a new smoothie

[rfd]

a few months back i commissioned jackie brown to build me a po' boy barn gun smoothbore in 20ga/.62 bore. a very very plain in-the-white long gun, with plain maple stock, and the only furniture in iron being a pair of rod thimbles and trigger guard - no muzzle cap, entry pipe, or butt plate. the OTR 42" barrel and all the iron is left as-is, no browning or bluing. the lock is an L&R queen anne, the trigger is of jackie's making and the touch hole liner is a chamber's white lightening. this is as no-frills a long gun as one can get, but with good components and wood. total weight is 6lbs 15ozs.

i wrapped a new english black flint i leather and she sparks quite nicely, as expected.

the cost of this gun, to my door, was more than fair, and a far better bargain than some of the "better" offshore guns from investarms and pedersoli.

now to take it all apart, whisker the wood, LMF stain,TOTW linseed oil, load and shoot it. lots more to come with all that, for sure.

[johnson1942]

something to be proud of and something to shoot and have fun with.

[DIRT Farmer]

Be waiting for a report on how well it breaks clay targets.
I have a Jackie Brown blanket gun,20 ga, good fit and finish. It makes a dandy youth gun as is and handles 7/8 oz like a dream

[M-Tecs]

Does Jackie Brown have a web site? Other contact info?

[54bore]

Looks good rfd! I cant wait to see what you do with this thing!

[rfd]

Does Jackie Brown have a web site? Other contact info?

no website for mr. brown - you are about to receive a pm ........

[Boz330]

rfd, any chance I could get that info as well. That is one fine looking smoothie and I really like the utilitarian aspect of the old guns.

Thanks
Bob

[bigted]

LOL ... I would like his contact info as well ... Just what im looking for

[bigted]

this is a good lookin rifle there pard. i cant wait to read your range report for this most excellent looking 62. are you going to use a rear sight or just the front like so many smoothies do? also i wonder about the "no buttplate" thing ... never used any shoulder arm without a buttplate. is there a chance for it to splinter off without brass or iron to protect the wood?

also thanks for your very prompt reply via PM. very cool and i apreciate the candor included in the PM. thanks again.

[copdills]

very nice , hope you have more photo's later on

[rfd]

this is a good lookin rifle there pard. i cant wait to read your range report for this most excellent looking 62. are you going to use a rear sight or just the front like so many smoothies do? also i wonder about the "no buttplate" thing ... never used any shoulder arm without a buttplate. is there a chance for it to splinter off without brass or iron to protect the wood?

also thanks for your very prompt reply via PM. very cool and i apreciate the candor included in the PM. thanks again.

"barn" or "poor boy" guns are just that - no frills work horses, with sparse iron furniture. there is no muzzle cap, no stock rod entry pipe, and no butt plate. in the day, these kinda guns employed a number of finishes such as the ubiquitous aqua fortis acid stain for color and then some flavor of rubbed in oil for weather protection. i'll first stain it with a red based LMF walnut stain, then rub in either TOTW original oil finish (linseed oil with dryers) or just go the resin route with true oil.

in a total non-historic manner, after staining i'll liberally wick in water thin CYA to the butt stock's open grain. through capillary action, the CYA will harden the wood end grain. then i'll "paint" slow set epoxy on the butt to form a thin "butt pad". then the oiling begins.

there will be no rear sight, so as to conform to local smoothbore shoot rules. however, i can easily add on a neodymium rear sight magnet to the octagon of the barrel.

some folks have asked about the barrel's origin - it's a custom colerain and not a DOM tube. the lock's an L&R queen anne, the touch hole liner is a chamber's white lightning. i think the trigger is from TOTW, not completely sure, don't matter, it's a very smooth, crisp and light pulling single trigger, one of the best i've used in a long time - gotta give kudos to jackie for that.

now to find the time to paint her up. gotta get ready for early spring.

[rfd]

oh yeah, lemme show y'all just how big a thick butt end this fowler has, more than enuf to spread the load and the rock hard maple is strong 'n' stout ...

[Edward]

I don't think there's anything plain about the grain on that wood ,bet that's a looker when your done!

[Nobade]

Nice! Your collection is increasing....
Looking forward to seeing it when you get the finish on. I have always thought something like that would be about ideal for nearly any use, at least in the East in thick woods.

-Nobade

[bigted]

Very cool. Thanks for the info on the butt protection. I for one look forward to seeing what your smoothie turns into. I really appreciate the plain weapon and think that the Lions share of the original old farm guns were such. A tool that we have turned into an art form ... And what an amazing art form it has turned into ... But then returning to the root weapon is an art form itself.

Keep us posted please

[Maven]

Can't wait to see it when its finished and then read your range report!

[Hanshi]

You may be pleasantly surprised at what you have when you stain that stock.

[rfd]

while i had asked for, and paid for the stock wood to be pre-sanded and ready for whiskering, stain and an oil finish, there were deep scrapes, tool chatter marks on the back stock and a few on the fore stock. i knew there was a good chance this would happen by this builder, and it wasn't a show stopper considering the gun's price tag. to completely remove some of this marring would change the stock profile, so i blended it all in as best i could so that the stain would spread out and not get sucked into those areas and create dark "stain scars".

i use LMF american walnut stain (ngr), one good wash coat rubbed in and dried off overnight. the next morning, after buffing out the stained wood with stiff paper toweling, i wicked in quality water thin CYA to the lock mortise, barrel channel, ramrod channel, all wood screw holes, and the end grain of the butt stock. this will both harden and waterproof the wood in those critical areas. i applied the first coat of TOTW original linseed oil (with dryers). with a spring-like high pressure system holding over the valley, that allowed me getting in 3 thin coats of oil, the last is curing now. it doesn't look half bad for what it is - a knock-about barn gun.



time to check the breech to see if anti-seize lube was used, as i requested. there was a big barrel/breech witness mark scratch and i made 2 more fine line ones, so with Rice Barrel Co. barrel vise inserts and their nifty breech plug wrench i pulled the plug and .... no anti-seize lube, and in fact there was no lube at all. why was i not surprised? but i half expected that from the builder and that's why i had to pull the plug. on top of that, the "chambers white lightning plug" turns out to be a knock off, and drilled into the face of the breech plug. the vent hole was plugged up with metal shavings from the breech face drilling - no way the gun would have gone off. i used a rat tail file to *carefully* smooth out the vent hole face that was inside the barrel chamber, redrilled the hole to 1/16". lubed up the plug with nikal and homed it back to my witness marks.

[scattershot]

Nice gun! Back in the day, a lot of rifles and fowlers without buttplates had a large brass tack installed at the heel of the butt to protect it. Looking forward to finished pics and a range report.

[rfd]

well, the "jackie gun" is as done as can be, at least for now. after 4 or 5 light wipes of warm TOTW original oil (linseed + dryers), with 24 hour curing, i gave the stock 3 light wipes of tru-oil varnish. all wipes had 0000 wool light buffing between coats. last tru-oil coat was also wool buffed and then a coat of johnson's carnuba car wax was rubbed on and off. not too bad. there was a *LOT* of work required to fix "issues" and make it at least presentable and hopefully shootable. we'll see. the metal will be left as-is, no browning or bluing, it'll patina all on its own as was typically done back in the day, particularly with these far cheaper "barn guns".