Wesson rifle/carbine

[Racing]

As i first saw the ad for this one i thought it had to be a Palmetto replica or similar seeing how scarce they are here in Europe. But..as the chips hit the table all points to this being some sort of old original.
Frank Wesson comes to mind but AFAIK the other member of the family was the one responsible for the ML´s?`
Edwin.

Regardless. This thing´s been around the house no doubt and has been cut into. To what degree i have a hard time telling as of yet. As i got it back to the shop of mine i took to cleaning the thing out and the innards of the barrel turns out to be in above decent shape. Good even i´d say.
Very very minor pitting and the rifling´s sharp and in order. Twist..this is a 21" barrel carbine (now it is at least) and i´d average that the rifling does like half a turn before we run out of barrel. Approx.



Someone had been at it alright why the barrel wasn´t really fixed to the reciever as should. That had been "solved" by the install of a copper washer to seal the thing off,which sure as hell ain´t right so.. Fixed that on the lathe after some quick math.
While at it i handed the thing a fresh crown too.



That "fore end" is just a piece of shaped sheet metal which has been soldered in place. As to if original or not,no idea.



Hammer had had its spur cut off,most likely to clear the scope. Opted to cut the spur off a replica Remington 1858 hammer that´d seen better days and took the TIG welder to it. Of course it needs finishing but..you get the idea.
Scope install is well executed,as out of place it might be. No argument on that one. Gun still sports its globe front sight why i´m going to try and dig up some sort of contemporary rear sight for it.
In turn that scope is a Diana one,most likely intended for a 22 or air gun why for now i´m going to replace it with one that sports a longer eye relief,seeing what i have in mind.



Yeah. Butt plate out of aluminium isn´t right either now is it... LOL. Going to fab one out of sheet metal brass and hope that´ll at least LOOK the part.

Now.
Former owner advertised this as a 40 cal rifle. Have used it with 10mm RB (i live in Europe remember). I took to shoving a slug through it,and major diameter comes in at 10,76mm approx.
Renders 0,423" just about. Mold of correct dimensions,it being a ML,can be had from German Hensel for instance. For now though i´ve paperpatched 50 slugs to approx size i normally use for my Swiss m/1851 target barrel/bull barrel Schuetzen.

That said,what´s there to be said for a small Wesson carbine like this? What would be an ideal choice of slug,for starters at least?

[missionary5155]

Good afternoon
You have a fine treasure there ! Fine looking muzzle on it also. Before investing in any mold figure out what the twist rate is. Fast or slow you will need that information..
We have a later Frank Wesson in 44 Wesson cartridge.
Mike in Peru

[Racing]

As i wrote above,looking down the barrel and just "eye balling" twist i´d say that it does one half a turn the length of the barrel. Maybe just short of that.
Ie; a total of say 1 turn in 42 inches. I´ll measure that better as i get a few mins to my own.

[missionary5155]

Well I sure missed that detail !
As the Winchester 38-40 had a 1-38 twist and does well with 180 through 200 grain slugs you should not have any issues thinking that heavy. You have unlimited chamber space for added velocity and slug RPM.
The Winchesters use a .401 slug and molds abound. Then also there is the 40 S&W molds. Cast from 40-1 they should bump up on ignition.
Or patch them as snug as possible and they should seal great and fly straight.
I have read when Frank Wesson built a rifle he made a mold for them. Sadly the molds seem to near always go another direction.

[Racing]

Ah.

A little Dick Tracy work later the following has come to light...
The boxlock system makes it 100% a New England jobbie. From thereon though it starts to dim a bit. George Foster came up as probable but there´s details that differ. Most of the Wesson produced rifles were marked,while not all and the Wesson that did not was Edwin Wesson. Which is a probable.

Thing still is though that this piece started out as a "picket rifle" and as such sports a rather distinctive feature in that the barrel is a gain twist job. This of course renders that it´s way way harder to pinpoint the twist,which i can attest to,but most such rifles seems to come in at around the 1:30 mark as an average seeing the gain twist.

Thus the boolit is supposed to be a "sugarloaf" which translates to that most shot these with an ogive approx 1,5*caliber in length. Linen patched.
This led to issues with getting the boolit to start down the bore why the predecessor of the false muzzle was developed.

Where we´re at i´ve paper patched like approx 70pcs of 250grain slugs for it. Reasoning as such that these 43 caliber boolits,which were all the rage apparently that i use are a tad on the long side - for replacement "sugar loaf" boolits.
But..i presume they will work and rather well at that.

The rifle IS a 43 cal rifle why molds these days are special order,which figures.







Cleaning the thing out made for a rather profound difference. Going to see if i can´t dig some sort of diopter rear setup for it up that at least LOOKS the part.
Even got to turn a jag for it.
Now tho for shooting the snot out of this thing.

Will report back.

[curator]

If this gun was originally rifled with a gain twist, shortening it left you with a slower twist rate than original. My original Frank Wesson .45 caliber rifle has a gain twist that starts at about 1 in 60" and ends with a 1 in 30" twist. The barrel is 36 inches long and it is drilled for a false muzzle. The Wessons apparently supplied castings for the box lock action to other gun makers like Ethan Allen in Massachusetts and probably also Burgess in Rhode Island, as well as others. Your gun being unmarked may have been assembled by an unknown gunsmith. There may be markings on the barrel under the metal "forearm." This was usually held on by a very thin pin close to the ramrod entry. This part is often missing on originals as the pin was easily broken. Soldering the forearm on to the barrel was an OK fix. Find a copy of Ned Roberts' book "The Muzzle Loading Cap Lock Rifle" to learn more about sugar-loaf and picket balls. With a shortened barrel you probably get the best performance with a patched round ball.

[Racing]

Thank yyyyyyooooouuuu...

I doubt the little i removed to clean the muzzle up has made for any difference what so ever. Crown was rather damaged as was and in total approx 1,5mm of the total length was removed to clean the muzzle crown up.
Indeed,as i now got the whole picture,the rifling is no doubt gain twist. TBH i didn´t even know this was used for rifles at all,owning a plethora of revolvers that are.

As for performance,i´m yet wide open. As far as i´m concerned anything goes,as much as it might very well be that it´ll come to perform its best with RB´s.

That said i still haven´t got a faintest clue as to where to start as far as amount of powder.?
Any takers on that?

[Racing]

@ Curator.

Just me brainstorming here..
I just tried lighting that part that´s hid by that "forearm" piece of sheet metal in an effort to see any markings..but no.
I guess just lifting the piece and solder it back won´t be the end of the world.

That said. As noted the marking found thus far is "102" and if we assume that for a serial that,to me at least,would mean that the rifle wasn´t made by a "really" obscure smith as in that case serial 102 for such a smith would be moot i presume.?
If not..the serials started with 100...but kind of moot too in my book.

From that thesis then,how many were those producing these rifles n carbines that made them in the hundreds?

[curator]

Racing,
In the post-Civil War period there were a fair number of gunsmiths in New England and in the Great Lakes region making target rifles. Investment casting and improved techniques for annealing cast iron so it could be machined were driving innovation. Elongated (conical) bullets were evolving along with accuracy increasing techniques such as paper patching, false muzzles, Diopter sights, and 2-alloy bullet swaging. The Allen/Wesson box lock system was copied, plagiarized, improved, and modified by countless gunsmiths and shooting hobbyists. Muzzle loading was not really obsolete until about 1888 to 1890 when metallic cartridges became generally available at reasonable prices. Unmarked Allen/Wesson box lock percussion rifles and shotguns are not unusual at all. Discovering the real gunsmith who made it may be nearly impossible. Few gunsmiths began their serial number range with #1, where the first of a series marked #101 was fairly common.