Octagon barrel builders

[Dan lbsmyr]

Hi fellows,
Thank you for this forum! I have read through the archives and i am still uncertain. My question is who are the early original builders that used octagon barrels, and what dates and styles did they produce. I would prefer to build the earliest Lancaster style that I can with a straight octagon barrel .50 to .54 cal. and still shoots well and is fairly balanced. My current funds are around $350 or so, lock, stock, and barrel(not including hardware). I would prefer to do an octagon barrel vrs swamped as a first barrel inlet on my first build to keep it less complicated. I may even build another with octagon until I feel confident to tackle my ultimate rifle, an early Lancaster from a blank with a swamped barrel(Beck).
I am asking this so I can research the originals and stay as PC as I can. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I can't wait to get started!
Thanks
Dan

 

[Stophel]

Most people will tell you that straight barrels are essentially post 1800. Nobody's gonna fault you, though, for using a straight barrel on an earlier styled gun (or they shouldn't anyway!), especailly seeing as how it's your first. :winking:

In my opinion, there basically is only one reasonable choice for a straight barrel on an early gun. That is a .54 cal 15/16". This will give you "reasonable" weight and balance, and will have just BARELY enough thickness at the breech to make the gun look right. A .50 cal in this size is just too heavy (in my opinion), and a 1" .58 is also pretty heavy. A 7/8" barrel just doesn't get you enough barrel height to make everything do correctly and look good...the 15/16" just barely will. If you want "early" you need to squeeze as much wrist width out of the stock as you can, and since the barrel is fairly narrow, relatively speaking, it will certainly help to have a lock with a thick bolster, like about 3/16", as opposed to something like a Siler, which is only about an eighth inch thick. (also my opinion only: A 15/16" .54 straight barrel can stand to be cut down to about 38" or so to aid in balance and getting rid of some of the front heaviness.)

I did a gun like this several years ago, using a 15/16" Moody barrel (man, that was a nice barrel!), cut to 38" and used an L&R "trade" lock on it. It came out reasonably well, at least as far as height and thickness are concerned, but that particular lock is a bit too tall for the narrow barrel, and I had issues with the nose of the lockplate and the front screw being more off center than I would have liked. If I were doing it again, I would choose a different lock with a narrower/higher lock plate nose, or modify the L&R one to suit.

Now, a swamped barrel is actually not as hard to inlet as one might think it is. If you go about it the right way, it is no different to inlet a swamped barrel by hand as it is to do a straight one.

The first barrel I inlet myself was swamped and took me 3 months to do!!! I had no clue what I was doing. I can do a swamped barrel entirely by hand in about 3 hours now (less if it's walnut! :grin: )

 

[rich pierce]

As I mentioned in a response to your other post, if you want an early-styled rifle, the Colonial kit from Track is too narrow in the buttstock and uses too narrow a buttplate and a later styled trigger guard in my opinion.

It's tricky to hit your price point with real quality parts. One way is to make a lot of the parts- sideplate, trigger, trigger plate, nosecap, thimbles, sights- if you are really handy with metalwork. This is a small savings but might save $50. I'd go with very plain hard maple. But just the barrel and lock will cost you $275 I am guessing, and they do not give away precarved stocks. If you could hold out a little longer and add another hundred dollars, it would be easier.

 

[Stophel]

Oh, I thought we were starting with a blank, not a precarve....

Virtually any precarve is going to be $150+ . A Green Mountain straight barrel close to a hundred bucks (not counting breeching...), and a lock about $125.

Now, everyone here knows just how big a fan I am of precarved stocks.... :redface: One that isn't so awful is the "Early Lancaster" from Tiger Hunt. Some of their other ones I don't like at all, but this one ain't half bad. The first gun I sold, I made from this stock several years ago (the aforementioned gun with the straight barrel) This one will have a wider butt, and a bit more wood in the wrist than many others will (though not as much as I would have liked...).
[url] www.gunstockwood.com[/url]


The Chamber's "Ketland" lock would be as good a choice as any, as there is an ample bolster for spacing the lock panels out as far as possible, and the lockplate nose is higher than my old L&R "trade lock" was, so positioning the lock won't be as problematic.