Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Rifle by Heinz Ahlers

Here is the rifle you saw photos of me building in Ian Pratt's class at the Log Cabin shop.

The rifle is loosely based on the Brass Barrel Rifle, RCA 103 and also RCA 145 that appears to be by the same maker as 103. This is an iron mounted version based on two large assumptions, First, that 103 was built by Hans Jacob Hanaker, and second, that an original iron mounted guard remarkably like the guard on 103 that has been observed is off an iron mounted gun by Hans Jacob Honaker. So this rifle has most of the architecture of 103 with less carving, a tang and step toe more like 145, and iron furniture like later Honakers who were more skilled than Hans Joseph, and me. So much for the story 

The rifle has a steel barrel 45 1/2 inches long from John Getz in 54 caliber with round bottomed rifling.  The barrel profile is 1.140 inches at the breech, 0.750 at he swamp about 7 inches from the muzzle and .905 at the muzzle. John also supplied the sugar maple stock that was inlet and ramrod channeled by Mark Wheland. E Davis M&G Colonial lock and Davis triggers were the foundation for the double set double pull triggers. All the other iron I fabricated form mild steel.  Iron was browned and aged with Sal Ammoniac. The stock was stained with aqua fortis and iron filings, followed by heat. The finish is artist linseed stand oil and lampblack. Stock was scraped as was the barrel. The lock was filed and stoned smooth and I used abrasive grit and cloth for the concaves on the hammer. It is a long black rifle, and weighs about 8 1/2 pounds. The balance with that big double curve cheekpiece is very good.













It is hard to show the swamp, the rifle is a little too long for my camera but this will give an idea.



The very observant will note this is a dummy ramrod, or at least has not had the brass tip added.

The muzzle photo and the picture of the swamp at the front sight give a hint why the original brass barrel blew up.  The tenons on the BBLR are soldered on.

Copy and photos supplied by Heinz.

1 comment:

  1. It is rare that you see someone capture the overall architectural style of one of the original gunmakers so well. There are a lot of subtleties in the wrist and cheekpiece areas of the BBR and if you are aware of them this rifle jumps out as having captured the feel of the maker's work without being an exact copy of either of the known pieces by his hand. Crafting the mounts in iron and working from a blank obviously allowed Heinz to capture good proportions and architectural style on this gun rather than trying to force fit available commercial parts to a pre-carved stock. It is also a suprisingly light quick handling rifle - moreso than the photos would make it seem - just as is the original BBR. Nice work.

    Guy

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