The Latest Form My Bench

[Loja man]

Excellent work!!

 

[Dave Markowitz]

Drop dead gorgeous.

 

[Oberst]

Beee you teee full!

 

[D.Summers]

Oh my! Distinctive trigger guard! Lovely work!!

 

[Urban Coyote]

CVA or Traditions kit?

Beautiful rifle, well done.

 

[Barry Strickland]

Excellent work!

 

[Frontiersman77]

Awesome job! Love it!

 

[jefair1]

Fantastic work and a beautiful rifle.

 

[Hatman/2nd line]

I get all the bar stock and finishing nails (aka rivets) at Home Depot or Lowe's. Soft, mild steel, and plain finishing nails. NO stainless steel or "bright" finishing nails. And I've scrapped a few pieces in the process.

Learning has been marked by success, failure, hooray's, cussing, and Band-Aids.

Thank you all, again, for the compliments.

You sir are a true craftsman!

 

[CuNosecap]

Fantastic workmanship. Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

[SOLANCO]

I don't know that I have ever seen a more beautiful rifle.

 

[Ed Pilkington]

U R a master Craftsman! God Bless!!!

 

[slspletskp]

Heirloom quality for certain! Anyone would be proud to have it for their own. Very nicely done!

 

[Mgbruch]

Thanks again all! Urban Coyote... Yes! This gun did start out as a CVA kit. Forty five years ago.

I sold the CVA a few years later to assemble my first flintlock, a Lancaster styled barn gun, using a precarved stock, L & R's Late English lock, and a barrel from Green River Rifle Works. For reasons that don't make sense to me now I sold that rifle and left the sport for 25 years. I didn't start building on a semi-regular basis until eight years ago. For all you younger aspiring builders and smithies... don't do that. Don't do that.

 

[Old Oak]

The most beautiful I have ever seen. So clean, unadorned gorgeous wood....great work!

 

[TC Tommy]

Beautiful job! If this is number 10, how nice are the other nine? You could put on a one man ten gun show.

 

[WBNovak]

I build two or three Southern Mountain Rifles a year; and I thought I'd show the latest to come off my bench. This is gun number 10 from a blank, for me.

The wood for this one is a fairly nice piece of red maple. The barrel is from Colerain, and is a B weight, .50 caliber, and 44" long. The lock is Jim Chambers Late Ketland. The double set triggers are my own. I make the triggers, plate, and springs... but I do buy the two machine screws. This is the fourth rifle to carry my own triggers. The butt plate, toe plate, trigger guard, lock bolt washer, ramrod pipes, and sights are also handmade by myself.

I fancy that I build from lock, stock, and barrel... but I really don't. I buy all my screws and bolts, vent liners, some pin stock, aquafortis, stains, and oils.

This gun has a 3 1/2" drop to heel, a 13 3/8" length of pull, and 3/16" cast-off. The stock has not been sanded, but has a traditional scraped and burnished finish. Staining was done with auafortis followed by two different cover stains, and several coats of Permalyn Sealer.

I'm not the fastest kid in school. I figure, with all of the parts I make, and 90% of the work being done by hand... close to three hundred hours per gun.

She turned out pretty.

Super nice! How is the name on the barrel done? Do you engrave that yourself? Impressive work!

 

[James Kibler]

That's pretty snazzy! Great work.

Jim

 

[Mgbruch]

Thanks guys!

Yes, I do engrave my name. Ha, ha! I'm ok when it comes to carving; but I am no engraver. What you see there represents the entire breadth and depth of my engraving skills. When I decided I'd better start signing my work, I must have practiced that over a hundred times before I got to where I would dare to make it a permanent part of the gun. My scrap box is full of bits and pieces of bar iron with it engraved all over them.

Engraving is one of those skills where I would benefit from some hands-on teaching. Even then I would have to practice A LOT to reach some moderate level of proficiency. We all have our strengths and weaknesses in the craft. But I can manage my name; and as my work goes out into the rest of the world I want my name on it. There are two parts of the building process that I fret over. Drilling the ramrod hole, and engraving my name.

One last rifle to show. This is my personal gun, "Miss Sally". She's a joy to shoot, to carry in the field; and she's helped put deer meat in the freezer. She's also the last gun to carry someone else's triggers; a Davis kit. I once toyed with the idea of putting my own triggers in; still keeping the same bar and springs. But I decided not to. This is the way she came off my bench, and this is the way she'll stay. She's a good girl.

 

[Dobegrant]

That is a very nice looking rifle,congratulations