The gun is a muzzleloading smooth bore rifle (no rifling w/ sights). The 38 inch barrel is approximately 45 caliber with exterior dimensions of approximately 1&1/8 inch at the breech and 7/8 of an inch at the muzzle. It is percussion and I would guess it was made sometime in the early to middle part of the 1800s. Might have started out as a rifle but the bore was rusted very badly. My father bought it to use as a "pattern" to build a rifle but never had the time. I just wanted to restore it to shootable condition for the fun of it. I finished most of what I wanted to do last night. I will test it with 40 grains of 2F, newspaper, and a .451 roundball and then a 1/2 oz of shot, just to do it. It was in very terrible condition and as guns go, I will grade it as very terrible still. It has a full stock broken at the step and now accu-glassed back together. I spent several hours on the barrels which at this point might be worth 100 bucks to someone wanting them for a build but who knows? It took me a while to figure out why the lock would work out of the gun but not in and after removing material in the wrong places I got rid of about 1/64 of an inch of wood in the right place to solve the problem. I fired 3 caps and quit.
Thank you to everyone who took an interest in my post. All of your advice and comments are appreciated.
