Post-Cleaning Borescope of the Brown Bess

I ran out to Lowe's yesterday and bought a 5 foot section of 2" PVC pipe, and a couple caps. After degreasing the barrel, I soaked it overnight in Evaporust inside the pipe. After a little scrubbing this morning, this is what the inside looks like:

It's looking a lot better.

More Work on the Brown Bess

I've been doing some restoration work on the Brown Bess over the past few days.

I determined the reason that it's not going into full cock is that the sear spring is not applying pressure to the sear after it rotates a certain amount. Either the V of the spring isn't wide enough, the lower leg of the spring isn't long enough, or the sear is bent. I need to figure out how I'm going to fix it.

Today I removed the barrel to check for pitting under the wood line. It's not too bad.

This is the breech end. Note the Nepalese marking.

This is the worst of the pitting:

It's not very deep.

The barrel is currently soaking in Evaporust. After I get it out and get it wiped down, I'll borescope it again to see what the inside looks like.

Worked Some More on the Brown Bess

After letting the bore soak overnight I did some scrubbing today with a 12 gauge bore brush (which is undersized for the bore) and even wrapped some steel wool into the bristles. It's coming along and looks promising.

All the nasty brown scale shown in my video from yesterday is gone. The bore is rough but there do not seem to be any really deep pits. I've got it soaking in Kroil again for now. I figure that I'll wipe that out and use Evaporust.

Bore Scoped the Brown Bess

I ran my cheap USB endoscope that I got from Amazon down the bore and captured the video using Photobooth on my MacBook Pro.

It's downright crusty. The fuzzy bits are from cleaning patches.

This was after a couple oily patches and spraying some WD-40 down the tube. I almost got the rod stuck on the way out but managed to extract it. I now have the bore soaking in Kroil, pending the use of a brush and/or Evaporust.

East India Pattern Brown Bess from the Nepalese Cache

Meet my latest acquisition, an East India Pattern Brown Bess musket from the Nepalese Cache. I ordered it last week from International Military Antiques, and it arrived today. Click the pictures for a larger version.

The stock is newly made.

This one has a Gurkha-marked lock.

Inside of the lock:

The ramrod pipes, nosecap, and bayonet lug/front sight:

The sideplate:

I also got a combination tool to go with the musket:

Overall it seems to be in pretty decent shape for a military gun that is nearly 200 years old. The lock does need a little work. It will hold on half cock but the sear doesn't want to move and engage the sear on full cock. It may just be a bit gummy or the sear spring may need work.

The part of the barrel visible above the line of the wood is not overly pitted. I plan to dismount it from the stock to check its condition there. The bore is rusty. I ran some patches soaked in WD-40 down the barrel but I'm planning to soak it in Evaporust.

Once I get the lock to hold full cock I'll be able to test for spark. The frizzen looks to be in good shape. After I confirm spark, I plan to remotely test fire it using some cannon fuse.

More posts to come.

The Original Real Man's Coffee Cup

It is a USGI canteen cup made by Ingersoll Products sometime in the early 1970s. I got in around 1985 after I joined Civil Air Patrol. The outside is black from heating many meals in campfires.

American servicemen have been using canteen cups since the introduction of the M-1910 over a century ago. It's one of the best pieces of gear ever. The main thing it really needs is some kind of a lid. I have an older Heavy Cover brand stainless steel lid that I modified a bit to make it lighter, but for a couple decades I just relied on a piece of aluminum foil.

Newer USGI canteen cups have folding butterfly-style wire handles. I prefer the older L-style cups like this one. It's one feature of the Keith Titanium set that I would change. (OTH, the Keith sets come with a nice lid for the cup, so there's that.)

The horizontal slot in the handle is to allow you to put a fork from the M-1926 fork into it as an extension for when you're cooking on a fire. The vertical slot is to allow it to be slipped over the handle of the mess kit (AKA "meat can") so the whole ensemble can be dunked in boiling water for field sterilization.

Survival Resources has a nice article on useful mods to this style cup, including how to make a lid, adding D-rings to the handle so you can use a stick for an extension, and adding a bail. Check it out. (Incidentally, I recently ordered a few things from Survival Resources including a haversack. I plan to do a post and/or video on that as soon as I can get to it. No problems at all with my order and I got it quickly.)