Red’s Incredible Traditions Kentucky Build: Probably not what you would have done…

[Panama Red]

It ain’t pretty and shiny. Must be slow…

 

[APG]

have fun with the build (the lock is the weakest part of the gun I replaced it with the L&R, and a trigger pinnedView attachment 217850 through the stock)View attachment 217851View attachment 217853100 yrd sight in 65grns swiss 3f 490 ball #40 drill cloth tallow lubeView attachment 217855

Thats what I did with my Traditions Kentucky, changed the lock with a L & R replacement lock. Couldn't be happier.

 

[Panama Red]

Thats what I did with my Traditions Kentucky, changed the lock with a L & R replacement lock. Couldn't be happier.

Does that drop straight in, or do I have to do some inletting?

 

[64Springer]

Thats what I did with my Traditions Kentucky, changed the lock with a L & R replacement lock. Couldn't be happier.

The lock panels are so big on the Kentuckyish stocks that I keep thinking about a Ketland lock.

I'm sure it would fit.

Sear/Trigger location is the only thing that concerns me. But pinning a single trigger through the stock may work. Maybe a custom trigger plate.

 

[Panama Red]

Remember when I told you, waaaaay back in the beginning of this tale, to prepare to be amused? Well, here we go!
So, I decided to join the two halves today. I got to digging around in some model airplane stuff I had, and found some plywood that we use for a firewall/motor mount that was the exact same thickness as the little brass plate. “Awesome!” says I, “This will be PERFECT!” And it was! I cut out a little plywood plate, slightly larger than the brass one that is provided, test fit everything together, and truly liked what I saw. So I went and grabbed the Elmo the Gorilla glue, and proceeded to glue it all together. Lots of glue, little plywood plate, two Kobalt squeezy clamps, and a length of blue surgical tubing, and I had it all snugly glued together!
I ate some lunch, got a good workout in, went to a friends funeral (well, that part sucked, but we are all headed that way. None of us get out of here alive) and helped my daughter repair a chicken coop that a huge limb fell on. No chickens were injured. Letting the thing dry. Came home about 6 and got to sanding. Man, it came out so well I figured I would go ahead and get the trigger guard in… but it wasn’t quite fitting the way it should. I know what you’re saying right now. “DONT BEND IT, RED!!!” And if I had listened, all would be well right now… so, I bent it juuuust a hair. And man, it was close! Just a hair more, and SNAP! I now have a custom two piece trigger guard. Yay me. I guess I’ll be trying to silver solder this thing back together tomorrow.
Lesson of the day: sometimes, close is good enough.
-Red, figuring it out as he goes…

 

[davidmc62]

That is beautiful! Nice work. Will be referencing this as I proceed.
Thanks!

Well I had an idea and took my building ques from the book "Gunsmith of Grennville County". Tried within reason to use his stock shaping techniques to that old CVA. It went on a big weight loss program. The stocks were glued together with standard wood cabinetry type pins. Once the two stock parts were together, the original barrel pins and nose cap screw holes were now in the wrong place so I had to plug and redrill them all. Ended up replacing the nose cap with one I liked better, the CVA one is too large and clunky for my ideas. Had to do a fair amount of wood reshaping and gluing to get that nose cap to work but I like the look of it much better. same with the trigger guard, never did like that much so bought and inletted a Leman style trigger guard. Along with the smoothing of the insides of that lock and trigger, I just inlet the trigger a little further into the stock to take up a lot of that wiggle they usually have bouncing off the sear. But dont set it in too far, dont want an unsafe rifle. Lengthened the wrist to comb area, moved the rear ramrod transition area back about an inch I think. This made the barrel seem and look longer. Had to re-space and redo the ramrod pipes so they would be more "equally" spaced. The Faux stripe finish was Laurel Mountain Forge nut brown for base color, followed by hand painted stripes of Medium brown leather dye(should have used Dark Brown) topped off by if I recall 3 - 4 coats of tru oil gun finish. Now most folks will tell you, thats a lot of work to do on a gun that wont reflect in value, but I am a tinkerer and had a plan. The original owner of that rifle gave me free reign to do as I wish, and I wasnt doin it for money. He needed it done and I wanted to see if I was up to the challenge. Winner Winner and she's a shooter!

 

[davidmc62]

You see a lot of those trigger guards broken on those old CVA and Traditions kentucky rifles. Poor design, but it is fixable or even replaceable. Deer Creek carries a lot of traditions and CVA parts. you can probably get a new one from them.

 

[davidmc62]

Panama Red, heres a few more pics of that finished rifle. Have to look I think there may be a few in progress photos in the computer somewhere, will post if I find them

 

[64Springer]

Panama Red, heres a few more pics of that finished rifle. Have to look I think there may be a few in progress photos in the computer somewhere, will post if I find them

That's very nice.

Took that fat sub roll of a belly and nutra-systemed it.

 

[davidmc62]

I really wish I had taken more in progress pictures but ya know what they say about hind sight

 

[kyron4]

Thats what I did with my Traditions Kentucky, changed the lock with a L & R replacement lock. Couldn't be happier.

What were the issues with the Traditions lock ? I've only shot mine about 100 times so far but it works flawlessly. Misfires from a fouled patent breach have been my only issue so far and I've remedied that problem.

 

[Panama Red]

Couldn’t stand it. Had to see if I could fix it before I went to bed. Silver soldered it. Got a lot of cleaning up to do, but it will work.
-Red, puttin’ in the long hours

 

[64Springer]

I really wish I had taken more in progress pictures but ya know what they say about hind sight

Is that the way that Traditions stock came or did you faux stripe it?

A lot of vertical grain that you don't often see on a budget kit gun.

 

[Panama Red]

Is that the way that Traditions stock came or did you faux stripe it?

A lot of vertical grain that you don't often see on a budget kit gun.

He mentioned earlier that it’s faux stripe. If not, I’m writing Traditions and complaining about mine, LOL!
That’s a nice build. Lots of little detail in it that I like. I noticed the trigger guard from the first pics, and just thought maybe CVA had a nicer trigger guard.
-Red, still awake…

 

[SDSmlf]

Remember when I told you, waaaaay back in the beginning of this tale, to prepare to be amused? Well, here we go!
So, I decided to join the two halves today. I got to digging around in some model airplane stuff I had, and found some plywood that we use for a firewall/motor mount that was the exact same thickness as the little brass plate. “Awesome!” says I, “This will be PERFECT!” And it was! I cut out a little plywood plate, slightly larger than the brass one that is provided, test fit everything together, and truly liked what I saw. So I went and grabbed the Elmo the Gorilla glue, and proceeded to glue it all together. Lots of glue, little plywood plate, two Kobalt squeezy clamps, and a length of blue surgical tubing, and I had it all snugly glued together!
I ate some lunch, got a good workout in, went to a friends funeral (well, that part sucked, but we are all headed that way. None of us get out of here alive) and helped my daughter repair a chicken coop that a huge limb fell on. No chickens were injured. Letting the thing dry. Came home about 6 and got to sanding. Man, it came out so well I figured I would go ahead and get the trigger guard in… but it wasn’t quite fitting the way it should. I know what you’re saying right now. “DONT BEND IT, RED!!!” And if I had listened, all would be well right now… so, I bent it juuuust a hair. And man, it was close! Just a hair more, and SNAP! I now have a custom two piece trigger guard. Yay me. I guess I’ll be trying to silver solder this thing back together tomorrow.
Lesson of the day: sometimes, close is good enough.
-Red, figuring it out as he goes…View attachment 218053View attachment 218054

I have been told heating brass trigger guards to ‘red’ hot with propane or Mapp gas before bending is a fool’s errand as if will ruin the brass. I have ‘ruined’ a number of trigger guards and other brass parts (though not visible to the naked eye) but have yet to break one, knock on wood.

The silver solder ‘works’, but for a new build gun would seriously consider a replacement trigger guard to avoid that ‘oh shoot’ moment when the silver solder fails during a public display.

 

[Philip Lebow]

I did one for a customer. The kit had short pins through the brass spacer, as on the CVA.
Glue didn't hold. I drilled the pinholes 2 inches deep butt and forend and epoxied in 4 in lengths of
10-32 all thread, using the barrel to hold the parts aligned. Then I could finish the stock.
Put the wood on a definite diet! Came out very nice, but clumsy customer banged the gun against the
door frame on the way out!

 

[Panama Red]

I did one for a customer. The kit had short pins through the brass spacer, as on the CVA.
Glue didn't hold. I drilled the pinholes 2 inches deep butt and forend and epoxied in 4 in lengths of
10-32 all thread, using the barrel to hold the parts aligned. Then I could finish the stock.
Put the wood on a definite diet! Came out very nice, but clumsy customer banged the gun against the
door frame on the way out!

I would equate that customer with what I call “Guitar Bonkers”, people that “bonk” the guitar into everything as they walk around with it, door frame, table edge, arms of chairs…that sound… man, it sets me on edge. I even tell people when I hand them my guitar, “Don’t bonk it”. Well, I usually just don’t let anyone hold my guitar, unless I know them pretty well. And it’s not even an expensive guitar, LOL!
I’m going to try this trigger guard first. Yeah, that joint is going to fail one day, but where it’s located, it’s not going to be a safety issue. And when it does, I’ll probably go the route of davidmc62 and buy a better looking guard.
-Red, still doing it wrong…

 

[davidmc62]

Yea that beech wood is just plain ugly sometime and the CVA Kentucky had the common problem of front stock not matching the butt stock, so I faux striped it to help hide that fact. The Leman trigger guard, nose cap and barrel pins I got from Track Of The Wolf muzzle loading supply. I really tried to use most of what the rifle offered. Only parts changed where the trigger guard, nose cap and barrel pins. I wanted to try to keep it simple. it was more of an opportunity for me to try to improve the rifle's form and function and "learn as I went along". Hell I had never done this before but had a plan and wasn't afraid to try. When I do this again, will probably make a few additional changes, don't really like the entry ramrod pipe just shoved up into the stock transition area, and I think a simple Leman style patch box and a simple side plate would look nice also.

 

[Panama Red]

Yea that beech wood is just plain ugly sometime and the CVA Kentucky had the common problem of front stock not matching the butt stock, so I faux striped it to help hide that fact. The Leman trigger guard, nose cap and barrel pins I got from Track Of The Wolf muzzle loading supply. I really tried to use most of what the rifle offered. Only parts changed where the trigger guard, nose cap and barrel pins. I wanted to try to keep it simple. it was more of an opportunity for me to try to improve the rifle's form and function and "learn as I went along". Hell I had never done this before but had a plan and wasn't afraid to try. When I do this again, will probably make a few additional changes, don't really like the entry ramrod pipe just shoved up into the stock transition area, and I think a simple Leman style patch box and a simple side plate would look nice also.

JB67 did a nice job of the entry pipe, even extending a wear plate all the way down the fore grip. Good looking gun.

My Modified Build of a Traditions Kentucky Rifle kit
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...itions-kentucky-rifle-kit.115915/post-1584432

 

[BBGun]

For all those concerned about the 2 piece stock and spacer, I wonder if a full stock version Hawken stock would be a close enough match to move all the Traditions Kentucky rifle hardware over to with some minor tweaking of course.
View attachment 217984

Be close, but looks doable. (interesting)