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My Kibler Colonial Rifle

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Joined
May 19, 2006
Messages
76
Reaction score
192
Location
the Niagara
I've enjoyed seeing the results of other folks' Kibler builds. I thought I'd share mine. It's a colonial rifle in .58 caliber. This has the Kibler lock and of course, the fit of barrel and parts was impeccable

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Excellent work! How does it shoot? Thinking of doing a .54 or .58 colonial myself. Currently 1/2 done with a .36 SMR from kibler, and already thinking of the next one.
 
Excellent work! How does it shoot? Thinking of doing a .54 or .58 colonial myself. Currently 1/2 done with a .36 SMR from kibler, and already thinking of the next one.
If you are going to order a Colonial model, you will be happier with a .58. Mine weighs 8.6lbs. It will be heavier in any smaller caliber. MIne balances well, but it feels heavy until it gets to my shoulder.
 
Beautiful gun!
Please tell me about your carving designs and experience as well as difficulty.
I am keen to try but feeling a lot of trepidation to take the plunge.
So this was my first attempt at carving. My original intent with this kit was to leave it plain except for creating the lock panels. But after one look at the beautiful figure in the stock, I resolved to attempt relief carving and incised feature lines to add a little personal decorative element. (And BTW, that curly figure was on the plain stock option!)

So I spent a lot of time looking at original carving designs as well as carving on rifles featured on the Contemporary Makers blog. I picked a design that appealed to me; yet was simple enough that I thought I could pull it off.
I'd say drawing the design the stock was critical, whatever design you pick, you'll want to practice drawing it on paper and wood. Once drawn on I used a narrow chisel to stab in the design into the stock. I don't own any decent wood gouges so I used my chisels, needle files and believe it or not a couple dental picks to carve in the design.

I think my work was pretty simple, but I am happy with it. I would give relief carving a try. As many on this board have said, relief carving is more forgiving tha incised carving. I would agree with that. I was able to clean up tool slips etc pretty easily on the relief carving, but straightening out wayward incised lines raised the blood pressure a bit.
 
I've enjoyed seeing the results of other folks' Kibler builds. I thought I'd share mine. It's a colonial rifle in .58 caliber. This has the Kibler lock and of course, the fit of barrel and parts was impeccable

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Beautiful job! I have a Kibler colonial also, .54 cal smoothrifle! I've got it all together and now am taking it all apart to clean up the brass and start sanding. I too am wondering about relief carving, been practicing on scrap wood! It was good to hear you say that doing the carving wasn't as bad as you thought.
The fit of the parts is great like you said, I've built kits in the past and Kibler has them beat. I was getting ready to drill the lock and tap it when I realized it was already done!
 
Beautiful job! I have a Kibler colonial also, .54 cal smoothrifle! I've got it all together and now am taking it all apart to clean up the brass and start sanding. I too am wondering about relief carving, been practicing on scrap wood! It was good to hear you say that doing the carving wasn't as bad as you thought.
The fit of the parts is great like you said, I've built kits in the past and Kibler has them beat. I was getting ready to drill the lock and tap it when I realized it was already done!
Thanks. Yes give the relief carving a try
 
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