building a wheel-lock muzzle loader

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ciphery

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A bit of back ground;
I have the lock completed and the barrel is in its final stages.
I have elected to use a .50cal smooth bore barrel, threaded for custom choke tubes including a rifled choke tube. This allows me to load shot, ball and conical bullets.
I have a nice piece of black cherry I intend to make a stock from as well.
NOTHING ABOUT THIS GUN IS STANDARD
The wheel lock its self is a very advanced design which utilizes a self opening AND closing flash pan. (For those of you in the know it uses a corliss steam engine valve for the pan/cover and a modified Breme eccentric to actuate it directly off of the striker wheel.) This unique arangement makes it an external ingnition, but the flash is then contained forcing it to ignight the main charge and eliminates flash in the face of the shooter.
It uses a coil spring run through a rack and pinion gear to transform linear motion into rotary motion.
It has a 1.125" dia barrel with a .500" bore and has choke tubes....also unconventional in a muzzle loader
It will have a solid cherry rollover flat comb stock with a thumb hole and schnabel forend..I have yet to decide if a very long extendable bi-pod should be installed to assist with loading AND shooting from kneeling position.
It will utilize a windage and elevation adjustable rear sight and standard front sight designed for an AR15....not standard muzzle loader affair.
It will be a semi bullpup design in that the trigger will be in front of the action for the most part but still under the forward end of the lock plate.

What I need help with is gun cliches.
I intend to put some interesting items on this gun. For instance "assault weapon/rifle". I'm making a Monster energy drink can that has the flavor "assault" and a nice black, grey, and red digital cammo paint job into a powder flask
Does 475ml count as high capacity? LoL
Also thinking I need a shoulder thingy that goes up...what does one of these look like? Not sure how to build one.
Was thinking I should build a bicycle water bottle holder into a clip to hold the powder flask...a mag clip if you will.
Thinking I should also put a bayonet lug on it...perhaps a nice saber blade bayonet...perhaps a folding cruciform M44 style bayonet
If anyone has any other suggestions to add it would be appreciated
 
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Barking up the wrong tree I see. I guess I should post in antiques and muzzle loaders...no wait....black and green rifles....oh maybe general discussion....or maybee off topic
 
Geez, that's a HEAVY side plate on the action. Other than that I love the originality of the upgraded wheel lock idea.

I also like to think that you're kidding about some of the options. Everyone knows that the thing that goes up is only required if you're planning on shooting into space.

The bipod on a smoothbore is pretty much a waste. The smoothbore is not accurate enough to warrant that amount of support and for loading duty our instep and crook of the arm is more than sufficient to hold the gun pointed up for loading.

The choke tubes is likely going to give you troubles unless they are a superb fit. The issue being that if you're shooting patched round ball the patch can possibly grab on the joint line and produce a spin. Instead of insertable choke tubes I think I'd put a thread on the outside of the barrel muzzle and use screw on choke additions for operating in shotgun mode. That way you've got a smooth unbroken barrel for when running patched round ball.
 
Love it, great idea to do a tac'd out wheel-lock. It'd be need to make the possible's box look like an under-mounted grenade launcher or something, maybe throw a laser on there too.
 
bang_on_sk said:
Love it, great idea to do a tac'd out wheel-lock. It'd be need to make the possible's box look like an under-mounted grenade launcher or something, maybe throw a laser on there too.
Click to expand...

I was thinking (given the steam engine valve as one of the parts) maybe an espresso maker as an oblique "modern" reference to the "coffee-mill" Sharps rifles. :)
 
I'm thinking that the rifled choke tube will offer enough stabilization to a conical bullet. Round ball maybe not so much.
My initial thoughts were to put an external thread on the barrel as well...my engineering said bad idea how ever as pressure exerted on the choke tube would try to expand the female thread of the choke away from the male thread of the barrel making the joint weaker and more prone to failure. The reverse, (standard shotgun practice) would try to seat the chokes threads harder into the barrels female threads...probably the very reason why no shotgun manufacturer makes external thread on chokes.
H&H use intermittent rifling in their guns so figure....
 
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Ah-ha! A shoulder thingy that goes up....is that like a height adjustable cheek rest?

The lock plate will be contoured to save weight but needs to be as thick as it is to house the sealed ball bearings the wheel is perched on. ;)
The bi-pod is also to assist shooting as the guns design is somewhat bulky. It is not a feather weight.

The wheel lock has been tested for function by the way and works well in tests.

More about that:
The wheel is a custom 416 SS ball bearing mounted arbor with a 8 tooth 12 pitch pinion gear, a striker wheel from a bick lighter and a eccentric.
The power comes from a compressed 5/8"x 3"x .047 spring actuating a 12 pitch rack gear.
The flash pan is a 308 stainless tube with 1/4-28 threads going into the barrel and a 1/4-20 thread on the out board end. There is a .070"Dia touch hole with a .201" pan diameter with a 30* shoulder leading into the touch hole, there is a port cut into the side facing the striker wheel with a 308 SS sleeve having a coinciding port cut into it.
The lock plate and the head of a 1/4"-20 bolt hold the sleeve in place and a spring loaded cam arm attaches a link to the breme eccentric on the striker wheel to gain its motion.
The "flint" (actually fero-cerium) is an a detented spring loaded arm and consist of standard welders striker flints with 6-32 threads.

In operation the sleeve is rocked back and the pan is loaded with 4Fg powder, the cocking arm is pulled back (no key to loose) and the arm is pulled off its detent and allowed to be held against the striker wheel (bick lighter), the trigger is pulled and the wheel turns causing sparks to fly at the port which quickly opens, dwells momentarily then closes rapidly. When the 4Fg is ignited and the sleeve closes the resultant flash is forced to travel down the pans length (much like an akley improved chambering in profile) and is bottle necked and accelerated through the touch hole into the main charge.
There are a few advantages to this;
1) It reduces or prevents a flash in the shooters face
2) It virtually guarantees ignition as even a blocked flash hole will succumb to the pressure generated by the pan arrangement
3) The bottle neck design should accelerate the gases/flash resulting in a faster than flintlock lock time.
4) It is very weather proof
5) It is not orientation dependent (powder location within the pan matters not, pressure accelerates burn and eliminates "wick burning" from powder in the touch hole

The wearing parts (wheel and flint) are very available from any hardware store...even the springs came from home hardware.
The down side is that moisture, oil, etc on the striker/ flint are still flint lock weather failures....a "fender" for the wheel could help eliminate this
The other draw back is weight. The lock and the barrel are bulky.
 
Interesting toy. Cant wait to see her completed. Nice job on the mechanism how many hours so far?

As for shoulder thing that goes up. is obviously the definition for a barrel shroud. Which is another word for a top folding stock....

You better make a vid of her working.... or else........ dum dum dummmmmmm.
 
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