Mike Brooks Custom Muzzleloaders
"Military Guns"
British 1776 rifle. 28 1/2" .54cal Colerain barrel, Rifle Shoppe parts set. Stock
was made from an English Walnut blank.
French Cavalry Carbine. The Rifle Shoppe parts except for the butt plate which
was made by me. The stock was an English Walnut blank.
French Buccaneer ca. 1720.  60" 20ga Coogle barrel, modified Chambers
Ketland lock. Butt plate was made from sheet brass and the trigger
guard is a Brooks casting. All set in a Beech stock.
British Wall Gun. 60" Coogle barrel with a 1" bore. All parts
except the stock and barrel are from The Rifle Shoppe. This gun
weighs 38 lbs.
German Jaeger ca 1750 - 1790.  28 1/2 " Getz .62 cal rifled barrel. Davis new
Germanic lock. Home made pipes, nose cap , side plate and butt plate.
Trigger guard was cast locally from an original. American black walnut
stock with a 13 3/8 trigger pull. The gun weighs 7 lbs even. Guns like these
were used by the Hessians during the Revolutionary war.
This is a first model Brownbess with a long colonial History. Inscribed by
one
time owner and soldier "Chas GODWYN" on the right side of the butt
stock as
well as his initials "CG" on the toe of the butt stock. The Thumb
piece and butt
plate are unit marked for the 53rd regiment of foot, an Irish
unit that served the
Crown during the Revolutionary War. The butt plate
return is also marked
"CAPT BERNARD" which may have been a British
unit Captain or possibly an
American unit commander. The barrel is marked
 "VIRGINIA" denoting property of the state of Virginia at some point. The
British proofs on the barrel
have been defaced with a cold chisel and rasp.
The present lock is a model 1756
which replaced a long ago worn out or
damaged model 1730 lock. The lock
mortise has been nicely adapted to the
new lock. There are a series of "tally"
marks on the comb of the butt stock.
In reality I bought this Bess already assembled with some problems and poor
inletting that needed fixing. I re inlet ed all the parts including the lock and
now
everything fits properly and the lock is an exceptional sparker. I believe
this to
be a Rifle Shoppe 1st model Bess of the 1730 pattern that somehow
ended up
with a model 1756 lock, maybe the builder had access to the '56
lock and TRS
was slow sending the '30? It has had a sliver of wood inlet ed
at the tail where
the banana shape of the 1730 lock once was. It's very well
done and hardly
noticeable. It is 10 bore with a 46" Colerain barrel, 13 5/8"
pull and weighs 11 lbs. I did all
the antiquing on this gun and it is completely
sound and ready for service.