Originally Posted by
bedbugbilly
That said, the one thing to be concerned with is the safety issue. Most people, when they hear that, will think of "bursting barrels" - but there are other factors as well. In working on many original guns - flint and percussion - the one thing that I usually ran across were possible problems with the breech-plug. Today, we use breech plugs with finer threads giving more grip to the plug and barrel relationship. Many, if not most, of the originals had a very coarse breech plug - think of the thread of a modern day "lag screw". I became convinced that one of the reasons for this was that the plug cold be removed with a minimum of tools if necessary by the owner or a gunsmith. It is much easier to break a breech plug loose with very coarse threads than one with fine threads. BUT, time takes it's toll too. I ran in to many with rusted threads that would make a person question the strength of them. So there are safety factors to look at like that before considering the use of an "original". Military muskets? Most of those had breech plugs with finer threads so not so much of