Black Powder "dreaming"

Gidday folks

Over the last few years I've been thinking a lot about my family - who on my maternal side arrived in the Nelson area in the early 1850s. By the 1860s they had acquired land and were operating a sawmill in the Rai Valley. My Great Grandfather was born about 1863 we think and my Grandfather 1887.

With this in mind I started looking for a rifle that I fancied (dreaming!) my GGF might have had built (and passed to his son and so on).

If I were he I'd have wanted short, powerful and very accurate.

After some time a rifle came up that is quite incredible in terms of what "might have been"

Built by a Kiwi gunsmith more or less from scratch by Barry Gracia, Stratford gunsmith - he is still with us, but very elderly. He made the stock and lock, he used a Hawkins (a renown Kiwi barrel maker) 451 1:18 twist heavy 25" barrel, fitted to a patent breech. Serial #3! The workmanship is extremely plain but well executed - very much like you might have expected from a "colonial gunsmith".

The result is short and handy by ML standards. The trigger is a dream. The sights are pretty good. It uses up to 500gn boolits and will be very authoritative, thd express rifle of its day. It has been shot recently (not by me yet) and shows much promise.

Best of all has been the trail of forumites who have helped me with this project @rambo6mmrem who vetted the rifles provernance for me, @muzza who collected it and talked with Barry Gracia, @pighunter09 who bought it to Chch, @akaroa1 who collected it, shot it and made the fantastic barrel band and collapsible ramrod.

Attachment 213261

Attachment 213262

Can't wait to shoot it!

I can confirm it does like 450 and 500 grain bullets and a decent charge of black powder
Once it has a field element in the fore sight it will be very easy to shoot more quickly
It is a perfect length for hunting at 25". Exactly the same as my 50 cal conical muzzleloader.
The craftsmanship of its build is very good as a range rifle, which is how it was set up

Once @Tentman gets a decent mould and does some testing it will be a very capable hunting and social shooting ML

Reminds me a bit of the English 'volunteer' style rifles - Rigby, Gibbs, Henry and so on.

I've got a couple of those Hawkins barrels and they were nicely finished .........

Nice gun :)

Should certainly shoot good

There is something very "Utility and Function" about this rifle. Looking forward to hearing reports on how it shoots.