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Original Dixie Kit--A Story

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wirewiz

32 Cal.
Joined
Feb 25, 2007
Messages
35
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Greetings Fellow Smoke Smellers, :wink:

A while back I posted an essay and some photos of an old rifle I repaired. One of the other posters asked if I could relate the story of my first build 50 years ago, the original Dixie Squirrel Rifle Kit. I believe this may have been the first or one of the first kits available that wasn’t a custom order.

In 1955 the selected service law had not changed very much since 1940, so my generation of young men owed our country at least two years of military service. I don’t recall anybody bitching about it. Maybe it’s because we remembered what our older brothers, cousins, uncles, and friends had to endure just a few years before. So when I graduated school I headed to Ft. Sam Houston in San Antonio for six weeks to learn the army way of doing things, then to dental service at Ft. Belvoir, VA.

At Belvoir, one of the first places I headed for was the skeet range. I had never shot clay targets and wanted to learn. When I left for the service my dad told me, that in spite of what the history books say, it was the sergeants who run the army. So when M/Sgt Mike Boyd told me that my pride and joy, my Fox Sterlingworth D/B with 30 inch barrels bored mod and full, might not be the ideal shotgun for the skeet range, I listened. I was soon the proud owner of a Rem 870 with 26” barrel with Cutts Comp. and spreader tube, a reloading tool for shotgun shells, and a lot more x’s on the score sheet.

In the fall of ’56 I was transferred to the dental clinic in the Pentagon. There I met a young dentist from Tennessee named Charley Beard. Charley was also an outdoors guy and gun enthusiast. One day he asked me if I would like to see a caplock rifle he had just made from a kit he bought from a place called Dixie Gun Works. The only exposure to M/Lers I had at that time was in the movies, especially my favorite, Sgt. York. So one day after work I stopped off at Charley’s apartment to see his rifle.

I know that most of you have seen the movie “The Godfather.” There is a scene when Al Pacino is hiding out in Sicily after he wasted that mafioso and crooked police Capt. in New York. He and his two bodyguards are watching this procession of young ladies walk by, this one beautiful gal glances his way and smiles. Al’s face went slack and his eyes bugged out. One bodyguard looks at the other and says, “Looks like he just got hit by “The Lightning.”” That’s kinda how I felt when I held that rifle, the long slim lines, the shiny brass, the heady perfume smell of fresh linseed oil. I had to have one.

Charley and I sat down and filled out the order form. The next day I sent off my 75 bucks to Tenn. and headed for the library in the Pentagon to see what I could find on M/Lers. There was Dillon, there was the Kaufman, there was the Walter Cline, and there was Ned Roberts, a gold mine. I gobbled up everything I could. I read and waited, and read and waited, read and waited some more. Charley told me that delivery would be somewhat spotty. I didn’t realize it at the time but the long delay allowed me to go over the books again and again to try to figure out how the rifle had to go together, there were no plans.

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I began to buy some tools, that little green vise, a 4x4 rasp, ground a safe side on a 3 corner file, a cheap electric drill I burned up long ago, a few chisels etc. Finally, some of my rifle began to arrive. The barrel rout stopped about 4 or 5 inches from where the breech should be, the ramrod groove was routed but no ramrod hole, a nice southern style cheek piece, all in all not too bad. The lock mortice was not routed out , a blessing in disguise, that was the only place I could hold the stock in my little green vice.

I started to chop wood, got the barrel inletted and pinned and waited. The real problem was that the parts came piecemeal in no regular order; it was hard to figure out what to do next. Charley was a help at first, but then he separated a month or so later and I was on my own, no M/L Forum in those days. I began to wonder if I would get all the parts before that Dixie place went belly up.

Little by little the rifle came together all except, the tang screw, it had not arrived. Everything I had read said that it had to screw into the trigger plate. I couldn’t wait for Dixie to send it, I headed to the hardware store with my rifle. In those days you could usually do that without being descended upon by the SWAT teams from 3 or 4 different jurisdictions. Also, the people who worked in the hardware stores actually knew something about the tools they were selling.

I explained to this fella what I had to do, he showed me how, and sold me the drill and tap and a screw. I hit the plate 10x and my rifle was nearly ready to sand, stain and finish, all except the ramrod hole which had to wait until I got home.

As soon as the last coat of linspeed dried I headed for Belvoir to show Sgt. Mike. Among the 7 or 8 guys in the club house that day was a Marine, a Colonel Lee. After passing the rifle around and enjoying the complements Col. Lee asked if he could use my rifle in a match he had coming up the next weekend.

I had no idea there were M/L matches still going on, the books I had read were all old and this was 1957. What could I say; Colonels outrank Captains by quite a bit. As Col. Lee was driving away, Sgt. Mike told me that back in the hills there were still matches being held with lots of dinero on the side. I guess that’s why my rifle got invited and I stayed home.

I know that many of you can understand the emotions that were raging through me as Col. Lee drove away. I had never fired my new rifle; in fact I didn’t even know what black powder smoke smelled like. This just wasn’t fair, but I knew I had to suck it up. I had to figure it this way, my beautiful Virgin Southern Belle would be deflowered in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mts. of Virginia, how poetic, but by a damn Marine. It was almost more than I could stand.

A couple of weeks later was a Saturday of many lessons. There were 8 or 9 guys hanging around the club house after skeet practice when in walks Col. Lee with my rifle, all smiles. He says, “Frank, that rifle shoots real, real good.” I figured that the big smile was because he won some money. If he did I didn’t see any of it. Another shooter said he had a M/Ler that he had just picked up in Japan and brought it in from the trunk of his car.

It was really a very long handgun with an almost straight pistol grip, well carved and inlaid with mother of pearl, about three feet long, a snaphaunce lock, the ramrod was missing, about 20 gauge bore, very, very beautiful.

We started to pass it around, snapping the lock, and such when Sgt. Mike said “Wait a minute, Frank give me your ramrod” He took a quick measurement down the bore, held it along the barrel, it came up about, 3 inches from the touch hole. The silence that pervaded that club house was very, very pregnant. Mike flipped the ramrod, used the jag to start pulling paper from the bore. The paper was covered with Japanese characters, then he rapped the barrel on his desk. Out rolled this lead shot, about an ounce or so, not nice round shot but small squares that had been cut from strips of lead, about 4, 5, 6 sizes. Then more paper, then what looked like about 70-80 grains of lumpy black powder.

How long that gun was loaded is anybody’s guess, the square shot may be some indication, just one spark away from a possible tragedy.

When I got back to my apartment that day I was feeling pretty good. My new rifle “shot really good” and I learned that a M/Ler is always loaded until the ramrod says it’s not. Then I checked my mailbox. I pulled out this Bull Durham sack, a mailing label from Dixie was tided to the draw string. Inside that old tobacco sack was my tang screw. Well whadda ya know, Dixie hadn’t gone out of business after all.

Knowing my usual fly-off-the-handle personality, I would have said a few bad words and thrown the damn thing in the garbage, but something that day made me pause. A simple fact hit me, that 10 cent tang screw completed my deal with Dixie. I would send my 75 bucks to that Turner Kirkland guy and he would send me all the parts for my squirrel rifle. They may not have gotten to me in the sequence I wanted but they would get to me. As corny as it may sound in this day and age, I remembered the old adage; “a man’s word is his bond” that tang screw completed the deal. Today when I flip through that huge Dixie catalogue with its literally thousands of items, I remember that tang screw. That business had some growing pains just like everybody else’s does.

When I got home from the service, my dad was able to get some twist drills brazed onto some coldrolled, a ¼, 5/16 and 3/8. We used the 5/16 to slowly drill out the ramrod hole, it ran straight and true. There was plenty Dupont 2 and 3 all over the place, I found some “light canvas” probably a drill of some kind for patching. Every plumbing shop had pigs of lead for next to nothing. I cast up a bunch of balls from the old Dixie .395 mold and headed for the woods. I was finally able to consummate my love affair with my beautiful Southern Belle.

Over the years, like most beautiful ladies she needed some do-dads to keep her shooting straight. First, I inlayed the cheekpiece star, then installed the capbox. No plain hole full of pig fat for my gal.

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Next, when I found a heavy piece of brass, I made the sideplate. A lot of gals would like a nose job, so I installed a nosecap.

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A few years ago I started to do some stock carving and wire inlay. I decided to give her a “complete makeover.” So I sanded her down, carved up her butt, did some fancy wire, put on a new shade of cherry rouge, and massaged in some body lotion (tru oil). I think she looks pretty good, you can hardly tell she’s over 50.

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I can testify to the old saying that a man never forgets his first love””even when he’s had a few new heavy caliber babes to play around with through the years. So, to all new shooters and builders who peruse this forum on a regular basis, you have found a treasure chest of info. The serious hobbyist and those who have chosen M/Ling as an avocation, are doing the experimenting, teaching the techniques, new and old, and in general keeping the faith alive, ALL FOR FREE. Listen to them, it wasn’t always this way.

Sincerely Wirewiz.

There is no such thing as ancient history.
 
Hey now that was a great story! I was going to get a cup of coffee and you held my interest all the way thru, now I got to have that coffee though.
:thumbsup: :hatsoff:
 
Great story, and your beautiful lady is still a real looker. Thanks for sharing. :hatsoff:
 
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