how does it fire?

Don't know yet. Don't have any loaded ammo for it yet. Want to keep it to fairly light loads, so even the factory loads for vintage guns are still a bit brisk.

Looks good

https://www.buffaloarms.com/catalog.....mp;category=25

https://www.buffaloarms.com/43-span.....e-set-lee90765

Lee Loader powder charges are quite conservative.

Thanks, though I got dies for the Mauser way back when with the gun, ten? fifteen? years ago.

Nice!

Very nice work!

Oh, lookin' good.

Very nice! Tell me; do you have any tricks for safely cleaning steel back to "in the white"? I've a flintlock trade gun I need to give some serious loving to.

Elbow grease and "scotch brite" pads. Though, for starters on the trapdoor, it was 120 grit wet and dry, and I didn't bother to buff out the metal to a polished finish. Instead,as it was a round barrel, I roll scoured it for a fine, uniform texture. If you have an octogonal barrel, lengthwise would be the obvious way to go. If it has been blued, a bit of "Naval Jelly" will take care of that in short order. Have a cheap 1863 Springfield kit gun with a blued barrel (?!) that will likely get stripped.

Thanks!

Nice piece, and the excellent level of workmanship I expect from you.

Very nice. = )

Turned out rather well, I think.

Now, of course, I may need to deal with the BATFE about these being in the realm of NFA type weapons.

Now that's a beauty...

You gonna make a .58 silver bullet?

I could, have a mould for it. But would more likely cast an over-size slug and turn it down. However, this gun is in 45-70

Not too sure about actual calibers...(I'm STILL confused about .308/30-30/30.06???)

I know both .58 (Which I'd thot that was *Oops*) and 45-70 are pretty big...the one time I saw 45-70 was as a yellow plastic reincating blank for a friens Henry...it reminded me of a 20ga shot gun round sorta...I've never seen a real life .58 round...

the various "30 calibre" rounds usually have a .308 diameter bullet (and to add to the confusion most "32 calibre" rounds have a .312 diameter bullet, though for them, it may have been based on early cap-and-ball loads that used an over-diameter round lead ball that got squeezed into a gun's chamber. Certainly that's how most "38 calibre" loads got called, though the actual bore diameter was .357 or thereabouts) Though the various rifle rounds use the same diameter bullet, the brass cases come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes for different powder loads and from that different performances. The 30-30 was so called because it used a "30 calibre" bullet and had a 30 grain powder load, in keeping with many older loads that were named by calibre and powder load, though originally that was referring to black powder (32-20, 38-40, 45-70, ect.) the 30-06 was the 30 calibre round of 1906, when it was adopted. The 308, well you got to call it something, and it happened to be in .308 calibre. The 45-70 is a big enough brass sausage, though is about 410 shotgun size. You're not likely going to see a .58 cal. load, because next to no one ever did it, and only did so for a very short while. .58 calibre more commonly referred to muzzle-loading musket balls/bullets, big lead pills, just under 5/8 of an inch in diameter.