Colonial Gunsmith video

[Malamute]

Just saw this. Looks pretty interesting, building a gun from raw iron, hammering out a barrel flat, hammer forming and hammer welding it into a tube, boring and rifling the barrel, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lui6uNPcRPA

[walks with gun]

Oh yeah, I could do that to if I had any talent or patience or. These guy's like this are truly artist's, Any fine art museum or gallery should have a few longrifles on the wall.

[soon 2 retire]

It sure is amazing what can be done with a file in the right hands. Here is a site giving a very interesting bio of the video gunsmith, Wallace Gusler.

http://www.flintriflesmith.com/Writinga ... res_mb.htm



Bob in Friday Harbor, WA

[Rusty]

Wallace was a fantastic historical researcher as well as an artist.

I'm sure Hondo could verify that today one's time would be much better spent y buying a barrel.

[gundownunder]

I enjoyed watching that, thank you for posting.

[6pt-sika]

I used to spend some time at a guy named Al Edge's shop . He builds in the Virginia school of longrifles and he happened to have one of Wallace Guslers rifles hanging on the wall in his shop/showroom . He let me handle it a bit , that thing had a feeling all it's own .

Al's webpage , http://aledge.com/

I have an original 1840-1850 A.B. Smith gun that we got from John Laubach who used to work in the gunsmith shop for Gusler .
I also had a Contemporary Longrifle in the Isaac Haines school that was partially built by Clay Smith (who I got the gun from) who also used to work for Gusler at Colonial Williamsburg .

Clays webpage , http://claysmithguns.com/

[6pt-sika]

Wallace was a fantastic historical researcher as well as an artist.

I'm sure Hondo could verify that today one's time would be much better spent y buying a barrel.

Clay Smith (who worked for Gusler at Colonial Williamsburg) told me that a gun they built and actually forged the barrel cost something in the 40G range . And that was the price a few years back .

[hondo1892]

I don't know if they forge parts like they used to at Colonial Williamsburg. The gunsmithing part has been curtailed a bunch by anti gun management there. A lot of politics going on there now. The video was made back in the sixties when Wallace first started working there. It is a good video that I have watched many times. I've welded up short sections of tubing for pipe axes and would not want to have to weld up a barrel for every rifle I built. However most old timers bought barrels pre made also. Jacob Dickert a well know gun maker in Pennsylvania back in the 18th century partnered up with anther guy and built a barrel mill for manufacturing them. It was water powered and they supplied barrels to many other gun makers in the state.

[Bill in Oregon]

You know, I recantly bought that DVD only to find it is on Youtube. Love hearing David Brinkley's voice again.