Nepalese Brunswick Musket

[Aragorn243]

IMA put these on sale for $150.00 off about two months ago and I bit. The big selling point was the bayonet which by itself seemed almost worth the total cost for the two items.

I was in a mood and I actually refused to take any before photos. A purposeful move and not exactly sure why but I don't really regret it. The musket came covered in the usual hard dried grey/brown crud and my past experience with these has been quite a bit of rust along the wood line and all the iron/steel parts through the wood leaving big rotted holes.

This one was different. The more I cleaned the metal the better it looked. Almost no rust or pitting anywhere on this thing.

The wood stock was cracked very badly at the wrist area. Almost broken in two which was a huge disappointment for me and maybe why I didn't take photos. If it didn't repair well, not much point in them. Other than that, no rust holes through it, no rot but some worm holes. Lots of brass fittings and they cleaned up fairly bright just taking the crud off it. Only thing it was missing is the front barrel key. Spring is good and it functions fine.

The stock was the battle. I cleaned it pretty thoroughly with citristip and left it dry well. then about six phases of gluing each individual crack by opening it as far as I dared and pushing gorilla glue into it with a needle and then awkwardly clamping it with six clamps each time. This process took about two weeks off and on. It now seems solid and while I can still see the repairs, they don't look too bad. May try some other things to hide them but for now I'm content.

I am currently in the process of putting multiple coats of BLO on it. It's absorbing it still.

So, a couple of questions, proper sling type being the first. Not sure what goes on this and net research hasn't been conclusive.

The second may have to wait until I post photos but perhaps someone knows. I have never encountered a barrel like this one. I suspect it was made by rolling metal strips around a central pin/post and hammer forging it together. I'm pretty sure this is an old method of barrel making but this is way before my general period of interest. You can see the spiral pattern in the barrel and also feel it to a degree.

If you are curious as to what it looked like before, these are the sales photos from IMA and this is basically what mine looked like with added nearly broken in half stock at the wrist.

https://www.ima-usa.com/collections/...ched-condition

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