First BP Pistol Build

[fuegoboy]

Picked up a CVA Tower Pistol kit at a garage sale in November. Spent considerable time working on the stock (shaping, cutting and sanding) and last week decided it was time to finish the project.

Went from this:

and this:

All the brass furniture needed to be smoothed and polish to remove the casting marks.
To This:

The wood is stained with "Sedona Red" and then Tung Oil.

I decided to go with a Plum finish on the barrel which was carded using Automatic Transmission Fluid to add a bit more color to barrel and keep the color palette as close together as possible.

The barrel is a Jukar .45 cal. barrel.

It has a very smooth trigger. I will test in two weeks at our next black powder shoot in Santa Barbara.

It now joins this other .45 cal. BP pistol:


The Tower kit is my first attempt at putting a wood gun kit together. Made lots of mistakes in browning the barrel and will try another one soon.

My other kit gun was much simpler, just put the parts together (Classic Arms Snake Eyes Derringer)

This is a fun pistol to shoot since it has two barrels and a double sear trigger. Pull the trigger and both shots go off, right barrel first and left barrel a split second later.

[thenodnarb]

Nice! now we need a vid of you loading and shooting it!

[Old Scribe]

Nice job. The color you picked is good, and should darken a bit with age and use that will give it more character.

[afteractionreport]

Wait this is possible? Where can i find a kit like this...

[DennisCA]

Nice job on the build - well done!

[TRAP55]

Wait this is possible? Where can i find a kit like this...

Check all 5 pages.

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=kit&sort=2a&&page=1

[sealocan]

a very nicely done job.

people don't realize some of those kits need a lot of finishing to be put together and work correctly.
Wood & metal filed and shaped, that type of thing.

its nice to hear that your classic arms snake eyes two shot derringer was easy to assemble and worked without any additional modifications.

I had one that someone else had completed and I sold it here for less than 95 dollars (it was very similar to the one you just completed but without that fancy brass , missing its ramrod and in a lighter stained wood), mainly because it wasn't really my thing (although it may slow down shooting to maybe a more relaxed, fun sport. there's nothing like just putting some ammo in a mag. and you're ready to go.) and finding powder in the East Bay Area was getting to be a hassle.

very nice thanks for sharing.

[fuegoboy]

Sealocan hit it on the head. These kits require you shape, cut, file and refile wood and sometimes metal. Then after all that is done you still need to do it all over again to get the parts to fit.

But, when you're done you have a shooting piece.

I like to find broken, incomplete and unfinished things and put them together to get them working. The first BP kit I bought online was the Snake Eyes Derringer for $15 + postage. The seller said he found it in a garage. It looked like this when I received it.



and it looked like this after cleaning it, finding the manual online and putting it together:



It shoots well even though I read many posts on how bad or lousy these Derringers are. But for $15.00 it was worth it.

The Tower Pistol was bought at a garage sale.

Swap meets and garage sales are good places to look for an old or unfinished kit. Like Trap55 stated, Dixie Gun Works sells all kinds of kits and if a part is missing it's possible to find it with Numrich.

If you take your time you will complete a kit. One thing I didn't mention is that the only power tool I used was a drill, everything else was done by hand. I enjoy working with my hands and I especially like making dull things shine.

This is my Mosin-Nagant after I cleaned it up and restored the wood. Doesn't make any difference the type of weapon I work on, I like to bring them back to life.



For those of you interested in adding to your BP collection check garage sales and swap meets.

Cheers,

[4DMASTR]

I saw a packaged kit at Sheels in Reno, almost picked one up. Seems lile a cool little project.

[manny]

looks great! Make a video shooting it!

[fuegoboy]

I may try to get to the range this week and will video tape shooting the Tower Pistol and my other BP Pistol.

Cheers.

[fuegoboy]

Arrrrghhh! Video Tape!

Cheezie Louizee,

Did I write "will...video tape..." Where have I been for the past 15 years?

What I meant to say is I will record/image my range session with the Tower Pistol.

Yes, I still have VHS and Hi8 video tapes and VCRs and I also use a pocket watch instead of a wrist watch or cell phone for the time.

Semper analog