Well, it has been a while! I finally got to this gun and had a gunsmith look at it last fall. He said it wasn't in bad shape and should be shootable and that he had seen worse barrels shoot okay. From the serial number the gun was made in 1886.
I decided I would order a buttstock from Precision Gunworks and did that a few months ago. The wood is quite nice and the buttstock was a pretty reasonable price. I had to do a little fitting but not a bunch and I think I did a reasonable job.
I would have bought a forearm as well so they'd match but Precision Gunworks doesn't make forearms! The existing forearm is beat up a bit but I will remove the finish, steam out the dents I can and sand lightly then refinish. I was told I should get some alkanet root to stain the stock with so have some on order. My plan is to try to stain the forearm a little darker than it is to match the new buttstock as closely as possible then finish both with Tru-Oil. The gun was also missing the rear sight so I bought a Marbles rear sight since 1881 rear sights are very rare and expensive and I have made a plastic buttplate to suit the shotgun butt on the stock because I cannot find an original or repro 1881 buttplate!
The buttstock is now fitted and sanded but raw wood.
Here are pics of the gun:
I made a bullet mould to test the gun with to see if it would shoot. The bullet form is TC and knurled but I didn't do a vey good job on the nose form so wound up with a longer, skinnier nose than planned. It is hard (for me anyway) to single point a small diameter conical flat bottomed hole. In any case they cast okay but came out a little light at 320 grs. I decided to use those bullets anyway. Here is a pic of bullets:
I loaded up 20 rounds then took the gun to the range yesterday. I wasn't too hopeful about accuracy but was pleasantly surprised! Groups aren't great for 25m but I expected keyholes or really large groups. These aren't small groups but show potential. I loaded 20 rounds with 10 grs. of Unique and had intended to put card and felt wads under the bullets to help seal the rough bore but got distracted by other things before loading then forgot the wads! I decided I would pull 5 rounds, add the wads then reseat bullets so did that but didn't resize the brass so neck tension may have been a bit loose. Those are the group 4 bullets. Here are pics of the targets:
Not stellar accuracy but not bad for 1st time out... I think anyway.
I plan on making a new nose form that is RNFP and a heavier bullet of about 375 to 400 grs. to get some more bearing surface. I already made a D-bit for the new nose form but have to heat treat it then machine a new nose form. I will try ACWW (these were ACWW), oven heat treated, possibly paper patched and maybe jacketed if I can't shrink groups some.
I have lightly lapped the bore and it cleaned up better than I had thought. I will probably do some firelapping or some more hand lapping, again lightly, to see if that helps.
All in all I was pretty happy with the results.
Not original anymore but a ressurrected relic that has seen better days. I am hoping I can improve accuracy some without getting the barrel lined.
Longbow
I should add that group 3 is a 5 shot group. One is in the black but hard to see. I must have had the other target black under this one. That makes for 4 holes and one of the holes is a bit oval so two through one hole? Or possibly one round went wild and off the paper? Not sure but 5 rounds were fired.