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I have owned this particular gun for quite a number of years, I inherited it some time ago and it has been with me ever since. I decided to go and take the time and clean it up and see if I could fix it and bring it back to working order. It seemed to have no value, so I decided at the very least I would clean the years of dirt off it and get some oil on the wood and protectant on the metal to stop further decay. This is it before I started.
The condition is lacking, to say the least. There was damage to many components, and several parts did not seem to fit the style. For instance, the small holder drilled into the underside of the stock was extremely shallow and did not visually match the outlines of other pieces, nor did it match the engraving style. The metal star inlet on the one side and screw seem not original.
I have hit some major oddities in my work. First, the stock seems to have had a plastic feeling finish on at one point, remnants are still visible.
The gun is checkered, while no period examples I found showed checkering.
Not only that, but the grooves are parallel, resulting in flat topped checkering as opposed to the more diamond type I am used to on other guns.
I followed some advice and attempted to melt out the likely lead plugs from the barrels. First, a solder joint in the front ran.
None of the other soldered components on the barrel assembly showed any hint of anything, and I know 400F should not even touch proper silver solder.
Previously the plugs were solid in appearance, and one was notably higher than the other. Now, when I borescope the barrels, I get this strange result:
There is now a visible wedge of something in one barrel, and some sort of wrap that seems to be numbered.
I have no experience with known original 1860's muzzleloaders. When I was younger, this got appraised as valueless functionally, but definitely an original civil war era musket. I've never seen a side by side musket with a basic bead sight. The barrels seem to be real, and the stock is wood. However, with the wire wrap on parts, the poor inletting, and other mismatched sections and things like a straight wall checkering cut and plastic feeling finish, i'm really suspecting I have one of several things: Either a replica, a kit that someone made years ago, or an original or several originals that was the project gun of someone some time ago.
I have an imgur album of all photos I took in examining it if anyone would like some more detail, and I can take more pictures as needed.
My apologies for only linking images, they did not want to resize down nicely into thumbnails. Any advice is appreciated, I cannot tell if it is original, a kit, a modified original, or a mishmash of modifications and upgrades from multiple originals stuck together. I wish to fix it either way, but I'd like to have a much better idea if it could ever in theory be safe to restore to workable condition (barrels are real, mechanism is real, neither would explode) or if it has to be relegated to a cosmetic fix and being a wallhanger. It's in my care now and has been visibly neglected for decades. It's far older than me most likely, and I think I should do right and not add to the neglect and rot.
The condition is lacking, to say the least. There was damage to many components, and several parts did not seem to fit the style. For instance, the small holder drilled into the underside of the stock was extremely shallow and did not visually match the outlines of other pieces, nor did it match the engraving style. The metal star inlet on the one side and screw seem not original.
I have hit some major oddities in my work. First, the stock seems to have had a plastic feeling finish on at one point, remnants are still visible.
The gun is checkered, while no period examples I found showed checkering.
Not only that, but the grooves are parallel, resulting in flat topped checkering as opposed to the more diamond type I am used to on other guns.
I followed some advice and attempted to melt out the likely lead plugs from the barrels. First, a solder joint in the front ran.
None of the other soldered components on the barrel assembly showed any hint of anything, and I know 400F should not even touch proper silver solder.
Previously the plugs were solid in appearance, and one was notably higher than the other. Now, when I borescope the barrels, I get this strange result:
There is now a visible wedge of something in one barrel, and some sort of wrap that seems to be numbered.
I have no experience with known original 1860's muzzleloaders. When I was younger, this got appraised as valueless functionally, but definitely an original civil war era musket. I've never seen a side by side musket with a basic bead sight. The barrels seem to be real, and the stock is wood. However, with the wire wrap on parts, the poor inletting, and other mismatched sections and things like a straight wall checkering cut and plastic feeling finish, i'm really suspecting I have one of several things: Either a replica, a kit that someone made years ago, or an original or several originals that was the project gun of someone some time ago.
I have an imgur album of all photos I took in examining it if anyone would like some more detail, and I can take more pictures as needed.
My apologies for only linking images, they did not want to resize down nicely into thumbnails. Any advice is appreciated, I cannot tell if it is original, a kit, a modified original, or a mishmash of modifications and upgrades from multiple originals stuck together. I wish to fix it either way, but I'd like to have a much better idea if it could ever in theory be safe to restore to workable condition (barrels are real, mechanism is real, neither would explode) or if it has to be relegated to a cosmetic fix and being a wallhanger. It's in my care now and has been visibly neglected for decades. It's far older than me most likely, and I think I should do right and not add to the neglect and rot.
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