Simply incredible. Again, thanks for sharing your time and effort with us.  Krag

mighty darn fine work. gonna be hard to sit tight waiting for a bit more. but, if you could, get some info for us on the neat barrel sight on the original. that'd fill some time for us lonely disciples.
have a great time at the show

jhm wrote on May 3^rd, 2025 at 8:24pm:


I don’t know, don’t keep track. I first started studying the original at the end of October last year, according to picture time stamps.  The first month was spent disassembling, measuring and making sketches of every part.  Then I started cutting steel from there.  But, lots of thought and time went into just trying to figure out how make some of the machining cuts on the inside of the frame and trigger guard.  Just figuring out how to machine some of the parts also took lots of time.  Once all the parts were made, getting them to work together was a big challenge.  There were some real challenges, and I didn’t write in detail about any of that in this thread, because honestly it would be like writing a book.  

As an example, one of these bigger issues was the firing pin hooking on the hammer pivot when closing the breech block and locking up the action.  I think I touched on it at one point but for awhile it was a real concern if I would get it worked out.  Once I did the action has worked fine ever since.  The funny thing is I can feel it at times but it now never cause an issue but, after assembling the original, I found it does, and feels, the exact same way.  So Walker and his helpers probably had this same issue and worked through it, apparently finding the same solutions as I did.

Back to your question.  A guess would be in disassembly, measuring and drawing parts, machining, filing, fitting, shaping, thinking and working out the issues….probably somewhere around 500 hours so far.  I still have to stock the gun and do all the many thing required to make it right….at least right in my mind.

But this time doesn’t bother me because that’s not what it’s about for me.  For me it the challenge to see if it can be made on manual machine and with hand tools somewhat similar to how Walker’s team would have done it a around a 140 years ago.
Sorry for the long answer to your question.
Bob

calledflyer wrote on May 3^rd, 2025 at 5:16pm:


Here are some better pictures of the barrel rear sight.  There are no marking that I can find other than the "O" on the one side.  I haven't looked at Tom Rowe's Hepburn book to see if anything is mentioned about the sights.  I'll let someone else check that.

It does have windage but I could not get it to move and was not going to try too hard for fear of damaging the sight.
Bob

thank you for indulging my request. it's a very unusual rear sight, and when I spotted it I simply wanted to have a good look at the little gem. as ladder sight go, this is about top grade. have a nice trip to the show- wish I could go and see your work.

so there is! even more unusual. and interesting. 

AJ wrote on May 7^th, 2025 at 12:45am:


It sure does. I wonder who made it?

The gun I have copied is also a military version and has a very similar front sight on it, but without the level.  This gun also appears to have less windage travel than the one in your link.

The base of the tang sight looks to be the same between the two guns also.  The staff is different.  The gun I have was also fitted for a stock heel sight, but the holes have been poorly plugged.
Bob