As a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, I regularly do living history presentations to schools and youth groups. As my ancestors during that war were Pennsylvania riflemen and gunmakers (Newhard, Kuntz and Moll), one of my classes is on the evolution of the long rifle from the original German Jaeger. Not owning a Jaeger, after a long search I purchased this percussion conversion in an internet auction as an inexpensive, rusted-out relic to pass around in class. Imagine my surprise to find this gem arrive in much better condition than I thought, so in addition to conservation efforts necessary for the piece will survive another 200 years, Ive gone a step further to put it back into firing condition. Ill detail all those steps, but first a before and after preview:
The first phase is dismantling the rifle, which in an old, pinned muzzleloader is a delicate process, as wood dating to the days before central heating has since shrunk around the inletting, and a combination of age and environmental conditions has deteriorated the lignin the natural glue that holds the wood fibers together. The consequence is that old wood is tight and perhaps rust-bonded to the metal, is brittle and splits and chips very easily. Further, every time storage temperature and humidity changes significantly, the metal sweats moisture into the inletting, and when combined with petroleum compounds used to prevent rust, often causes the fragile wood of the inletting unprotected by finish to become punky and soft:
Often there are tradeoffs between getting the gun apart, which is necessary to conserve it, and causing some controlled damage, and Ill show some techniques to minimize problems. First, I use Kroil penetrating oil liberally around the edges of all the inletted metal parts as well all pins, screws and bolts and allow them to soak overnight. I find this product to be among the best in its ability to break rust bonds between metal and metal and also metal and wood. Ill clean it out of the inletting later.
Screw slots are cleaned of loose rust and debris using penetrating oil and dental picks, driver bits are fitted carefully, altering them on the grinder if necessary, and tapped with a hammer before applying torque. A light to moderate tap with the hammer often breaks the rust bond, preventing a damaged screw. Driving out rusted pins requires supporting the surrounding wood using padded clamps to prevent a bent or rusted pin from catching on the far side of its hole and splitting the wood.
Once I get into these old guns, I rarely regret dismantling them completely, as the amount of active rust here makes it clear this rifle wouldnt survive another 200 years without proper attention.
Also interesting is attempting to date this rifle. The lock and drum are from circa 1850, but the screws were all hand-made using a screw plate, and date from well before 1840. The swamped barrel is extremely soft iron, and also is an earlier example. Yet I cant find any evidence of the lock having once been a flintlock or being re-inletted into the stock. Nor can I find any information about the builder, whose largely illegible medallion shows a crown with the name IP (or JP) Roos-bach (or Roos-back) beneath. Further, its clear that the lock bolts have either been reused from the previous lock or were salvaged from another rifle, as they dont fit the lock well. Hence I suspect a circa 1800 rifle needed restocking, and while they were at it converted it to percussion using a new lock with the original barrel, fasteners and furniture.
The worst case in disassembly is when a previously bent or rusted pin drives out the lug with it, causing further damage to the inletting. If a pin wont budge after soaking, dont force it. Use a Dremel Tool with a cutoff wheel to cut two slots in the ramrod channel to cut the pin so as to free the stock from the lug. Its better to repair the minor resulting wood damage than to risk shattering the stock. In a firearm built or repaired prior to around 1900, any parts that are glued to the stock like this horn nose cap remnant, or suspected of being glued-in were done using hot hide glue, and the glue bond is easily released using light heat and a chisel to pry it free. Later repairs done using modern glues also respond favorably to heat (or steam using a sopping wet rag applied to the joint and touching the rag with a soldering iron), but sometimes they have to be cut apart, rejointed and reglued.
Continued...
