly, handle originals or at least, accurate, quality hand-made reproductions like those shown by Stumpkiller.

Please take this or leave it. It is only offered in the spirit of helpfulness, nothing else. Only you can decide whether it is needed or worth the effort.

 

[poordevil]

Or you could just enjoy your fun gun and tell others to go fly a kite. :hatsoff:

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

:yakyak:

Yep, that would be a whole lot more fun and a lot easier for some people.

 

[Mike Brooks]

For those who did not have anything nice to say
Remember what you mother taught you
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My Mom told me to never step in dog manure and then tell everybody it's chocolate pudding..... :haha:
Although the quality of wood/metal fit has been imporoving on these Indian guns they still look like cartoon renderings of what they are supposed to represent.

 

[Jason Lewis]

eww, that dog has some problems if it looks like pudding.

 

[BigDeutscher]

It is supposed to be a 1730 pattern
Please advise
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[BigDeutscher]

I will tear it apart and see if all this is possible to do without it looking like hammered manure
I have built a long rifle from cabin creek
It took me 6 mths ,I took my time becouse I did not want to screw it up
$300.00 piece of wood under it
So here I go
Thanks for all the suggestions, information and comments .Good or bad I know in my heart you are all trying to help me do it right
I will try to post pictures of my progress
And I am sure I will have questions for all you builders out there, as I go along
The Amishman gone bad
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[BigDeutscher]

The bottom picture seems to show a slight taper of the wood from swell to muzzle is that how it is supposed to be ?
Would you be so kind as to take measurements
so I can get it right
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[preston cook]

when better insults are said this forum will say them :thumbsup:

 

[BigDeutscher]

could someone post a 1730 model lock and panel picture
A close up so I can remove wood in that area also
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[BigDeutscher]

Insults ,What would this site be without them?
Well ....when its all said and done.
I still got a neat pumpkin slinger.
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[JV Puleo]

The only good pictures of details that I know of are in the Goldstein & Mowbray book...and posting them would be a copyright violation. The 1730 Pattern musket is incredibly rare. G&M were only able to locate 11 of them - all in public collections, though a few more may exist in private collections. Of the 11, 8 came from the Flixton Hall collection sold by the late Keith Neal in the 50s. Were it not for the Flixton Hall guns, we would not even know what they looked like when they were new. The remaining 3 are all in well used "attic" condition and at least one of them may have suffered some questionable "restoration" ... Colonial Williamsburg has 3 of of the Flixton Hall P1730s. This is why I am certain that the people who commissioned this reproduction were unable to access a real one. Very few collectors, even collectors with years of experience and deep pockets, have even seen one.

Regarding the thickness of the fore end ... on the originals the inlet for the barrel lugs comes through into the ramrod groove and the lugs that retain the ramrod pipes pierce the bottom of the barrel inlet. The ramrod pipes are pinned to lugs on the bottom of the barrel too... not just to the stock. The thickness of wood between the barrel and the ramrod is probably no more than 1/8 of an inch, perhaps even less...

 

[Zonie]

You asked for it.
These photos are from the book "BATTLE WEAPONS of the American Revolution" 1998 Scurlock Publishing Co., Inc., Texarkana, Texas.

The beavertail behind the lockplate doesn't show up well but notice that it doesn't stick up very high above the wrist. Also the lock panel around the lock is very narrow.

The 1730 is #4. This shows the beavertail better along with the width of the lock panel.

The 1730 triggerguard is shown as #4. Note the narrow stock ahead of the lock panels.

Number 2 is the 1730 muzzle. This not only gives a feeling for the size of the stock but for the distance between the barrel and the ramrod.

My apologies to those of you who are still on dial up. I reduced the file sizes of the photos but they might take a while to load.

 

[tg]

"I have been told many times that I am a welth of useless information
But there it is "

It is often hard to ignore long endured impressions of ones lifes accomplishmensts, it is often best to imbrace them and take them to the highest level possible.It is always preffereble to be the best at anything than to be only mediocre at nothing.

 

[Zonie]

If your suggesting that I'm mediocre at nothing, you aren't the first to say so. :rotf:

 

[BigDeutscher]

Wow Wow
So cool
Dont ever delete that
Thanks
I know I can get it alot closer to those pictures
Now where is my pin punch and rasp
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[Roy]

Most everyone thinks Bess's are big and clunky, if they are its only because the size of the bore.. and of course they are.. compared to a 20 gauge.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Here is a 1730 Long Land Pattern

#1 in the two below series is a 1730 Long Land

Wish I could help you with the measurements. I sold my Kit Ravenshear Bess for more than I had paid for it 15 years earlier to someone who could enjoy it more. Here is a link to a great article from The American Rifleman.

Here is a site with some of the measurements;
http://www.11thpa.org/Bess.html

This first of the Brown Bess Muskets included the 46", .75 cal. Barrel with a top bayonet stud, as well as a walnut stock that established the form for the entire series - a round wrist, handrail butt, raised carving around the lock and sideplate, plus a bulging hand hold just below the tailpipe. A rounded two-screw banana lock lacked an external bridle and had a wide flat upper post. Its furniture, now in brass, introduced a 6" long stepped butt tang, convex side plate with a tail, a shield escutcheon, plus a Dutch-style, lobed trigger guard. The wooden ramrod mounted a 11/2" brass tip and was held by four barrel-shaped pipes. Originally issued without a nose cap, some regiments added a brass strip around the end, as in this example. The large sling swivels had inside measurements of 2" wide for the upper one and 13/4" for the lower.

Length: 62 1/2"

Barrel: 46", .76 cal.
Lock: 6 3/4" x 1 3/8"

Trigger Guard: 11 1/4"
Butt Tang: 6"

Side Plate: 6 1/4"
Furniture: Brass

Weight: 9.0 lbs

 

[BigDeutscher]

From the pictures of the 1730 model
There is much more than 1/8 if an inch of wood between the barrel and R/R channel
It has to be more. just becouse of the pipe and barrel pins
By the picture, I will need to remove ..on a slight taper to the muzzle, around 1/4 inch of wood and re-seat the pipes
Thin out the lock panels and lower all the wood around the lock and trigger guard
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