Breech Loading Flintlock - Ferguson or Hall?

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kevinh

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Hey everyone,

I watched the Forgotten Weapons video on the M1819 Hall rifle.


If you "had to pick one," which would would you prefer.
What are the pros and cons to each.

There was a Ferguson rifle for sale not too long a go and I didn't go for it, but now I'm interested in the Hall design.

Basically would love to hear your opinions on the Hall design lol

Thanks so much!
Be well fellow CGN'ers!

Best Regards,
Kevin H.
 
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I have a flintlock Hall rifle and have shot it a couple of times. The good thing is that it is easy to load and the breach comes out making it easy to clean, also the gun is accurate. The minor bad is that the vent hole faces up into the bottom of the pan which can give you slight delayed ignition. I would like a Ferguson rifle but would worry about fouling in the threads. I can't afford to buy one of the Rifle Shoppe reproductions but would be tempted to make one if I could figure out how to cut 2 threads per inch on my lathe. (the breach section is one or two threads per inch)

cheers mooncoon
 
Hey Mooncoon!

Glad your still around and thanks for the reply.

Awesome, is your Hall rifle an original or a modern re-make?

Oh, a year ago I found a website forum where a guy steps through his own Ferguson rifle build from scratch, but I've been looking and I can't find it anymore.
If I do, I will definitely send it to you.


So, which design do you think is superior?
Is one more safe than the other?
Is one more durable than the other?

Would the Hall rifle foul up less than the Ferguson which I hear fouls up quickly?

Thanks so much!
Have a great night/new week!
Cheers!
 
kevinh said:
Hey Mooncoon!

Awesome, is your Hall rifle an original or a modern re-make?

Oh, a year ago I found a website forum where a guy steps through his own Ferguson rifle build from scratch, but I've been looking and I can't find it anymore.
If I do, I will definitely send it to you.


So, which design do you think is superior?
Is one more safe than the other?
Is one more durable than the other?

Would the Hall rifle foul up less than the Ferguson which I hear fouls up quickly?

!
Click to expand...

Mine is an original and I was very fortunate to be able to trade for it. The bore is roughly .50 cal bore (I forget the groove diameter) and the mouth of the "chamber" is about.54 so in order to load it I take a .530 ball and give it a light smack with a hammer, to swell it out to a tight friction fit into the chamber. I can't remember how much powder I used but I think it was around 50 - 60 gr of 3F and a cornmeal filler then the ball. The original load was around 100 gr I think and there tended to be flame damage to the stock under the action. For that reason there is a thin piece of steel on top of the wood to protect it (factory install). With the light loads, fouling was not a problem. It seems unlikely to me that a Fergusson would not foul up although I did read a post on a different forum, by a person who owned and shot an original Fergusson and he claimed fouling was not a problem
I am not sure which gun I would chose if I could only own one or the other. I slightly lean towards the Fergusson because hangfires would not be a problem although reduced fouling problems would tempt me towards a Hall rifle.

My thoughts on building a Fergusson are that I would turn a long screw with a pitch of 1 or 2 turns per inch and 4 parallel grooves. I can cut a four groove thread on my lathe but 8 tpi is the slowest I can go in pitch. Main point however is to make the first inch or two of the threaded piece, into a tap by cutting grooves or flutes into the threaded piece and use that to thread to hole or nut portion of the breach, then use the unaltered portion of the threaded piece to make the breach plug if that is what you call the vertical screw portion of the breach. The photos that I have seen of the Rifle Shoppe Fergusson showed I think 7 grooves and the thread itself being like a round bottomed square thread and that would very stretch my limited machining abilities. Maybe with a month or two of trial and error but I don't feel like challenging myself to that degree

So there is a definite maybe one or maybe the other :>)

cheers mooncoon

cheers mooncoon
 
Hey MoonCoon,

Thank you for your awesomely detailed reply.

If I found an original one for sale (flintlock), do you think these old rifles can still be shot safely (you mentioned you only shot yours a few times).
I've only own antique pistols and I never shot them, just collected them for happiness in owning them.

Or, do you have any idea how much someone would charge to build it from parts (the rifle shop parts).

I wish you the best of luck in building from scratch a Ferguson.
I bet others would love to read your journey in building one.

Thanks again for your replies!
Have a good week
Cheers,
Kevin
 
kevinh said:
Thank you for your awesomely detailed reply.

If I found an original one for sale (flintlock), do you think these old rifles can still be shot safely (you mentioned you only shot yours a few times).

Or, do you have any idea how much someone would charge to build it from parts (the rifle shop parts).
Click to expand...

I think the safety of shooting an original comes down to either having the good judgement or knowing someone with good judgement, asses the integrity of the gun. That is something I can't answer and even with the gun in my hands comes down to a best guess. I have a few original rifles and shotguns and there is only one which I will not shoot and that is because it is literally in factory new condition. My experience has been that many times, when cleaning an antique gun, hot water running over the stock will strip the finish away and I am assuming the stocks must have been finished with shellac. Puzzles me how they were cleaned originally. On the other hand some stocks are finished with varnish and water damage is not a problem. In the case of rifles, the quality of the rifling is critical and it is not uncommon for a gun to have good sharp rifling at the muzzle but deep pitting in the "chamber" presumably from charges being left in the gun or perhaps poor cleaning technique. If the damage is short enough, I have put a charge of cornmeal on top of the powder and under the ball because that seats the ball closer to the intact rifling. I also tend to use moderate charges because for target shooting including shooting on trails in the bush, I don't need heavy charges. In the case of shotguns, it is important to put a light down the bore and check for deep pitting. Most of the original shotguns I have looked at had shallow pitting which only made them harder to clean but deep pitting or extremely thin barrels would be unsafe to shoot

Locally there are a very small number of original rifles shot but there are some original percussion shotguns shot and a moderate number of original cartridge shotguns shot but again it comes down to good judgement in assessing the integrity of the gun and usually tying the gun to a tire and firing it remotely. My biggest fear is actually that the breach plug might let go. In that regard, I bought one gun where a previous owner had ground down the breach plug threads in order to jam them into the barrel. Another barrel that I bought and have not had time to make into a gun, the original breach plug was a brittle casting and the top half had blown away. Although I don't normally pull the breach plugs, on two guns, there was serious corrosion on the threads. Relative to percussion nipples, I remove the originals ( which are usually unserviceable), make home made taps and chase the threads out until I have bright metal then make a matching replacement stainless nipple. You do have to be careful that a previous owner has not simply tried modern nipples until they found one that sort of fit

final note on removing original nipples and breach plugs, I have just started rehabilitating a double percussion shotgun and found 62 grains of black powder compacted into the breach. I think a previous owner had pulled the shot and wad and assumed the gun was empty. I assume someone 50 plus years ago had been shooting it in spite of it being in terrible condition

hope that is of some ues

cheers mooncoon
 
kevinh said:
Hey everyone,

I watched the Forgotten Weapons video on the M1819 Hall rifle.


If you "had to pick one," which would would you prefer.
What are the pros and cons to each.

There was a Ferguson rifle for sale not too long a go and I didn't go for it, but now I'm interested in the Hall design.

Basically would love to hear your opinions on the Hall design lol

Thanks so much!
Be well fellow CGN'ers!

Best Regards,
Kevin H.
Click to expand...

Go to Switzer's Auction - not a sponsor, but a very firearms friendly business. There is a Hall on the next sale:

"LOT 1042: US BREECH LOADING , MODEL: 1843 HALL-NORTH CARBINE , CALIBER: 52 CAL"
 
One thing to watch out for on early breech loaders is gas blow by as most of them suffered from it to a degree when new so it would possibly be worse with age.One of the weaknesses of the Ferguson is where the stock is inletted for the action and lock as a lot of wood is removed in this area and a lot of the surviving originals are cracked in this area.One of the advantages of the Hall was that the breech block could be removed from the rifle and used as a pseudo pistol.There is even a documented story where a soldier was saved in a tavern brawl using the breech block as a pistol
 
I was trying to figure out the chemical process of what happens when you clean the antique or milsurp guns with water and why common sense says they should rust when exposed to water, but most dont even after hundred years of use in the case of antique pistols. I completely forgot that boiling the water removed the oxygen which is needed to cause rust.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z7rswty/revision/2#:~:text=The%20iron%20reacts%20with%20water,which%20we%20see%20as%20rust.&text=Iron%20and%20steel%20rust%20when,needed%20for%20rusting%20to%20occur.&text=Boiling%20the%20water%20removes%20the,prevents%20it%20from%20re-entering.
 
If you had an old Atlas lathe or some other manual gear change you would have a lot of gears to play with. You may have to make a lay shaft assembly to mount them but it can be done. It would help if you had access to a millling machine to make up the mounts.
Talk to any old machinists you might know.
 
infidel29 said:
I was trying to figure out the chemical process of what happens when you clean the antique or milsurp guns with water and why common sense says they should rust when exposed to water, but most dont even after hundred years of use in the case of antique pistols. I completely forgot that boiling the water removed the oxygen which is needed to cause rust.
Click to expand...

My experience has been that cleaning with cold water does not seem to dissolve the fouling very well, while hot water ( 100 - 120 F) does. A major part of the fouling is saltpeter as well as sulfur residues, both of which attack the barrel. If the gun is cleaned but left with no oil protecting the bore, whether or not it rusts with time depends on the humidity where it is stored

cheers mooncoon
 
Thanks for another great reply mooncoon!!!


Thanks maple_leaf_eh, sadly I I think that's a later version that is percussion, not sure you can convert to flintlock easily with the later models.

Thanks for the reply chasseur. I'm guessing the gas blow is more than a Ferguson, but I'm starting to like the Hall design as it was actually also adopted and produced at a larger scale than the Ferguson.

Thanks to everyone for the replies.
Have a great rest of your week
Be well
 
The Hall was manufactured in some quantity for over 20 years, on the interchangeable parts system. The design permitted industrial manufacture. Rifle and carbine, rifled and smooth.
They weren't entirely gas tight - that's why there are open slots along the sides. They did work though.
 
tacfoley said:
Please read the other responses over on muzzleloadingforumdotcom.
Click to expand...

I had a quick look at the forum but didn't see anything about a Hall or a Fergusson. Some of the comments I in the two threads that I read were painful to read. One was an Austrian rifle with a fouling ring in the chamber area and one of the recommendations was to pour acid down the barrel. Another was about a fellow who could not remove the nipple of a gun he had been shooting and basically went the bigger wrench route and proceeded to get worse. Particularly painful because all he had to do was put the barrel breach down in a bucket of warm water for 5 or 10 minutes to soften the fouling. He was talking about a nipple which he had screwed in with some grease in the threads and after shooting could not remove

cheers mooncoon
 
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