This was an interesting and fun build. A close reenactor friend fell and broke his arm near the shoulder, and the bone was jammed into the stub. No reconstruction was possible, so they strapped it in place and let it heal naturally. After therapy, he had limited range of motion and could only lift his elbow less than 45 degrees. He also couldn't stand any recoil. I took his old gun in trade as part payment and put my thinking cap to work. We wanted a light gun with very little recoil. All the weight had to be in the butt to hold it into the shoulder on its own. It should be of small caliber. Obviously, this gun was to be totally custom, as no commercial parts for it existed. In my mind, I wanted it to have a quasi-English look to it. Here's what I came up with:

I was able to find an original, unused .410 caliber Belgian smoothbore barrel that fit the bill perfectly.

The buttplate was cold forged from brass sheet stock using a lead block and auto body hammers. Once shaped, it was annealed for fitting and filing.

Finding a lock was another problem. I ended up reshaping a Bedford lock to appear as closely as possible to a Ketland style lock. You can see from the pennies in the pictures, how small these parts are.

The triggerguard was filed from a fat, clunky late percusssion era guard. It had enough meat on it to allow an English acorn finial on the front, and adequate stock for reshaping the rest.

The sideplate was cut from brass sheet stock.

The ramrod was made from 1/4" steel rod. The bulge on the jag provides a friction fit to keep the ramrod tight, as the thimble holes are 5/16ths. The other end was fitted with a brass female adapter, soldered to the rod, and tapered. It allowed standard cleaning implements to be attached for brushing, pulling stuck balls, etc.

The gun was finished with an English Red varnish of my own concoction.