Well, depending on the skill of the finisher...
A Lyman kit is mostly completed, and makes a good rifle. It's really a solo kit as there is so little to do. Mostly wood finishing.
When you get a "kit" from Pecatonica River or Track of The Wolf, they are parts kits. Depending on the rifle/fusil that you choose they can be complicated. I'd suggest you do a caplock if you've never done a parts-kit, and don't forget to order the barrel with the breech plug installed, and the dovetails for the front and rear sights milled. A partially inlet stock is also a good idea. Finally..., NO power tools except for a drill press, and only use the press for very few applications.
You can also contact any of the semi-custom gun makers and ask them for a price to inlet the barrel, or you could ask them to also inlet lock, and trigger, leaving the rest of the work for you to do. It's sort of half way between a Lyman style kit, and a pure parts kit.
Once you go beyond the factory produced kits, you do increase price, but you get to pick and choose more features, and you get a custom finished piece when done. For example, even if we both ordered the exact same "kit" with the same source with the same amount of work done before they arrived at our homes, when we finished them each would have differences due to the choices we made when completing the piece.
LD
