• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Reading County Pa Flintlock

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Zonie

Moderator Emeritus In Remembrance
MLF Supporter
Joined
Oct 4, 2003
Messages
33,410
Reaction score
8,501
Location
Phoenix, AZ
Reading County Pa style rifles are known for the curved comb on the stock sometimes called "Roman Nose" style.
As a source of inspiration, I used several Andrew Figthorn rifles as depicted on page 56,57 and 114 of The Kentucky Rifle and Me by Edith Cooper,1977. I do not try to copy a exact gun but rather try to recreate the spirit and style of the gunsmith. This explains, among other things, the use of German Silver furniture. The PC rifle would have been in brass and the striped ramrod would have to go.

Although this was my third rifle (1996), as you can see, I was into inlays, this rifle having 17 plus the vent pick (the original had very few).
This is a convertable rifle using Siler Flint and Percussion locks, Davis Triggers, and Pecatonica River #3 Curly Maple wood.
The barrel is a Green Mountain 13/16 octagon X 42 in .45 Caliber.
This rifle also was my first (and last) attempt at engraving.
Although rather crude, it has grown on me over the years until I rather like it, in a rustic sort of way.
Remember, you only have to please the customer, and if your building it for yourself, if your happy, so is he.
rsreadg.jpg

rbreadg.jpg

lbreadg.jpg
 
Zonie,

Another beauty. I like the color. What stain/finish did you use?
 
Jersey: It's been 8 years sense I built it so I will have to make an educated guess.
First off, the gun doesn't look quite this red, at least to me with it laying here in my lap. Maybe my pixels got pixelated? Anyway, I think this was 3 coats of BC Walnut with 1 coat of Colonial Brown(no longer available) which had a brown/red tone to it.

By the way, this is the gun in my post about the Swiss Powder firing before I could even see the flash in the pan. :)
 
Very nice. But you left a couple spots of wood showing.

I did?? Well, as some of you know that was done back when my cataracts were forming so I couldn't see to clearly. I can see now where I did leave some wood showing!!

As for what you can do if you set your mind to it, you never know till you try. Ya, it took a lot of time, but it beat watching those dumb TV shows my wife watches.
 
Zomie, That is one beautiful gun ::

*sigh*

Awww, now I need to wipe the dribble off the keyboard! How long did that take you to do? Do you sleep with it under your pillow at night? :) Amazing, simply amazing /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
That's a beauty, I'd like to try some stock carving sometime
and though I think I could do it, I just keep putting it off
until the next one. Maybe some day.
Good job Zonie.
 
Hellen: It usually takes me 5 to 7 months to build a rifle. I could do it faster but this is a hobby, so sometimes I might work 2 or 3 hours a night for a week or so, and sometimes I may go for 1-3 weeks not touching a project at all.
If I had to put an hour figure on it it would be between 180 amd 250 depending on the carving and number of inlays.
To give an idea of the speed I build at, it has taken me over a week to inlet the Davis "Type C Fusil" flintlock into my "Bastard Gun" stock. Although I could have just "hogged out" a big pocket under the lockplate I choose to remove just the wood that needed to be removed for each piece of the lock. It fits like a glove and that's the way I like things.

This slow pace actually helps in several ways. First, it reduces the number of mistakes I make. Second, it allows me to escape from the pressures of my job because there is no "due date" and others are not depending on me. Third, perhaps the biggest of all, I can't afford to buy the hardware for another gun several times a year.

No, I don't sleep with it. It's too hard and lumpy and if I did, what would my other guns say?
 
Zonie:

Gee, if I didn't know any better, I would say that you have an inlay fetish! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif ::

Very nice looking flinter!
 
Back
Top