New -Old 54

if it is not sold - I might get to hunt with it - completely handmade - half octagon half round Damascus barrel  - with gold inlay - sometime from the 1850's

A little more info on this beauty. The barrel is stamped as made by Allen & Hille and made in New Orleans . The barrel and lock plates are Damascus steel. The bore is good and the breach block free. The rifling is gain twist so hard to measure twist rate but it ends fast enough to shoot heavy slugs well. The muzzle is choked to .530" for about its last 5". The triggers work as they should. There is lots of figure to the dark dense wood. I have shot this maybe about 50 or more shots with FFG powder and it seems to prefer slugs to patched ball. The reason for not so good performance with patched ball may be due to the fact that the smallest ball mold I had was dropping at .533" so the naked ball is larger than bore diameter at the muzzle so a hard fit. I have since acquire a ball mold for a .520" ball as well as a sizer die at .530" for bullet but I have not yet tried either. It has been to hot and dry for that but the weather is changing for the better. So far my best results have been from 80gn of KIK FFG powder under an old Ideal # 538146 bullet at 435 grain. Again the problem of diameter came up with the bullet lubed in the smallest die I had at .533" so the new .530" sizer may improve things some. Lord willing we shall see.

Nice old rifle. I hope to read more about it when you get to shooting those new balls and bullets. thanks.

I have an idea that this rifle was originally a flint lock.  The reason is the Damascus steel barrel.  In reading Ned Roberts excellent book on the subject he stated that by about 1850 the transition from flint to percussion was pretty much complete .  He also stated that by this time Remington was offering cold rolled steel barrels to gun builders which nearly completely put an end to gunsmith production of Damascus barrels.   Since this rifle has a Damascus barrel as well as lock plates it gives credence to the idea that it was originally a flinter then later converted.

Your theory on aging the rifle by its Damascus barrels might be correct. I have to say that for it to have the good rifling you mention makes it quite a find. I look forward to hearing more about it in the future.

Right now I am gearing up for the general elk season so working with this rifle is off for a bit. Yesterday I was prepping a roller in 50-90 after just finishing a re-stoking project on it. Yesterday's shooting went well with one three shot group holding right at about an inch at 100 yards, very pleasing! Shooting a 650 grain paper patch from a Tom Ballard mold cast in pure lead. My unconventional load uses 9gn of IMR-4895 as a kicker charge under 63.5gn of surplus wc-870 with a Federal 215 mag primer for about 1350 fps.