Has anyone built a Ferguson Flintlock Rifle?

Loyalist Dave said:

A force multiplier..., for about 2 minutes
while the Bess would shoot pretty much all day at 3-4 shots per minute. Note that the fellow in the timed firing is only shooting for time, not to actually aim at anything. The other thing is, especially with the British powder of the era, the screw and block portion of the action would need regular cleaning, so you might get say three minutes of four well-aimed-shots per minute, before the rifle would be out of action, for some wiping and brushing. It's real advantage was the fact that the ball was forced onto the rifling rather than using a patch, so had much better velocity, and the fact that it could be loaded from a prone position.

LD

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Is there an article, post, or video discussing this limitation somewhere?

Jackrabbit1957 said:

Well, one way or another Qweevox did an outstanding job on his version. Since it's not being fired like a Hollywood lever action I don't think the fouling is a huge issue.

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As much as I'd liked to actually have done it, I'm afraid you mean SC45-70. He is the one who built his own version of the rifle, and posted some of the construction photos. I haven't the skill. I just started to lust after the rifle some years ago after someone on another forum posted pictures of it.

kBob said:

actually it was the special powder and ball used by British troops armed with the shorter small caliber carbines and there are records of him ordering and getting the powder and shot including in Charleston.

most folks even use the wrong ball in their repro Fergusons and use musket powder, neither of which he did

Gee maybe the $9.99 investment in that Kindle edition book was not that bad.....

-kBob

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I'm going to buy that book. Thanks for letting me know about it. But before I do, what kind of powder did Ferguson recommend?

kBob said:

I believe he called it polished powder and it was the powder used in the Brit military carbines

-kBob

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That's interesting. From what I've read "polished gunpowder" was a process after corning where they tumbled the dry grains using graphite in silk tumblers to seal the grains and reduce dust. I've absolutely no idea how to replicate this today. But the article I read said they did this to make the gunpowder safer, not to make it fire cleaner.

So, I can't think of reason this would effect the action of the rifle. Maybe someone else knows more on the subject.

These days, when I make my black powder I use an aluminum die I had made by a member on another forum. I use a hydraulic press to compress my comp into solid pucks. I allow those to dry thoroughly and then break them up and run them through a ceramic coffee grinder. But I use to corn my powder using comp with dextrin added to bind the grains together. I'd run that through whatever mesh I wanted to grade it out.

I wonder if the dextrin powder would be better for the Ferguson's action. Of course I can't think of a reason it would matter. I've used both methods and never noticed one being cleaner than the other.

EDIT TO ADD: Graphite is a dry lubricant....that might explain why it works. I wonder if adding some graphite to black powder would improve the performance of revolvers. ....interesting.

https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/54/3038/narragansett-arms-ferguson-rifle-62

I didn't see that before. I guess it is worth the price to build a nice example. This one sold for over $5k

This was a very interesting video on the rifle, I thought I might put it here for others to see.

Great video on the history of the rifle. In this video, as well as the one above they explain a couple of flaws with the design.

In this video by Forgotten Weapons, he says one major flaw with the design was not making up for the wood removed from the stock for the breech plug screw. It made the stock somewhat weak and states that almost all the examples of the rifle show repairs to the area. The stocks would break in the area above the trigger and the breech screw.

In the video in the post above, they talk about the breech plug screw being unique to each gun. They weren't interchangeable, and if you unscrewed the plug all the way you had to know your rifle to get it back correctly. ....so, those are a couple of flaws with the design.