indian made muskets

Their guns may be just fine and they seem to be very reputable, but Veterans Arms just isn't quite as well known as the Middlesex Village Trading Company.
As far as the Indian made guns go, MVT has a pretty solid reputation.


http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/

Two words of advice to you when it comes to Indian guns. . .Buy Used!

They're not all that bad after you monkey with them a bit and fix the things that weren't done right to begin with, but they don't hold their value at all.

jrbaker90 said:

my only problem is the proof marks is the only thing that worries me

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That really shouldn't be a worry. But if it is then MVT will proof test it for you and provide documentation:

http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/faq.shtml#7

Q #7
....If you really, really want a muzzleloader to be proof tested, we can perform that task for a fee of $50. The gun barrel will be measured, test fired with double the service load (far in excess of Italian standards that are only 130% of service load) and measured again. The barrel will be marked with our stamp and you will get a copy of the test report. We keep a copy of the test report on file here.

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It's been a few years since I bought and refinished my Brown Bess, but here's what I remember of it.

Some deficiencies,
1) The trigger absolutely, positively sucked. Vacuum cleaners suck, and if I were comparing that trigger to a vacuum, it would be a wind tunnel for Boeing R&D. I would guess the trigger pull at 30 lbs. It literally felt like parts were being stressed to their yield point every time I pulled the trigger.

2) The finish looked like chrome or nickel it was so highly polished.

3) The stock had been shellacked with some kind of woodlike paint stuff and then varnished.

4) The bayonet was very loose and rattled badly.

5) It didn't shoot to point of aim. If I remember right, it was about 2' off at 50 yards.

6) The ramrod was very soft and bent easily.

Here's what I did to correct it.

1) Adjusting the angle of the trigger sears corrected the trigger pull. It now breaks at around 5 lbs.

2) A scotchbrite pad helped scuff up the barrel. It's still shiny, but it doesn't have that mirror polish that really doesn't belong on a musket.

3) Once I removed the shellac, the wood underneath had a fairly attractive grain to it. Unfortunately, there were a couple of places where they used wood putty, but overall, it looked much, much better once I stripped the paint off and refinished it.

4) With the bayonet, I used Fast Steel epoxy and filled in the inside of the socket a little to make it smaller, (these bayonets slide over the end of the barrel). I then filed the excess out with a round file until it fit snugly. I repeated this a couple times until I had a perfect fit.

5) To correct the point of aim, I put the barrel in the fork of a tree, pulled hard and tweaked it slightly. I then test fired and repeated the process until it shot to the correct point of aim.

6) For the ramrod, I heated and cooled it repeatedly using a blow torch and my bathtub until it seemed to spring back into shape rather than bend like a coat hanger.

There were some other issues too, but as I said, it's been a few years and I really don't remember them too well. IMO, this is entirely too much crap to deal with on a $600 gun, but not too long afterward I discovered two of them for sale used, one for $300 and one for $250. At that price, I think the hassles would be worth it.

The different importers get them from different manufacturers. I noticed that elmerfudd didn't mention where his Brown Bess came from. Even if it came from MVT, not every gun will have all of those problems. When you buy one new then you know where it came from and can be assured that it's in good shooting condition. If MVT sends out a gun with a 30 lb. trigger pull after being asked not to then it can be sent back.
Gunbroker is where most people find specific used guns that they're looking for.

Here's threads about 2 MVT guns that were bought new by a THR member:

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=461734

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=460402&highlight=india

I found the used muskets at a store called Muzzleloaders Supply in Puyallup WA. That was about 3 years ago however, so I doubt they are there anymore. You could always ask though, this is their website: http://www.muzzleloaderssupply.com/

And my Brown Bess was from MVT, who were pleasant people to do business with. I have no doubt they would have shipped me a different musket had I complained, however this was something that I went into knowing that I would be buying a project gun. I never expected a trigger that bad, but it was less effort to just fix it than it would have been to ship it back.

I guess one of the things that astonishes me most about Indian replicas is that it seems like with just a few minutes more time spent on each one they could make some pretty decent guns. It probably only took me about 45 minutes to clean up the trigger pull on that Bess and I'm sure that the person who built it could have set it right in 5 minutes or less at the time of manufacture. Underneath all the cruddy looking shellac, the wood really did look fairly nice. I've no idea what kind of wood it actually is, but it looks better than beech.

If my gun had come to me the way it sits today, I'd be telling you that the Indian guns seem nearly as good as a Pedersoli for $400 less.

As it is though, I just really can't recommend them at their current price point.

Loyalist Dave has some experience buying guns from them.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=4859681&postcount=3

http://www.thehighroad.org/showpost.php?p=4862815&postcount=13

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=477464&highlight=loyalist

He can be sent a PM by clicking on his name which can be found on the left side of his posts.

OR, he can read this thread and chime in!

I have found Loyalist Arms excellent guns. MVTC are also good. I work at reenactments on both as well as Pedersoli. As to authenticity, except for the non-walnut stock, the Loyalist Arms Bess looks like they made a copy of a 1st Model Bess from the collection at Colonial Williamsburg. btw I have had to adjust triggers and springs and the hardness on frizzens in Pedersoli products.

In fact Loyalist Arms and other imported muskets are so authentic, that one cannot simply order a replacement part that drops in..., the parts all need to be fitted, and no two replacement parts are fitted in the same way..., that may be a drawback for some folks. But that IS how the originals were made too.

If my gun had come to me the way it sits today, I'd be telling you that the Indian guns seem nearly as good as a Pedersoli for $400 less.

As it is though, I just really can't recommend them at their current price point.

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I can, because the MSRP of the Pedersoli product with bayonet ranges from $1370.00 to $1105.00 (Lowest is in US dollars buying from Canada) and the price of a proper 1st model with bayonet WITH scabbard, from Loyalist Arms (as an example) is a mere $674.00. The Pedersoli product is incorrect for many reenactments in the United States and Canada, AND does not have proper, historic, proof marks.

So one saves from $726.00 (geesh that's an extra musket and bayonet) to $431.00, and the modifications that Elmerfudd mention costs less than $100 if they are needed. A replacement ramrod from Dixie is $25, a bunch of green-scrubbies is like $5 leaving $70 for stripping, staining, and refinishing a stock, and for a file to adjust the trigger pull.

HINT: You can unship the barrel and lock, and smear both with yellow mustard (the condiment) and allow this to turn brown and hard, and repeat the process over a few days, and develope very good looking patina, no green scrubbie needed. Use a plastic tooth brush to knock off the surface rust and dry mustard between coats, and the last coat, rinse with water and baking soda, dry, then apply oil. The vinegar does the trick, and the mustard portion helps you to get a more uniform layer.

Do NOT buy any musket made outside of America that requires you to drill the touch hole, and thus you may be liable if an accident happens, for YOU are then converting it from non-firing to firing. You can get muskets from Canada ready to reenact with a modern flash guard present on the lock, by having them ship you the lock in a different box from the rest of the gun..., and merely drop it into the stock and tighten the screws to assemble the gun. The laws of Canada require this two box arrangement.

LD

All Indian Civil War muskets come with unrifled barrel,and wood used is too heavy and non-authentic,so don't buy it.Better buy used Euroarms musket.Prices go really low,some are for around 250 $

I personally don't believe in buying a "sorta replica", so if you are going to buy a CW rifled musket, you should get a rifled musket, not a copy that was made to simply blow smoke with a smoothbore. The savings between a good, accurate looking, accurate shooting, Euroarms, and an Indian, is at most $200.00 for the average infantry rifled musket, when talking about the difference between Indian made, caplock, 3-Band Enfields and European made ones. That's less than half the savings between the cheapest European flintlock musket and an Indian musket.

The adding of the rifling imho does justify the added cost.

I can only talk about the barrels in flintlock, smoothbore muskets, from Loyalist Arms and MVTC, and only one musket out of several thousand, from one of those two importers, has had a barrel failure. LA and MVTC do NOT get their barrels from the same factory, contrary to what many have written in the past.

For those who think Indian made muskets are always a risk, please observe what operator error will do to an American made muzzleloading rifle, having a thicker barrel and breech, again..., due to operator error.

Inline Failure

The shooter says he "double loaded", but from the images captured, this was a failure to properly seat the bullet on the charge. (imo-hbc)

LD