Contemporary Makers: 2025

Friday, April 11, 2025

Northampton restock ca. 1770s or War-era.

This is probably Northampton Co. given the carved ‘liberty head’ forward of guard. The buttplate, guard and lock appear to be from a European gun and the sideplate looks British, perhaps a trade gun? Very long (51”) large bore smoothbore barrel. Nailed-on silver wrist inlay and a bone or ivory cheek star. The moderate carving is fairly simplistic, most notable behind the cheek. The stock is either cherry or other fruitwood, now very dark but with deep mahogany color in good light and a slightly more ‘grainy’ quality than typically seen. Originally this was stocked with a wooden box but a brass box was clearly added quite early in its life; the dovetail in the buttplate was neatly filled and there are a couple of different levels of repairs/mods to the box release, but some of the original wood box rails remain evident in the mortise. Very old broken toe repair also with an added toe plate and small obvious repair to a broken guard. This is strongly reminiscent of some surviving German or Belgian export guns of the 1760s-1780s era that made their way here, but the furnishings are considerably better quality and this one is clearly an American stocking. The lock functions and still sparks well with a replacement mainspring (original was broken).

47th Annual Tennessee Kentucky Rifle Show

Forget chores, we are going to the

47th Annual Tennessee Kentucky Rifle Show

Held April 25th and 26th in Knoxville, Tennessee.

What: Kentucky rifles, pistols and related items - no cartridge guns

Where: Jubilee Banquet Facility, Knoxville, IN, I-75 north of

Knoxville, Exit 110, turn west and go 1.1 miles on the left

Show Hours: Friday, April 25, 9:00 a.m.- 8:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 26, 8:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Contact: Randal Pierce
908 Mercer Drive
Maryville, TN 37801
Phone: (865) 982-6538 Email: tnky.rifles@gmail.com

Table Assignments - Tables are held for the previous year's table holders until
March 15. After this date the remaining tables will be assigned on a first requested
- first assigned basis.

Also remember:
The fifth annual "Wayne Elliott Best Display Award' will be selected

Fabulous door prizes for attendees and table holders.

Nearby attractions, come early or stay late and visit the East Tennessee Historical Museum, Museum of Appalachia, Fort Loudon, Sam Houston Schoolhouse, and Davy Crockett's birthplace; to mention a few.

Walter M. Cline, for whom the NMLRA named its national shooting range, was a Chattanooga, Tennessee photographer. Cline was NMLRA Charter Member #5. He became the association's second president from 1934-1939.

The top photo is one from a display at the 2024 Tennessee Kentucky Rifle Show of Walter cline's work. Some of his rifles and equipment was in another display here.

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Pipe by Steven Lalioff

Photography by Jan Riser.

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

Copy of Blunderbuss About 1785 by Nicholson by David Crisalli

Original Nicholson BB lock side

Original Nicholson BB off side

Back in September, a fellow contacted me about making a “very similar” copy of a ~230 year old blunderbuss made by Nicholson sometime around 1785. To do so at a reasonable cost, my intent was to use as many commercially available parts as possible and make a new gun that was basically the same size, shape, and general characteristics as the original. As can be seen in the photos, the original lock is obviously fairly large ...slightly bigger than the Chambers lock I used here but not as large as a Brown Bess lock. Making a lock closer to the original would have required considerable additional effort to make from questionably available (?) castings and / or hand made parts, so I went with the Chambers lock. The use of a smaller lock did require some stock shape modifications in the barrel breech / lock area. The butt plate, side plate, and trigger are commercial parts. The trigger guard was cobbled together from two different commercially available trigger guard castings to get the bow shape and finial right. The barrel, the breech plug, all the screws, the trigger plate, and ramrod pipes were made from scratch.

Comparison of original lock and Chambers lock

Barrel manufacture

I machined the barrel from 485 Naval brass. On the barrel, the new owner wanted proof and view marks and to make them look as close to the original as possible. The only available marking stamps I could find were too large, so I made a pair that nearly matched the originals in size and design. Before marking the barrel, I used the British Gun Barrel Proof Act (1868) table for the first and second charges.....473 grains of powder for the first and 315 for the second, both pushing 2,100 grains (~5 oz) of lead shot. (A service charge for a 7 bore is 158 grains of powder behind a ball half that weight.) I made up a wooden fixture to hold the barrel while it was being fired electrically. Once proof fired, I marked the barrel with the proof and view stamps.

Barrel manufacture

The original gun has no carving so there was none added to the copy. The small amount of engraving was to be a close approximation of the original. The fellow I am doing this for liked the idea of a Spanish 2 Reales piece as a thumb piece instead of trying to duplicate the original. Considering the connection between blunderbusses being used at sea aboard ships, the slightly piratical connection to Spanish treasure appealed to me as well. At any rate, here are a few photos of the original gun, parts being made, and the close copy alongside the original........