Cleaning up my Indian Baker rifle

[Tedscanoe]

As I have way more time than money, I bought a 1806 replica Baker rifle, without a vent hole or much workmanship.
Yes, a nice muzzleloader woud be about $1,200 but this one was only $500.00 on sale so I knew there would be lots of work to make it happy.

After drilling the vent hole, the next thing that I did was strap the gun to an outside table with 120 grains of fffg and a proper ball and patch. I fired it off with a long string and small torch at the end of the string. I figure that that's a pretty good barrel proof as I don't intend on going over 60 grains when shooting.

It didn't take long to get the cosmetic work done - barrel lugs, some decent screws and fitting stuff to the stock.

But out of the box, trigger 12 pound pull, frizzen 16 pound pull and the hammer a 23 pound pull.

The frizzen spring was a real mess with the top of the spring at a weird angle so that about 20% of the frizzen nub was actually gouging the spring and the other 80% not touching the spring at all. With a dremel and some 400 wet/dry paper I managed to get all of the nub touching a now proper looking spring and brought the frizzen pull down to 8 pounds. Taking some off the inside edge of the spring brought that down to 5 pounds. This of course took about 4 fittings to make sure I didn't go too far.

I then took the entire lock apart and spend quite some time sanding using 400 then 800 grit on all moveable parts to get them smooth. Almost everything needed smoothing. Just doing that alone brought the trigger pull down to 5 pounds which I think I'll leave for a while. (I'm not sure where to remove metal to bring the trigger pull down to a 3 pound pull so it's not happening now.)

The reason for all this I'm not sure what to do about the hammer cocking pull of 23 pounds. I figure that would translate into shattered flints. Do I start shaving the inside of the main spring? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Ted

 

[polaris]

Man, I was searching everywhere, but can't find the pictures.
Did I miss something?

 

[Tedscanoe]

If that was a hint, I'll get on it right away.

You can see the odd angle and gouging on the frizzen spring.
I just filed the barrel lugs down flush so I wouldn't keep catching my palm on them.
More pics on the lock later.

 

[Tedscanoe]

This is taking a while as life keeps getting in the way of fun.
I've finished cleaning up the lock and most of the exterior metal parts.
Have also finished making a sling, muzzle plug and a frizzen cover.

 

[Tedscanoe]

Before and after photos of the working side of the lock.
On some of the rougher parts, I had no choice but to carefully start with 100grit.
After that, the rest was done with 400 grit then 800 grit. All finished off with green jeweler's rouge.
I was very very careful around where the tumbler, sear and main spring all mated. Too much removal around those parts could easily lead to hair trigger problems.
I was surprised just how easily everything moved after that. Like I mentioned above, the trigger pull alone dropped to 5 pounds.

 

[Goldenlakepete]

Looking good! I can see Richard Sharpe and Sgt. Harper shooting those Bakers.

 

[NorthCoastBigBore]

Yes, that is turning out nice! Good work

 

[H Wally]

Looking great! Always like seeing build alongs!

 

[Tedscanoe]

thanks guys.
I really wanted to use the original steel ramrod but it ends 10-32 thread which I'm pretty sure would scratch the hell out of the barrel and deform the musket ball itself.
I bought a brass 10-32 threaded 5/16" ramrod tip from Track of the Wolf for 4 bucks. The brass tip is designed to fit a wood/fiberglass for most of it and a 10-32 thread at one end threading in ball-pullers and cleaning stuff.

I needed to slightly enlarge the tapered ramrod hole to fit the new brass ramrod tip but I couldn't find a 3 foot long 5/16" drill bit locally.
I bought a 3 foot long 5/16 steel rod for 5 bucks. Using a friend's grinder, I sharpened the tip into a wedge and then a 6 inch long grove down the middle. I was stunned just how well it worked. It took about 10 minutes to open up the channel and make the hole a tad deeper.
To keep access to the threaded and concave end of the brass tip, I slipped the non-threaded end over the steel ramrod until it caught a couple of the bottom threads. Used blue loktite on those threads and filled the longer unthreaded with an epoxy filler. Seems to be working really well. I also have a homemade ball puller and ramrod which will get used more than the original steel but still needed the original ramrod.