# New Rifle just completed



## mmarkey (Apr 29, 2012)

These are pictures of the new JP Beck rifle that I just completed. 42" 50 cal  swamped Rice barrel, Chambers flintlock, Nice curly maple stock.

Hope you enjoy.


----------



## scambooger (Apr 29, 2012)

Very nice!!


----------



## Miguel Cervantes (Apr 29, 2012)

That scroll work is incredible!!!


----------



## hummdaddy (Apr 29, 2012)

nice work


----------



## Okie Hog (Apr 29, 2012)

That is a beautiful rifle.


----------



## Gecko (Apr 29, 2012)

Well done, let us know how she shoots.


----------



## tcward (Apr 29, 2012)

Awesome!!


----------



## Rev.432 (Apr 29, 2012)

very very nice work.


----------



## Bernard goldsmith (Apr 29, 2012)

I've seen a lot of rifles at different shoots an this one is tops!!!
Bernie Goldamith
Field Rep. NMLRA


----------



## John I. Shore (Apr 30, 2012)

Beautiful.  Nice work.

John I.


----------



## fishfryer (Apr 30, 2012)

Very,very nice!


----------



## mmarkey (Apr 30, 2012)

Thanks for all the nice comments. This one is going to Trackofthewolf.com for sale as soon as I get a box.


----------



## frankwright (Apr 30, 2012)

That is almost too pretty to shoot.


----------



## BoKat96 (Apr 30, 2012)

Now that is a piece of art !!!


----------



## flyfisher76544 (Apr 30, 2012)

Nice!


----------



## Michael F. Gray (Apr 30, 2012)

Nice Smokepole!


----------



## pine nut (May 3, 2012)

Mighty purdy piece of plunder right there Sir!  Mighty purdy!


----------



## C.J. Pearson (May 4, 2012)

Beautiful work Mike. Very nice!


----------



## golffreak (May 4, 2012)

She's a beaut! Great job.


----------



## Nastytater (May 4, 2012)

Awesome Craftsmanship.


----------



## mmarkey (May 5, 2012)

Thanks again for for all the accolades. 

This rifle is going to market, my price is $2500. If anyone is interested and wants it, contact me. It will be going to Trackofthewolf.com  on Mon. 7 or Tues. 8
and they will add another $900 or more to my price when it goes on their site.


----------



## mmarkey (May 7, 2012)

Just shipped the rifle off to Track of the Wolf. Should be there in a few days. I'd expect to see it appear on their website in about 2 weeks.


----------



## Shug (May 7, 2012)

That sir is a work of art


----------



## snook24 (May 9, 2012)

Looks great! I've wanted something like that for a long time!


----------



## Nicodemus (May 9, 2012)

That is one fine lookin` piece of craftsmanship.


----------



## mmarkey (May 10, 2012)

Thank you gentlemen. Just working at spreading the fun of traditional muzzleloading, ONE RIFLE AT A TIME. Haven't had someone shoot one who didn't love it.


----------



## eden892 (May 10, 2012)

Very nice work


----------



## kvistads (May 11, 2012)

Hey Mike, you did real good there my friend.  Did you sign the rifle yourself or do you have someone do the engraving for you?  Again, nice work.  Thanks for sharing it.


----------



## mmarkey (May 11, 2012)

kvistads said:


> Hey Mike, you did real good there my friend.  Did you sign the rifle yourself or do you have someone do the engraving for you?  Again, nice work.  Thanks for sharing it.



Thank you Russel.  I do all the carving, and all the metal engraving and build the patchbox from brass sheet.


----------



## Redleaf (May 21, 2012)

Really nice work Michael,  you have a talent for carving.  Is that stock straight or has it got some castoff?  Do you use precarved wood or blanks?


----------



## Redleaf (May 21, 2012)

I'm not presuming to tell you how to do anything,  but has it ever occurred to you that if you place the touch hole into the side of the breechplug and drill out the front end of the plug forming a short ante-chamber that you can get the fence located exactly at the rear end of the barrel?   There's some other advantages besides aesthetics to breeching one that way too.  Eliminates alot of problems if you shoot one alot.


----------



## Supercracker (May 22, 2012)

what you're describing is pretty much the original design for Nocks patent breech which came to be in about 1760 in England. Of the 6 or 7 different drawings on his patent there are 2 or 3 that show what you're describing. Although, the objective was to aid ignition with a preignition chamber. I don't think it had made it's way here during the time period he's representing. 

That said, it is my understanding that rifles from that period had what we would consider dangerously shallow breech threading. Which would move the TH back a bit.


----------



## Redleaf (May 22, 2012)

The few originals I've seen unbreeched had much shorter breechplugs than the one's made today.  Anything longer than the thread diameter is more than needed.  Its not something I stew over anyway and the overall geometry and location of lock/barrel isnt all that important to me,  but quite a few contemporary builders think the fence should line up on the rear end of the barrel for the sake of appearance.  Alot of the original locks were not shaped like one's made today either.  Alot of the old one's were  longer so it would have been easier to align the fence with the end of the barrel too.  Seems like over the past 40 years the trend amongst contemporary lock builders has been to shorten and make locks more compact with shorter hammer throws.  I've seen a number of originals that when at full cock,  the cock was layed back alot further than most contemporary locks would be.  
As for the nock patent,   from what I have read,  I think it was partly designed to keep flint shotguns from stopping up on driven bird shoots where the guns would be shot more than a few times.  With a touch hole in front of the face of the breechplug, fouling is going to build up and grow up past the touch hole on certain days when the temperature and humidity is right (or wrong).  American made Pa/ Ky.  rifles were never shot more than a few times on a hunt so this never became a problem, plus its alot easier to build one that way.  Not many American builders used a touch hole liner (if any?) but just drilled a touch hole through the side of the barrel.  I'm a target shooter so I shoot my rifles all day in some matches and the ante-chamber pays a big dividend.  I see shooters quite frequently that on certain days have to use a scraper alot and still have misfires and hangs due to fouling buildup on the plug face.  With a properly built chamber,  that never happens.  For my purposes,  the appearance is secondary and of minor concern.  Just something I've heard about and read about.   I've built and or breeched about 20 roundball guns over the past 15 years but have never tried to reproduce anything in particular.  My interest lies more in function than appearance.  Some builders refer to that as "fantasy" guns.  Not a faithful copy of any particular style.  Its all pretty interesting stuff to me though.


----------



## mmarkey (May 22, 2012)

Thanks Readleaf, for your comment and your questions.

This rifle is a straight stock, I do prefer a 1/4" offset. It was from a "Pre-Carve" Barrel channel ramrod drill/channel  and rough shaped butt. Forearm square. Basicly I see no need to spend  2 or 3 days to do these things when the "grunt" work can be done for such little cost and I can concentrate on what I like to do. I still do considerable shaping of the but and must remove up to 1/4" of wood to achieve acceptable appearance. This is the work that would have been done by a shop apprentice back in the day, but the master's name is the one on the rifle not the apprentice. 

FYI, I don't build my own barrel or locks or castings either, but I don't know too many who do.

As far as the lock position. If you've built rifles you know that the vent position is determined by where the breech face ends. I normally use Rice barrels and their breech is 1/2" deep. I usually place the vent 1/8" infront of the Breech face to allow for a White Lightening Touch Hole Liner. I use Chambers locks. With those parts and combinations the lock fence is about 3/16" ahead of the end of the barrel. 

When I started building rifles I was also concerned that the lock fence was not coming out at the end of the lock. With a lot of research, I found out that a lot of originals were breeched with shorter breech plugs than is the norm for safety today. I consider it a concession to living in the 21st Century.


I have also examined many originals as well, and some have the lock fence at the end of the barrel and some do not. The photo below is of an example of an early Beck (that I happened to have on hand) and the lock fence position is clearly infront of the breach by a similar amout to mine. It was more common than you think.





I have also heard similar arguments to yours about drilling through the breechplug. My thoughts are that you are creating more of a problem (1) by creating a pocket that can't be easily cleaned out at the range and (2) by possibly weakening and creating a place in the breech that may be suseptable to gas burn-out of the breech threads. So because of those 2 points I choose to let the lock fall at it's natural place. I think that the original rifles you find with lock fences ahead of the barrel end have longer breech plugs similar to todays. The example I submitted is an original Beck, my rifle is a reproduction of a Beck. Technically similar enough in my book.

I've been shooting guns with this configuration for years  (I too do mostly range shooting). I have never, never, never had a problem with fouling building up on the breech face to the point that it was covering up the vent. I do own a scraper but whenever I tried it I got no fouling, so I just leave it in my tool kit. I'll shoot nearly a pound of powder at a range session, so it's not because I'm not shooting enough to foul the breech. Perhaps this is an effect of the touch hole liner, don't know.

Well, that's what and why I do what I do. Any more questions feel free.


----------



## Redleaf (May 22, 2012)

All interesting stuff Michael.  And there's more than one way to skin a cat or to build a flintlock.  Our experiences and perceptions on the chamber differ though.  The first two rifles I ever built had the touch hole in front of the face and about 90% of the time worked flawlessly.  But on certain days when the humidity and temperature were just right,  nothing but trouble!   I typically shoot about 5000 to 10,000 balls a year so it might be that this problem is one that very few people would ever encounter or even identify if they did.  As for creating a place thats hard to clean at the range,  you wont ever need to clean it at the range.  If properly built and shaped,  there will be no more fouling after 100 shots than there was after the first.  The critical factor is NOT to have any angles or square corners but radiused edges.  That will prevent fouling from building up.  Any shelf or 90* agle and fouling will start growing there.  Those first two guns I was talking about were a big pain on those days when it wanted to foul.  I litterally wore out two scrapers and carried two rods around to the matches.  Load, fire, wipe, scrape, wipe again, load,  etc.  That fouling was as hard as concrete too.  I dont know how many shots it would have taken or "if" it ever would have covered up the vent, but as the plug grew,  it would change the point of impact enough to move the shots as much as 2 or 3" at 50yds.  It was driving me and a couple of my friends nuts til I read an article by Peter Alexander about Manton shotgun breeches.  We re-breeched our rifles and never looked back.  That has been the single most helpful thing I've  ever done to one to improve function.  I remove my liner to clean at the end of the day.  I wrap the liner in teflon tape and it comes out with little more than fingertip pressure on a screwdriver.  Then I use a flush tube.  Takes all of fifteen minutes from beginning to end to wash and dry the lock, bore, and liner,  dry, oil, and reassemble clean as the day it was built.  I'm not trying to sell anyone on this,  its just the best way for me.  I will say this,  I have breeched about half a dozen guns for other shooters and to a man every one of them has said they wish theyd known how to do that to begin with and will not build a gun breeched otherwise. 
As for the location of the fence in relation to the end of the barrel.  I could care less where one lands.  Your guns look like museum quality and I would never have thought anything about the fence location if I had not been told by some constipated desciple of gun design that mine was "incorrect".  Like I said,  function is my main concern and if it would work better with the lock inlet upside down,  I'd do it that way.


----------



## Cleburne (May 22, 2012)

Great job!


----------



## mmarkey (May 22, 2012)

Thanks Cleburn and Thanks again Redleaf,
I guess it would be a pretty dull world if we all liked the same thing and did it the same way. I respect your opinion. If you're going to be at the territorials maybe we'll meet up, I'm going to try to make it.


----------



## Redleaf (May 22, 2012)

If nothin dont happen I'll be there Michael.  I hope I'm not a zombie that weekend though.  I'll be in Friendship for 9 days coming back on the Monday before the territorials start on Friday.  Lookin forward to meeting you.


----------



## Mallard Cutter (Jul 7, 2012)

Nice looking work !!!!!


----------



## mmarkey (Jul 8, 2012)

I appreciate your comments. I truly love building these rifles.


----------

