Boy oh boy did I make a BIG goof with a rifle I bought and then created a very nice very fancy walnut stock. Below is a picture of the original rifle I bought with a Douglas XX 50 caliber round ball stainless barrel that is so rare the man at Douglas remembered making it! I also had Lewis lock and trigger. The lock actually has bronze bushings in all pivot points. So anyways I spent $400 on the nice walnut and spent 5 months remaking the gun as you see in the bottom picture. I used the multi level leather cheek piece on another gun I made 2 years ago. I went to the range Wednesday and after pulling the barrel to wipe the underside with silicone spray looked at my name/date made in the barrel channel to insure it was okay (sort of like a serial number).
Then I thought why not check the original "ugly" stock and what do I fins but the very tiny name of W. J. Terry of Gas City Indiana stamped near the for end of the barrel channel! A listing of his name showed he died at age 79 so I posted on one of the muzzle loading sites and the response was he built the rifle a loooong time ago (as Douglas told me) and was a match winner at Friendship Indiana matches with the NMLRA folks!
So now what to do....I plan to get some leather from Tandy and recreate the cheek piece and then transfer all the parts back to the original stock I think. I will definitely be a bigger conversation piece than what I have now but first I have to finish the 45 caliber round ball target pistol I am making.
