The Buyable Top Tier: The Rifle Shoppe Ketland

If the Stonewall Creek grail is defined by how hard it is to get, The Rifle Shoppe Ketland is defined by the opposite: it is the highest-fidelity buss you can actually order today, no year-long barrel wait, no waiting list. The catch is that “order today” and “build easily” are not the same thing. This is a true parts set of investment castings copied from an original, and it demands the most handwork of anything on this ladder. It is the buyable top of the fidelity heap, and it is expert territory.

5.1 What it is

The Rifle Shoppe specializes in reproducing original arms as parts sets of investment castings, and their British Ketland Blunderbuss (catalog number 821) is copied from an original Ketland in the Kit Ravenshear collection. That provenance is the whole point: this is not an evocation of a type, it is a casting-for-casting reproduction of one documented historical gun.

The specifications are a compact English coaching buss: .75-caliber bore on a 15-1/2-inch barrel, with the shop’s 613-series English lock. You can buy the lock as raw castings to assemble yourself or as a finished, assembled lock - and that choice drives the price.

5.2 The price

The Rifle Shoppe prices the buss two ways:

Table 1 — The Rifle Shoppe prices the buss two ways

Configuration	Price
Parts set with lock castings	$1,195.00
Parts set with assembled lock	$1,495.00

Individual parts are also listed - barrel $395, stock $325, assembled lock $495, buttplate $39.95, trigger guard $39.95, brass-tipped tapered ramrod $39.95 - but the sets are the sensible buy. The $300 difference between the two configurations is the assembled-lock premium, and for most builders it is money well spent: assembling a flintlock from raw castings is itself an expert task, and paying to skip it removes the single hardest sub-assembly from an already demanding build.

One important caveat on ordering: The Rifle Shoppe’s catalog page carries a 2010 copyright and the shop updates slowly. Call to confirm price, stock, and lead time before you order - the phone number is on their catalog. Reported lead time is roughly one to two months once you confirm they have the stock in hand.

5.3 The build - and why it is expert-only

This is where The Rifle Shoppe parts sets earn their reputation. The castings are raw. They need cleanup, filing, and bench-fitting before anything goes together, and the stock arrives closer to a plank than to the precarve stocks Pecatonica and Stonewall Creek supply. There is no pre-inletting to pay for. You cut the barrel channel, inlet the lock, fit and shape every casting, and finish a stock from something much nearer to a blank than a shaped precarve.

That places it at the top of the difficulty ladder - advanced to expert, above even the Stonewall Creek precarve in required handwork if not in bore size. The payoff is fidelity: because you start from castings taken directly off an original, a Rifle Shoppe Ketland, built well, is as historically correct as any “kit”-ish route can produce. It is the choice for the maker who prizes accuracy above all and has the skills to bring raw castings and a rough stock to a finished English buss.

The companion build dive, “Rifle Shoppe Ketland Blunderbuss,” covers that build in detail - this volume is the buyer’s-guide placement, not the bench walkthrough. If you order the set, that dive is where the casting cleanup, inletting, and lock work are laid out.

5.4 How it compares to the grail

It is worth setting the Ketland directly against the Stonewall Creek, because they are the two premium builds and buyers agonize over the choice. The Stonewall Creek wins on bore - a true 4-gauge coach gun versus the Ketland’s .75 - and on the prestige of a Rayl barrel and a Chambers lock. The Ketland wins on two things that often matter more: availability and fidelity. You can order a Ketland this month; the Stonewall Creek may take a year and a half, if you can get on the list at all. And the Ketland is a documented copy of a specific original, where the Stonewall Creek is a correct-but-composite mid-century civilian buss. If your priority is “the most correct buss I can actually buy the parts for,” the Ketland is the answer; if it is “the biggest, rarest, most impressive buss,” the Stonewall Creek is.

5.5 Who it is for

The Rifle Shoppe Ketland is for the expert builder who wants maximum historical fidelity, is comfortable bringing raw investment castings and a near-plank stock to a finished gun, and would rather pay for accuracy and availability than chase a scarce big-bore barrel. It is the buyable top tier - the best you can order without a waiting list, at the price of the most handwork on the ladder.

Sources

The Rifle Shoppe; Kit Ravenshear collection; Muzzleloading Forum.