Hi Nick,
Thanks for posting this and sending me that note on the dimensions. That will be really helpful. Your model 1766 looks to be in pretty good shape and the lock especially nice. I like the comparison with the Navy Arms gun, which I assume is Japanese made? I think the barrel bands show the difference between actual hand forging versus machine manufacturing. However the Navy Arms gun is pretty good and with some minor tweaking mostly to the stock, could pass pretty well for the originals although the barrel bands will look different. I wish the repro makers did as well with their Brown Besses.
dave
Hi Dave,
The butt stock, wrist and lock area’s are in great shape.
Yeap, the repro is a Japanese made Charleville.
The barrel bands are very thin, and still show some hammer marks which is thought was really cool. They fit the stock so that the tops of the bands and bottoms fit snug, not overly tight on the sides as to to not shave the stock, the forearms are very thin and perfectly match the taper of the barrel.
The front barrel band has a type of flare at the rammer entry, navy arms bands are very straight, not many curves like this one. The lip is also angled more on an upward 35-40 degree angle making the rammer guide itself without slipping past the middle band, this as one of the improvements from the heavy 1763 that had a long rammer spring / guide.
The butt stock is most different from the navy arms gun, the cross sections of the butt stock are in the shape of an oval along the flutes with a rounded over comb, the butt plate matches the contour perfectly, this is one of the best butt stocks I’ve seen on an original, most of them are modified with a lower comb or heavily carved out with a dish. Comb on the original is shorter too, almost an inch.
The flutes on the original are cut in and then round upward towards the the comb, like a swell, almost like the swell on an a brown bess. This is one characteristic that is pretty different from the american 1795 which have a more straight edge toward the comb. It almost looks like they had a special scraper made to cut the flutes.
I traced the shapes of the butt stocks, the original one is slightly thicker but not as tall. Has more oval shape.
The navy arms repro is more square and flat and can be reshaped to match the original profile.
They’re so close in size and scale, the navy arms pattern can be modified to perfection.
