Commodore Swab

For those concerned I received mine

Well I just finished reworking the lock on a more common India built gun and set a new record of 14. The record is how many times I can fire her (powder in the pan) without cleaning wiping or knapping the flint. Something to bear in mind this was an old flint placed in the lock and after missing on the 15 time all I did was recock and pull the trigger and she went off and then went off again at which point I stopped. I also check to make sure she fires easily on both sides and upside down. What I did to the lock was remove probably 1/3 of the metal on the main spring and frizzen spring so she now throws foreward beautifully as well as polish the internals. The frizzen was sanded and hardened and the trigger was rewelded to remove the play. I also polished and blued the entire lock. Now she is all clean again and ready for delivery.

Usually that happens when someone hits you over the head with a belaying pin and you fall in the water .. . Welcome aboard

How about posting some pictures?

Is it this pistol? If so maybe I should rethink a deal involving a swap. Swab

Everything is made from solid stock

So where does one draw the line between a pistol and a long gun? Take my little blunderbus for example it is a very shortened shoulder stock so short that it could never really be fired from the shoulder.

I must say that to me '07 seemed to be the best year I have been to. There were decent crowds inside the fort of tourists pleanty of activity yet it didn't matter what you wore people were there to have fun. Some naturally were much more historically accurate than others and were willing to help educate educate. Shuttles ran to and from the fort so trying to get from the fort to downtown was simple without having to find a car and carpool. The battles kept the crowd close and involved whether it was firing from the ramparts with the crowd watching inside the fort (they could feel they were part of the defending force) or firing inside the fort at an onrush of pirates with the crowd watching from the ramparts once again bringing them more into the action. I feel since then it has changed from something welcoming the public to more of a private party where some tourists can sneak a peak. Just my $.02

Pictures of? There are several pictures earlier in the posting I don't have any of the double barrel although there were many at PiP lucky enough to see the barrels and how it is coming along. I also restarted work on the baby grenade launcher (scaled down to fire a golf ball) as the wood was wide enough for the barrel. I will say this wood although being lighter in color is a very strong hard wood and works very nicely so far for the stocks.

I may be able to come up with some nice heavy ballast stones

As an update the boxlocks are coming along nicely I have the second one just about finished and sold. The other 2 are still available for anybody wishing to put down a deposit. I cut out the stock for my double barrel and ordered the locks last week, it was difficult finding a piece of wood for the stock as it needed to be quite wide and most lumber shops don't keep that kind of wood in stock. However. the Viceroy was able to help me out and had a rough cut piece of Women's Tongue (East Indian Walnut) that I was able to acquire. Lucky for me this wood will have enough left over for a few other pieces including a small grenade launcher (small enough to lob golf balls) for some lucky person as well as a blunderbuss large enough to require a swivel yoke which I plan on using original lock parts on.

Aye a miquelet lock would be what you are looking for. I wanted one myself and am building it and it will be functional but I have been waiting over a year for the lock. If anyone knows a better faster source than the riffle shoppe I would be interested. Swab

The closest I can think of an actual treasure map would be the chart recorded in 1733 marking the locations of the sunken galleons (hurricane). In the wrong hands this would of been very valuable as there was much silver and gold never recovered. To further hide the ships at the time the Spanish burned them down to the waterline. In more recent times copies of this "treasure map" was optained from the archives and used to rediscover the sunken ships, even though they were salvaged thousands of coins, silver bars, and other treasure was recovered.

Would you happen to know which ship?

Matt made me a custom sword as well, I love it.

Matt made me a custom sword as well, I love it.

I got the double barrel welded together and shaped today and boy is she going to be a beauty when I get her done.

Beg borrow or steal locks to finish the barrels that I have cast. On a more personal note though I really want to see how the double barrel buss turns out.

I currently have 1 mortar left, I havn't been too active here send me a PM if you are still interested

Yes I do my own work, the barrel was an old prop shaft that has been turned and then welded with bronze where it needed to be built up a little. The belt hook was also welded on so it is all one seamless piece. The first several shots out the barrel (small charge 30 grains loose with no wadding) blew out some near perfect smoke rings, very cool.

Compared to a french dragoon you can see the smaller size And a couple of other pictures the first showing the various projects including a bronze small double barrel

I was thinking this was a nice sized piece holding it in my hand, of course I didn't think my french dragoon was that big (yes it is big). I laid the two down next to each other tonight . . . WOW the dragoon is like 4 times larger. Seeing them next to each other really made the difference visible. Now Im thinking how sweet it would be to have 2 of these each stuffed under the coat one on each side (since the lock is in the middle they can be used right or left hand) where they could be drawn together. Ohh its fun to dream . . .

Well this week I decided to work on something a bit different, a smaller pistol. This one is much lighter and shorter than what you might typically find. It is a boxlock flint (the lock is in the middle instead of being a plate screwed in on the side) so it a little newer than the GAOP but still old. The barrel is bronze and it is a flared blunderbuss. The more I look and feel this piece the more it just fits a gentleman as a conceled weapon or a lady. I will try to get some pictures when I can. Swab

This year we wont be camping, instead we will sail down on the boat and may be headed out to the "other" fort after the event. If there are others that may be interested in hanging around for several days after and hitching a ride that would be fine. We should have our dink rigged for sale with are small swivel, any chance of us being able to come into the beach there by the fort or pull it out of the water and store it somewhere like even the parking lot?

A swivel gun class would be fun as well, although it is a bit cheaper to just take my own boat out and shoot at coconuts.