Henrik's Page
"Toad Hall's Danish Journeyman"
Friend and now Toad Hall Rifleshop Journeyman, Henrik Elmer, has put a few words into English to tell you a bit about a rifle that he assembled from what I believe to have been a really miserable piece of wood. This completed rifle, coupled with all other requirements, satisfied our journeyman course standards and Jack Garner and myself were happy to sign off on his certificate. With all that being said, take it away Henrik.........
My good shooting buddy Kim asked me a couple of years ago if I, one day, would build him a flint longrifle. He had seen and tried my, at that time, newly finished Virginia flint rifle. "You can decide how it will look and so on, but I would sure like it to be a little fancy" he said. Then one day, a black powder friend called me on the phone for another matter. He had a precarved Tennessee stock in curly maple, that he had purchased from Dixie some 10 years ago. He wanted to build a longrifle, but found he had not the skills to do it. He managed to sell the hardware, but nobody wanted the stock, so it was left in his shed. The fore stock was badly warped, the breech and lock area had been partly destroyed by poor inletting jobs.......I bought it. See? Crazy like me! S.B.
Now what could I get out of this piece of American maple. A classic longrifle? A Jacob Dickert styled one? I finally made a decision and bought a .45cal., 42” long Green Mountain barrel, a large Siler in kit form, and some castings of the trigger guard and butt plate. There are no more store bought parts on this gun.
The previous owner of the stock had tried to inlet a small Siler and a Tennessee style breech plug but had not been too lucky doing this. A big Siler lock would cover the cavity, and the breech plug area could be hidden with a piece of maple glued in and then an inlay to cover it. The inlay turned into some sort of seashell. The lock had to be placed a bit too high, so the pan was deepened a bit for sure, fast ignition. I chose a single trigger since the guard was too small for double set triggers, and a bigger guard would have looked silly on this rifle. The trigger let off is very nice and smooth. The sights are quite high, as the rifle is intended for target use. Muzzle is coned for easy and fast loading. Almost all parts were handmade in my shop and I have several hundreds of hours on this rifle. Hope you like it.
Henrik J. Elmer,
Bandholm, Lolland