vincent project

[ron ward]

i was thinking about my upcomming project of building a vincent type in probably .50 cal for deer hunting. i'm getting readt to order a barrel and other parts and the question of twist came to mind....
i know most vincents were smaller bore, but i like the small details of a vincent that sets it apart from a hawken and wisconsin mandates .45 cal. minimum for deer, so i have to go at least .45 anyway. :grin:
that out of the way, i would like, at least to stay as close to PC as i can and i'm sure he must have built some with bigger holes.
now, most of his work was done in the mid to later half of the century, which brings up the question of,"would he have built a larger bore gun at that time and twist the barrel for round balls or conicals"....this, of course is just a speculative question, based on the fact that i'm pretty sure that historicly, they showed up about that time and there must have been people who were interested in keeping with the latest technology, just as now , but i don't really know if the conicals were commonly known about and/or available enough at that time, for someone to want a gun built for them.
i want to make this gun with the premise that someone would have ordered a new larger bore vincent in around 1850-60 and wanted the latest and greatest bullet technology.
does this make any sence? i know i can just build it for round balls and enjoy it, but it's kind of fun to have a reason to build something idenifiable but different.
thanks for all your help. the more i think about these guns the more appealing the "true to tradition" part of it becomes!.

 

[longcruise]

I'm no authority on Vincents, but I think you could get away with a .50. What you want to watch for is how the larger diameter barrel effects the architecture. You will probably want to go with a 7/8th barrel. Not sure if you can get a .50 in a smaller diameter??

When it comes to the conical question, I think it's almost a non-question. As far as I know, there was no move toward conicals at that period as the latest and greatest technology. The 50's and 60's would have been seeing the use of the minie in military muskets but they were not really all about better bullet performance technology so much as faster reloading. If a soldier could load his rifle with a patched ball two times per minute, he could do it four times with a minie. That's doubling the firepower of the line with the same number of soldiers.

I think conical use by the general public coincided with the introduction of the cartridge rifle. And, that is of course the direction that would have been followed by those wanting the latest in tech! The development of specialized conical shooting ml guns were more about target shooting and had some very specific design features which are not found in the Vincent in the 50's or 60's.

All that said, it's your gun so build it whatever way suits you!

 

[ron ward]

marmotslayer,
thanks for the re. that's what i wanted to hear. one more step ahead in planning my parts/build without so much wondering! i don't really do any of the period activities, but i would still like to have as close to an acceptably authentic reproduction as i can. my plan is to build it as entirely from scratch as possible... fabricate all the lock parts,trigger set, guard, buttplate, etc all from raw materials, of course, a GM barrel, that's a little too far beyond my equipment and capabilities!, but the other components, i'm fully equipped for and capable of making.
there doesn't seem to be much about the vincents around. considering he built in the mid to later part of the percussion era, i would think there would be more info on his guns floating around than there is on hawkens and others.
7/8 is pretty much what i planed on using. you are right, it is the smallest i've found in .50, although i have heard of someone having a .50 cal Ghetz in 13/16, but it was from a while back i don't know if he still makes one and i only can spend so much on this build, so 7/8 will have to do....i think it will be ok. most of the info i've seen on the vincents of .36-.40 cal. had 3/4 to 15/16 inch barrels, anyways, so a 7/8 should sneak right in there fine.
again, thanks to you and this great forum. i think i'm now just about ready to finalize my parts/materials list!

 

[ezyed]

Wisconsin requires at least a 40 cal. in rifle and 45 in smooth bore, or I am in big trouble if I get caught.
ezyed

 

[zampilot]

I have a very nice 7/8" Vincent stock and could only find an Orion .50 cal barrel in 7/8", there are none at Track or anywhere else I inquired!
Take your time ordering parts, I think your SOL if you want iron.

 

[William McConagher]

In "Guns of the Old West" issue number 54, Summer 2007, there is a special on conicals with black powder revolvers and their advantages and disadvantages.

The article is titled "Battle of the Bullets" by Mike Beliveau. He stated that during the "middle of the 19th century conical bullets were at least as popular as round balls in revolver ammunition."

Now this article is only focused on the cap&ball revolver because in CAS there are very few ml rifle shooters and even then it's only in the long range side matches where Sharps dominate in popularity. But in it he talks about the advantages of the conical's shape and characteristics in flight, which for long range rifle shooting whether target or deer is an advantage.

So, depending on the era of your persona, a conical may be a bit advanced. But as marmotlslayer stated, it's your gun... build it as it suits you.

 

[ron ward]

edwin, i stand corrected! the min. of .45cal. is for smoothbores only. i tell ya, i don't know how many years i've gone thinking it was .45 across the board. i do know i never even noticed the differentiation in all my years hunting!
that puts a different light on thins and being "correct" with my vincent. he built plenty of .40's and even some .45's back then.
so how did your .40 do?... does it have enough punch for 100 yrd shots on deer?

 

[ron ward]

zampilot,
i 'm very new to ML's. this will be my first build and i'm still just looking at where to get the things i want. i have never heard of "orion" barrels, where can i see them?

 

[Zonie]

I thought Orion went out of business a few years ago?

For a while they were making "gain twist" barrels but I don't think the idea caught on with buyers.

 

[ezyed]

I do not know how the 40 caliber ball works on deer,there are no deer in northern Wis. I have propertyon the edge of Nicolet National park up by Eagle River and only saw 2 doe during the archery and rifle and muzzle loader season.My 40 cal.is an old German target rifle and quite accurate off the bench. Also had the T/C 54 cal, hawken ready to go. Maybe next year

 

[ron ward]

don't feel like the lone ranger.....
no deer here in central wis. either. i saw one deer gun season, but could shoot, it crossed a small creek infront of me and i had hurry to get to where it was going to cross. when i got there the deer crossed there alright and my glasses were so steamed up, all i saw was a fuzzy brown blob crossing a blue fuzzy line! :cursing:
i did take a nubbin buck in bow season, though it was the bigger of the only two deer i saw all bow season.... it's disgusting.
it's a good thing we all like our guns so much.

 

[ezyed]

On the 40 cal. I am using 58 grn. of 2f behind a round ball. I have not weight the ball yet.I got the rifle back from the gunsmith just before season and did not have a chance to work up a good load.At 50 yards it will shoot better than I can with a scoped rifle.I am 70 years old and have macular degeneration in my shooting eye. Makes a lot of fun shooting left hand with a right hand muzzleloader.

 

[longcruise]

You can get the 7/8 .50 cal right here;

LC rice barrels

 

[longcruise]

Problem with a 7/8 .50 is that there will be very little barrel wall to support the threads of the powder drum. I'm sure it's done but extra care should be taken to assure that the lock is providing support to the drum.

 

[excess650]

use a patent breech

 

[zampilot]

The Orion .50 in 7/8" was the only .50 cal 7/8" barrel I could find anywhere so I grabbed it! Side by side with two other maker's barrels there isnt any visual difference.
My Vincent is a ways off before I build though.

 

[ron ward]

marmotslayer,
i've given some though to that problem ealier, when i was building the gun in my head and on paper.
my plan, seeing that i will be making my own lockplate, is to leave the plate and bolster oversize enough at the top of the plate to allow drilling/reaming the full diameter of the drum into the plate/bolster.
mortice the oversize plate with the bolster attatched and tanged barrel into the stock to finished position. with the lock screw in place drill a pilot for the drum throught the plate and barrel flat. then drill/ream the plate/bolster to drum size and drill/tap the barrel for the drum. remove the plate and trim the top of it to the correct profile leaving the notch for the drum exactly the same size as the drum and perfectly centered with the drum hole in the barrel.
the drum should then have 100% contact and support from the lock plate and bolster thickness and have full, solid 100% support from the barrel to the outside face of the lockplate. that will be 5/16" of support from the bolster and lockplate, given a 7/8"barrel and 1-1/2" stock width at the plate. i'll just have to make sure i get good contact when inletting the lock plate.
in lite of being able to use .40 cal in wisconsin if rifled, i think i"ll go with a 13/16 x .45cal. the barrel size will fit with the vencent architecture better and the same support system should work as just as well.

 

[bioprof]

I am perplexed by your plans to modify your lock plate given your statement that you want to stay as PC as possible. I would think that modifying your lock plate so that the drum passes through it would change the appearances considerably.

Perhaps a solution would be to use a drum with finer threads so that you would have more threads holding it in. I would think you could find a blank that you could thread yourself or make one from scratch.

Having said that, I bet you can find a lot of examples of 50 caliber 7/8" barrels with standard percussion drums.

 

[ron ward]

bioprof,
i think you need to go back and re-read my post...i'm not "modifying" my plate in any way at all.
when all is done, it will look and be like every other plate. in making the plate and bolster. i will leave the plate and bolster material above the centerline of the drum notch so that when drilling the pilot a complete hole for the drum will be drilled and reamed to be a precise fit with the diameter of the drum. once that is done, i will remove the upper half the the extra material down to the correct profile of the top edge of the lockplate and bolster, leaving a typical half circle notch that the drum sits in. the difference is that my notch will be an exact, precision fit with the plate and bolster, giving absolute 100% support around the bottom circumfrence of the drum as it passes through the plate and bolster. it will screw in and out of the barrel just like any other drum, in fact the end result will be no different than any other installation on the market. it will just be achieved in a different process and the fit and support the drum recieves from the bolster and plate will be precision because it was drilled and reamed as a unit instead of being just a filed in notch.
i believe that most of the problems associated with the drums loosening in the barrel threads is because just filing the notch into the plate and bolster doesn't make good enough contact to full support the drum against the hammer's repeated impacts and eventually it loosens the threads. once they are loose, the only thing you can do is tighten the drum and that takes the nipple out of alignment with the hammer,as tightening the drum rotates the nipple up(counterclockwise)which put the tip of the nipple ahead of the center of the hammer. once that starts, the hammer actually beats the pipple and drum further forward and more out of alignment. if the fit of the drum in the notch is good enough to be considered a precise fit the drum cannot be moved in the notch at all and cannot cam itself loose in the barrel's threads because there is solid,100% contact at between the drum and the plate and bolster directly opposing the hammers line of impact.
this problem of the drumm comming loose in the barrel also stems from the fact that the plates we buy are either already notched, in which case we must try to get the plate exactly morticed into the stock and the barrel and drum hole exactly located so that the drum has some contact with the plate and bolster for support, or we must file a good half circle into the plate and bolster that fits the drum good enough to support it well. either situation is difficult at best and usually results in imperfect fit and little support for the drum. hence, the issues with thread size and number of threads in the barrel. if there is a way to achieve a truley precise fit between drum and plate/bolster, there is no reason why a 7/16 or even a 3/8 inch drum will not work in the smaller barrels. they just need to be supported better by a better fit through the plate and bolster. the method i describe above will do that.

 

[bioprof]

I understand now. Thanks for the clarification. Your plan sounds like it should work well.