What's in the Set: Castings, the 613 Lock, the Plank Stock, and the $1,195 vs $1,495 Choice

Before you order, know exactly what lands on your bench and what it costs. This volume itemizes the Rifle Shoppe 821 set part by part, explains the 613 lock and the plank stock, and lays out the one decision you make at purchase — the $1,195 versus $1,495 fork — in enough detail to choose well. Every figure here is from the 2010 catalog; confirm all of it by phone, 405-356-2583, before ordering.

3.1 The set, part by part

The 821 is sold as a complete parts set, but the shop also prices the major components individually, which tells you exactly what the value is and lets you plan replacements. As of the 2010 catalog:

Table 1 — The 821 is sold as a complete parts set, but the shop also prices the major components individually, which tells you exactly what the value is and lets you plan replacements. As of the 2010 catalog

Component	Individual price	What it is
Barrel	$395	.75-caliber, 15½-inch investment-cast barrel, flared coaching profile
Stock	$325	Walnut, shaped to profile but essentially an un-inletted plank
Assembled 613 lock	$495	The English lock, built and functioning
Buttplate	$39.95	Cast, un-inletted, un-drilled
Trigger guard	$39.95	Cast, un-inletted, un-drilled
Brass-tipped tapered ramrod	$39.95	Turned ramrod with brass tip, tapered to the pipe

Beyond those named parts, the set includes the balance of the furniture and small castings the pattern requires — ramrod pipes, sideplate, trigger and trigger plate, breech and tang hardware — plus the fasteners. Because The Rifle Shoppe works to order and updates slowly, ask on the phone for the current exact bill of materials for 821; do not assume this list is exhaustive, and confirm which small parts are included versus which you are expected to source (touch-hole liner, pins, and screws are the usual gray area).

Everything in that box arrives as raw castings. The barrel is bored and the bore is the finished .75, but the outside carries casting texture; the furniture wears sprue stubs and mold-parting flash; nothing is fitted to anything. Volume 4 is the cleanup.

3.2 The 613 English lock

Ignition is The Rifle Shoppe’s series 613 English lock — a flintlock cut to the correct English pattern for a gun of this period, the mechanism the original Ketland would have worn. It is the most complex sub-assembly in the set and the only one offered two ways: as a set of castings, or fully assembled. The internal architecture is the standard English flintlock: lockplate, cock (hammer) on the tumbler, sear and sear spring, mainspring, bridle, and the frizzen (steel) on its own frizzen spring, over the pan. Built correctly it is a fast, reliable sparker; built or hardened poorly it is the part most likely to make the finished gun a frustration.

The photograph above shows the working geometry you are dealing with — the cock holding the flint, the frizzen it strikes, and the pan beneath. Whether you build that mechanism or buy it finished is the money decision below.

3.3 The plank stock

The $325 stock is walnut, and it is the piece that most surprises builders coming from precarve kits. It is shaped to the gun’s outside profile but is essentially an un-inletted plank — there is no barrel channel, no lock mortise, no ramrod groove, no drilled holes. You will cut all of that yourself, from bare wood, using inletting black and patience. Volume 5 is dedicated entirely to it, because inletting a barrel, breech, tang, lock, and furniture into a solid plank is the single most demanding part of this whole project and the reason the set earns its advanced/expert grade.

Inspect the stock when it arrives for grain run-out through the wrist — the weak point of any buttstock — and for the density and figure of the walnut. Confirm on the phone whether any wood upgrade or hand-selection is available; the base stock is serviceable, correct walnut, not fancy figure.

3.4 The choice: $1,195 or $1,495

The set is sold at two prices, and the only variable is the lock:

• $1,195 — parts set with the 613 lock as castings. You clean up, fit, assemble, harden, and tune the lock yourself. You save $300 against the assembled price, and you own the whole gun end to end.
• $1,495 — parts set with the 613 lock assembled. The lock arrives built and functioning; you inlet and hang it, but you never touch its internals or its heat-treat.

The $300 difference is precisely the cost of the assembled lock’s build labor and, most importantly, its hardening. Assembling a flintlock is fiddly but learnable; getting the heat-treat right on the sear, tumbler notches, and frizzen is the part that separates a lock that sparks and holds cock for years from one that rounds its notches or won’t throw sparks. Volume 4 covers both roads in detail. The short guidance: if you have built and hardened a lock before and own the setup to do it, the castings route is satisfying and saves real money. If you have not, the $300 is the cheapest insurance in the entire build — a bad lock ruins an otherwise beautiful gun. Note that even at $1,495 you are getting a faithful, hand-built .75 coaching buss for about a third of a fine custom’s price.

3.5 What this set is, in one line

Compared to its siblings — the Traditions drop-together kit, the Pecatonica precarve, and the rare Stonewall Creek 4-bore covered in its own dive — the 821 sits at the fidelity extreme: correct castings from a real Ketland, a plank, and your hands. Volume 4 starts turning that box of raw parts into a gun.

Sources

The Rifle Shoppe catalog (2010, cat. 821 British Ketland Blunderbuss — component pricing and set contents); the project blunderbuss-kit research file. Confirm all figures by phone (405-356-2583) before ordering.