.45 Wesson Rifle Replica

[Xiphoticness]

I've looked and not seen any threads about these so I figured it wouldn't hurt to start one asking for info. I bought a .45 caliber black powder rifle for $100, had no idea what it was. After researching a bit the internet says it's a replica of a Wesson 1841 rifle. Here's a link to one that was sold at auction that is the exact same replica as mine: Yep, it's a link. So basically I was wondering if anybody has any experience with these, knows anything about them (who made them, etc.) and also if I got as good a deal as I think I did. Thanks guys and if you want I can try to get some pictures of it later. I was hoping to be able to use the same balls as I use in my .44 c&b revolvers but alas then I realized I have to use an undersized ball to accommodate the patch. Oh well, an excuse to buy more lead.

[Edit] I just found a single thread talking about these, just took a bit more digging. It's Here I love The High Road, you can find anything here if you search long enough.

 

[BHP FAN]

My dad had one, and a Mowrey, both in .45. Fine accurate rifles, almost carbines.

 

[Curator]

I have one I bought from Dixiegun works about 10+ years ago. It is a dead ringer for the Foster/Bristol gun I had at the museum at which I was working at the time. Rifling twist 1 in 26" as near as I can tell but shoots the Lyman .45/475 bullet with fine accuracy out to 200 yards with 65-75 grains of black powder. Mine came with an un-rifled false muzzle. Nice, interesting gun but the butt plate is not conducive to heavy recoil which the gun definitely produces. I have a Leatherwood repro scope attached to mine. Here is a picture of the gun:

 

[kBob]

Curator,

Would that be the cased rifle on display at the City Museum in Pensacola with all the ACW medical gear in it you are comparing the OPs rifle to?

This last trip I did not get to visit the city museum as The Boy needed to visit the NAS for their museum for a school project and we spent our time there, except I forgot the time change so we got there early and spent an hour wondering around out side the light house and down on the beach.

The Boy could not figure out what all the white stuff in fields along I-10 west of the Apalachacola was until he got several hints. He was even more shocked when I told him there were many acres of cotton within ten miles of our house in North Central Florida the year before he was born, but that weather changes drove it away.

Not long after my wife and I had visited that city museum and seen that rifle looked at a Wesson at Petersen's in (blast Senior moment and I have forgotten the name of the little lake town a bit north of Orlando) The Spousal Unit could not see the value of us having such a rifle at that point in our lives however.

-kBob

 

[kBob]

Did we not have a poster on here build such a rifle from scratch on THR in the early days of THR?

-kBob

 

[Curator]

I'm pretty sure the rifle at the Pensacola museum is an original Edwin
Wesson rifle with ACW provenance, not a Foster/Bristol. Ed Wesson "farmed out" some of his casting work for his designs to various shops. He sold surplus castings to other gunsmiths, Foster being only one of many. Ethan Allen of Allen & Wheelock produced both rifles and shotguns in a similar design and may have cast some frames for the Wessons. My Dixie Gunworks reproduction was made by "Palmetto Armoury" in Italy about 2002. Modern "Ethan Allen" frame/lockworks are available for the custom builder.

 

[Crawdad1]

Doesn't Deer Creek(?) in Indiana still build or have the kits for the Ethan Allen boxlock rifles that Bill Mowrey of Mowrey Gun Works used to build?

 

[Xiphoticness]

I have one I bought from Dixiegun works about 10+ years ago. It is a dead ringer for the Foster/Bristol gun I had at the museum at which I was working at the time. Rifling twist 1 in 26" as near as I can tell but shoots the Lyman .45/475 bullet with fine accuracy out to 200 yards with 65-75 grains of black powder. Mine came with an un-rifled false muzzle. Nice, interesting gun but the butt plate is not conducive to heavy recoil which the gun definitely produces. I have a Leatherwood repro scope attached to mine. Here is a picture of the gun:

That's a dead wringer for mine Curator. I would love to have a beautiful scope like that for it but I doubt I'll afford it anytime soon. I imagine that would cost more than the $100 I paid for the gun itself.