Thursday, March 8, 2018

Is that an octagon barrel?


7 comments:

  1. Hawken style percussion rifle with hooded? front sight, a ladder rear sight, and different butt plate. Historically they had full octagon barrels and half stocks.

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  2. Based on the image, I am going with a hex barrel. The two sloped
    sides above the forend suggests 6, not 8 sides.

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  3. Look again Leonard - I see three flats, unless I am having a brain fart, which means octagonal. Very few barrels are hexagonal - in fact I have never seen one.

    The black powder geeks in my neck of the woods would call that a 'Spaghetti Plains Rifle' - probably a repro made in Italy...

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    Replies
    1. My mistake, the barrel is sitting lower in the forend than
      I thought. If it was riding a little higher, one could see
      two more facits. BTW, there were a few rifles with hex
      barrels.

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  4. Yeah, I worked in a muzzle-loader shop for three years and never saw a hexagonal, either on repro's or antiques. The two vertical sides are simply lined up well enough with the camera that they don't show.

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  5. One of the the things I have come to appreciate in modern firearms is, for lack of better definition, lock speed. On a modern firearm, you pull the trigger and discharge is all but instant. Shooting a flintlock or caplock you have to hold your aim for a measurable amount of time after the trigger is pulled.

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  6. It is a Thompson Center Renegade 50 or 54 Cal muzzle loading rifle.

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