Love of Muzzle Loaders: 2014

Today is my 70th Birthday, so off to the garage (again).

I had a left over .50 cal DISC barrel already plugged.
So here is the start of a muley rifle.
Revamped Cherry stock, not yet shaped correctly or having the correct drop.

Left Side.
No hammer or trigger as yet.
Those will be the same type as the muley pistol.

3/4 inch square tubing with 3/4 inch wide straps to hold stock. Straps soldered and riveted. I wish I had a welder.

Top View.
The rear rivet is partly showing here. Barrel mounting screws on right side not yet countersunk. Really short brass screws, for looks only.

Dec/29/2014
Bench View.

Rivet view. Next one may use thicker wall tubing.

Fitting the hammer slot, file, try, etc.
Well used vise with olive wood jaw inserts.

Hammer not shaped as yet. Trigger the same. Hammer spring shaped but not yet tempered. All parts are 3/16 inch steel.

Trigger opening needs forward clearance (i.e. more). All parts need trimming and fitting before action is useable. Stock has been shaped a bit more but needs a lot of changes.

Dec/30/2014 Pops a cap.

Spring is plenty strong even though it's 1/32 inch thick. Hammer needs more shaping. All parts need polishing. Serial number is 12302014. Hammer pin was increased to 3/16 inch diameter.

All parts except the spring.

Bottom view. Shows spring attached. Receiver stops trigger rear movement.
6-32 screw holds spring.

Closeup of trigger shape. Only visible slightly is the relieved back of the trigger+hammer contact areaa. Trigger has forward stop (brass pin) and return spring on a brass pin. Blue color is Sharpie to detect rubbing areas and polish same.

Dec/31/2014
Added MKII rear tip-up sight.
Drilled holes and added a hammer spur.

Also added peep front sight. Both sights were in the "scrap box".
Reshaped the stock some more and changed to steel screws for stock mounting.
It now fits me.

Jan/03/2015
Darn, broken main spring, broke right at the loop.
Made a steel block from key stock to hold the remnant of that hammer spring.
Original 6-32 screw holds it in place.
I like this arrangement a lot better, and it still pops a cap.
Olive wood block with leather thong for the half-cock position.

Range Report:
Jan/05/2015
25 yards then 50 yards.
4 groups, 3 on left, 1 on right.

3 groups; first group in center 25 yards 6 shots, 2nd in upper center 50 yards 5 shots, 3rd upper left 50 yards 3 shots (what?). POI bottom point of large center diamond, so it shoots a bit high.

One group at 25 yards 10 shots, 2 shots to find target, 8 shots to check accuracy of shooter :-)
POI bottom point of large center diamond. Tried 200 yards, was high and to the left. Not bad for the first time out with this rifle.

Hammer and trigger now blued. Hammer spring stayed in place and intact, good!

Jan/07/2014
OK, so I did not like those sights.

Now trying 3/4 inch aluminum tubing with plastic ends.
Rear part is clamped with a flashlight dual bracket and a brass (temporary) front bracket with a small spring to hold the front in place. Yes, the brass bracket is flimsy so it's just a test to see if this can work then a more robust front bracket will be made. Possibly an unused scope ring clamped to the barrel and the bottom ground to fit the tube.

Rear plastic piece is a garden hose quick change male piece with the threads removed. Front plastic piece is yet to be found. There is a large brass washer inside of the rear plastic piece, painted black. There are a lot of reflections inside of this tube and I'm hoping that an internal dose of black wrinkle paint will fix it.

OK, a better more stable front tube holder. A brass "C" clip holds the tube to the concaved old scope base. A temporary plastic piece with an O-ring holding it in place and has a 3/16 inch diameter hole in the center. I will be looking for better plastic pieces with different hole sizes.

Bore sighted in at about 75 feet.

Jan/09/2015
25 yards, 45 grains of 777 FFFg, blue tick patch lubed with bore butter, .490 Hornady round ball.
4 shots, I didn't believe it until I shot two more into the corners of this target to make sure that I was hitting the actual target.
This tube sight needs rear crosshairs (reticle) or something similar.
Target has 1 inch squares.
POI was center of diamonds.

Jan/25/2015
Muzzle-Stuffers Shoot-Off at Usery Range:
I took third place with a 257-6X, YAY!!!

Jan/26/2015
Thanks Scott for the awesome brass offset rings!
Rotated Picture.

On the Bench.
These rings appear to not clamping on the tube, not so. The ID is rounded so that there is no binding of either end of the tube when doing windage (dovetail, front) or elevation (large screw, rear) adjustments.

Jan/28/2015
Taking photos upside down leaves the background confusing.
Trigger guard sitting not attached yet.
I'm not sure if it will be used at all, just trying it on for looks.

Newer hammer spring, cut from an older handsaw blade.

Reason for the weird shaped trigger guard: I should have had my right wrist fused after a bout with wrist staff infection in 1972. They (the doctors) wanted to fuse my wrist permamently but I refused. So I deal with it and this condition makes me live with oddball grip shapes.

Feb/05/2015
Added a type of "reticle" to the rear of the tube.
Held in place with a thread matching plastic piece.
It is glass with plated lines.
It has dust on it from sighting in this new configuration at 25yds.

OK this reticle I removed, doesn't seem to work as desired.

I made some crosshairs with single strand and double strand wires stretched across a 9MM Luger casing and soldered down. I can see the Horizontal wires but not the Vertical wires. Probably too close to my eyes. It would be nice if the crosshairs could be installed and adjusted mid-tube.

Apr/01/2015
Range Report, again.

One oops (sighting in, raised the rear sight elevation for 50yds $60grs). Used 60gr of 777-FFg, .490 home-cast RB, blue ticking patch. 5 shots on target.

5 shots on target, this is a re-used target so ignore the patches.
1X, YAY!

5 shots, Ditto, 1X, YAY!

May/24/2015
Using up my last supply of Goex Clear Shot FFFg
Shot this target and ran out of that powder. Started again with regular Goex FFFg.
25 yds, 50gr of FFFg, .495 RB, 0.15 patch lubed with bore-butter.
Added new internal crosshair to tube about 7 inches inside of the rear.

IdeZilla

Comments Welcomed, especially about tube sights.

Here is my first mule hammered pistol. Kind of ugly but then it's only a prototype. It does pop a cap readily. The hammer spring is nice and strong. It has a temporary barrel and short nipple. Trigger has a return spring to hold the pistol cocked. No sights, no trigger guard.

Nice curly Maple grip, partly shaped, not finished. No springs yet.

Hammer cocked.

Hammer before any shaping, just a block of steel.

Small notch in hammer was to be for a coil spring mechanism.

Hammer with pull thong and ugly spring. Grip will have a lanyard ring for the half-cock block.

So it's just an ugly spring that works on a partly shaped hammer. If you have better ideas for a hammer spring, leave me a comment. Half-cock block shown here.

Close up of the lock mechanism.

New hammer spring 0.32 inch thick, 0.5 inch wide, brass (7.62x54R) flash cup added to hammer, hammer simplified a bit, barrel bored to smooth ~~0.34~~ 0.35 caliber for Hornady .33 inch diameter 00-buck pellets.