My father has a muzzle loading rifle (in pieces) that he still used to use until the early 60's I think, until it almost exploded in his face.

The story goes like this:
There was a muzzle loading rifle in his father's house, (made years before and actually used during the Greek Revolution of 1821). The rifle was intact until probably 1941, until my grandfather burned it, because if German occupation forces found anything remotely resembling a gun he would face execution. It probably used to look like those carried by these guys:



Some time (probably late 40's), my father and one of his friends salvaged some very old muzzle loading guns and took the lock from them, it looks almost exactly like this:



My father actually carved a complete stock by himself and took the salvaged lock and the old gun's barrel and made a "new" rifle. But he couldn't reliably use the thing with modern, more potent gunpowder, so after some time he dropped it.

I actually tried to find out data about it once he showed me the lock, and from the inscripions I found that (the lock at least) is French made, and looks very very similar to models from around 1840-1860.