Thread: Black powder repro guns (Italian).

A word of caution if you are buying a repro BP gun.
They may have upped their game now, but years ago I bought a BP Pedersoli Zouave.
Like this one...
https://www.davide-pedersoli.com/en/...-us-model-1863
Cast a bunch of 'Minie balls' for it, and they were fine (been casting for a few years).
Went out to shoot the thing and duly loaded it...everything seemed OK.
Fired at a target 50 yards away to sort out the sights. Boom, cough, cough as you say.
That's funny, no hole anywhere on the target.
Tried another shot. Nope, no hole in the target but this time (through the smoke) I did see some dirt kick up off to the side.
Moved closer to target (a large cardboard banana box sort of thing).
I'm about 20 yards from it and try another shot.
Nope, no hole in the target.
Gave up and went home.
Cleaned the barrel and took time to really look hard at this thing.
I found that the rifling in the barrel only went in about 10 inches or so.
It was a smooth bore the rest of the way.
So you put the Minie ball into the muzzle and it engraved with the rifling. Push the Minie ball on further down on to the powder charge and the rifling marks now engaged nothing.
On firing, the ball shot up the smooth bore and hit the last bit where there was some rifling. But of course it now engaged in a different spot than when you loaded the thing.
I figure it ripped the bum off the Minie ball each time, and then the ball just randomly sailed off to where it wanted to go. Certainly no where near the target.
I then also noted a stain on the barrel just in front of the lock.
It was a tiny crack in the barrel and my cleaning solvent had luckily been able to leak out a tiny amount that showed up the crack.
Yeah, took it back to Tisdalls for a refund.
Bought a Hawkins .58 kit later and way better!
If you have a repro BP gun that doesn't shoot well, it may pay to check if it too just has 'some' rifling.
Haven't checked any later/modern repro guns but hopefully they now make them a tad better.
Or...is this normal for some BP guns to just have a smidgeon of rifling at the muzzle and smooth bore the rest of the way?
Would that work OK with a patched ball?

Originally Posted by Grey Kiwi

A word of caution if you are buying a repro BP gun.
They may have upped their game now, but years ago I bought a BP Pedersoli Zouave.
Like this one...
https://www.davide-pedersoli.com/en/...-us-model-1863
Cast a bunch of 'Minie balls' for it, and they were fine (been casting for a few years).
Went out to shoot the thing and duly loaded it...everything seemed OK.
Fired at a target 50 yards away to sort out the sights. Boom, cough, cough as you say.
That's funny, no hole anywhere on the target.
Tried another shot. Nope, no hole in the target but this time (through the smoke) I did see some dirt kick up off to the side.
Moved closer to target (a large cardboard banana box sort of thing).
I'm about 20 yards from it and try another shot.
Nope, no hole in the target.
Gave up and went home.
Cleaned the barrel and took time to really look hard at this thing.
I found that the rifling in the barrel only went in about 10 inches or so.
It was a smooth bore the rest of the way.
So you put the Minie ball into the muzzle and it engraved with the rifling. Push the Minie ball on further down on to the powder charge and the rifling marks now engaged nothing.
On firing, the ball shot up the smooth bore and hit the last bit where there was some rifling. But of course it now engaged in a different spot than when you loaded the thing.
I figure it ripped the bum off the Minie ball each time, and then the ball just randomly sailed off to where it wanted to go. Certainly no where near the target.
I then also noted a stain on the barrel just in front of the lock.
It was a tiny crack in the barrel and my cleaning solvent had luckily been able to leak out a tiny amount that showed up the crack.
Yeah, took it back to Tisdalls for a refund.
Bought a Hawkins .58 kit later and way better!
If you have a repro BP gun that doesn't shoot well, it may pay to check if it too just has 'some' rifling.
Haven't checked any later/modern repro guns but hopefully they now make them a tad better.
Or...is this normal for some BP guns to just have a smidgeon of rifling at the muzzle and smooth bore the rest of the way?
Would that work OK with a patched ball?

You should blame the firearm Greg,

Wow you had a rare and valuable Paradox rifled barrel until the crack showed up

Pedersoli firearms are pretty good quality these days. Sounds like you certainly got a dud.

I have owned 5 pedersoli rifles with no problems there are 2 still in the safe.
In the 60s and 70s there was a plague of cheap Spanish and Japanese replicas flooding the market plus some rubbish from India.
I remember a warning about Dikar rifles from I think Spain being sold as Tradition rifles being unsafe to shoot.
The Pedersoli Gibbs currently is the number one rifle recommended for International black powder long range shooting.

Pedersoli Gibbs

Yes, it was sold to me as a Pedersoli by Tisdalls, so they probably wouldn't buy a fake?
Maybe I had a dodgy one. This was way back 35-40 years or so now.
The new ones look to be fine.
The way the lack of rifling in the entire barrel was hidden does suggest something dodgy though.
Tisdalls may have bought a bunch of fakes.
No complaints...they refunded me and I kept on dealing with them until I found Rod Satherley and a young guy (Dave Tipple) in Manchester Street, ChCh.
So I'm not knocking the modern Pedersoli offerings.
Just saying what happened to me, and if you have a BP gun that doesn't shoot too well it might pay to check out the rifling (or lack of) in the barrel.
Mine can't have been the only one Tisdalls sold in NZ.

My first muzzle loader was an Italian kitset 45 cal Hawken. Maker unknown. Purchased off John Howat when he operated out of an office under his tank stand at his home.
I had a lot of fun finishing that rifle and shooting it. It was quite accurate with round balls.

The only issue I found was the barrel steel was super soft. I had to tickle up the crown twice after accuracy dropped off, despite always using a muzzle protector. The recrowning in the lathe was like machining butter.

Finished my BP "career" with 2 Parker Hales. No problems with their quality.