The fowler arrived on Thursday and had only time to look it over. The carvings are really excellent ... I mean professional artist quality Excellent. As to the overall build, it's at least somewhat lacking judging by the exterior. No time to begin the disassembly, so I let it go until this past Sunday. In the meanwhile, I built a pair of proper length tapered ramrods, with brass ferrules on both ends.
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There's one bolt holding on the lock and it was tight but no big deal using a gunsmith screwdriver. About 1/3rd of the lock internals were rusted, meaning it was never removed and cleaned after shooting. There were 2 through-bolt holes, meaning he missed on the first attempt. I spritzed the entire lock with pb-blaster to loosen the rust and left it soaking for a day and it looks near new now.
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I went to tap out barrel lug pin and for some reason it hung up internally on the lug. Tapped it out the other way and found that a brad was used and it's head was never clipped off. The tang bolt came out easily and the barrel released. Now here's were it gets a little interesting. A few days ago i asked why there was no front sight on the bbl and was told there no the means to solder on a front sight. I countered with, how then were the lugs attached to the forward round of the OTR bbl? However, the lugs on the bbl appear to be all be soldered, even the one on the octagon part (rather than dovetail it in!).
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I pulled the breech plug and it was in there Tight, but no match for the Rice wrench and a 3ft black pipe for leverage. It's a standard classic flat faced plug and it was Corroded, never cleaned. Dittos for the chamber. I spritzed the bbl innards with pb-blaster and let it soak, then went to push a wd-40 soaked patch in from the breech end and it wouldn't go through - the touch hole liner is sticking 1/16" into the chamber. geez.
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I couldn't unscrew the touch hole liner because it was never fully homed, just filed it flush to the barrel which lowered the liner's screwdriver slot and it had no purchase. I had to grind a carbide wheel down to 3/8" in order to deepen the slot for a proper screwdriver removal. The bbl got tiny dings at the slot ends but no big deal as it's a 1/4x28 liner and I'll drill it out for a 5/16x32 Chambers White Lightning (the Best touch hole liner, IMHO).
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I pulled off the trigger guard and the iron screws used were a good 2" long! ACK! So wrong in every way imaginable. They'll all get replaced. There is no side plate, which is actually a good thing, i'll order out a side plate along with a nickel front sight.
The builder a master carver, no question, but lacks in traditional muzzleloader construction. On the other hand, I could care less about wood carvings and I'm far more into gun function, not art adornments - the gun itself is the art for me. I knew there was gonna be work to do, and glad it's not all that bad and relatively easy for me to accomplish. If it wasn't, i'd return it. But as is, it will be worth more than the $1k i paid when i'm finished with it. Life is still good.
