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  1. M

    brown bess

    I own one, and with a little work they're a decent enough gun, but I can't really recommend buying one new. $600 is just too much for what you get. Look around for a used one. Within 2 months of buying mine, I saw a used India pattern for $400 and a Ranger model for $300. As far as work...
  2. M

    Do I want a Pedersoli Bess?

    I don't have a Pedersoli, but I do have an Indian Bess and I really couldn't bring myself to spend over $1000 for a mass produced replica. For that kind of money I'd kick in a little more and get the real thing. As I see it, your best option is to buy a used Indian Bess. I spent $600 new...
  3. M

    Brown Bess

    I would have to agree with that. Given the workmanship on the Indian guns I think they should probably sell for $400 or less new. I haven't seen a Pedersoli up close yet, but for $1200 it ought to be something really special and from what I have heard it's not. Thompson and Lyman can both...
  4. M

    Anyone recognize...

    As if everything else wasn't enough to convince me he's a moron, the fact that he's shooting on a hot range, (as evidenced by the gunshots in the background), and shouting, "have a care," every time he fires certainly confirms it. Definitely very strange behavior.
  5. M

    Shooting the Brown Bess for a first time

    When I bought my Bess, everyone thought I was nuts. I'm not a reenactor, I'd never bothered with muzzleloaders and it's not an original, but whenever I bring it to the range, invariably everyone there comes over to my lane to take a look at it and everyone who has shot it so far comes away...
  6. M

    Big bore matchlock & recoil

    I don't think the main difference is between smokeless and BP, I think it's between a large caliber, low pressure, low velocity weapon and a small caliber, high pressure, high velocity weapon. If you compare the recoil figures from a modern 12 gauge shotgun with that of a 30-06 or similar...
  7. M

    Big bore matchlock & recoil

    Recoil shouldn't be bad. I also shoot a Brown Bess and even with a .735" RB and 90 grains of FFg it's not particularly punishing to shoot. I'd compare a .735" ball over 80 grains of FFg to a modern 12 gauge shotgun shooting light loads. The most I've loaded so far has been 100 grains, but...
  8. M

    Flintlock only seasons

    Here in WA, there's no flintlock season, but they do at least have some rules to keep out the most obnoxious of the inlines. No optics, no shotgun primers and the cap has to be exposed to the elements.
  9. M

    Introduction and first gun.

    I think the safety issue is overblown. There are lots of Indian guns out there and they don't have a record of exploding. Yeah, they are crude, clunky and cheap, but they appear to be plenty solid and they are most likely made with much better metal than the originals were.
  10. M

    Bird and Ball?

    You're probably right about that. I can't imagine that with goods being shipped in large part by wagon train that something as heavy as lead wouldn't be rather valuable. Still, if I were alone and hungry, and apparently people did get hungry out on the frontier, whatever moved would go in the...
  11. M

    Bird and Ball?

    You hear often about the use of buck and ball loads for muskets and fowlers, but what about the use of bird and ball? It just seems to me that a single barrel muzzleloading smoothbore, (while it may be versatile), really limits your choice of game and a subsistence hunter would not be in a...
  12. M

    Military Heritage Weapons

    Good point. I had a guy at the range yesterday tell me there's no way he would spend $600 or more on a musket when they would probably never shoot better than 6" groups at 50 yards. He had a nice Savage, which undoubtedly was far more accurate than my Brown Bess was, but I've already got...
  13. M

    Brown Bess Lead

    Mine seems to fit the .735 balls a little better than .715. With the .715 balls I have to use a thick denim patch.
  14. M

    More reduced loads in a Bess.

    No, I'm really not much of a handgun guy. I was seriously into airguns for years though, so I have a lot of experience with quiet shooting guns and next to a shrouded PCP, just about anything seems noisy. I don't wear any hearing protection when I try for quiet shooting guns or loads and that...
  15. M

    More reduced loads in a Bess.

    I don't know what kind of shorts you're shooting, but the ones I've fired were far too loud to hear the click of the hammer falling. Maybe CB caps or Aguila caps? Those are indeed very quiet, but they're also very inaccurate and they're not really shorts. A typical short has a 29 grain...
  16. M

    Opinions on Middlesex Trading

    I bought a 1756 Brown Bess from them recently. The quality of the gun is mediocre at best, but it is functional and the price is about half what a Pedersoli would cost and maybe 1/4 of a custom build. You don't get what you don't pay for. I researched these fairly thoroughly beforehand and...
  17. M

    More reduced loads in a Bess.

    Being someone who has been big into milsurps for years and will sometimes fire 100 shots or more in a range session, I was thinking the same thing myself, but when I actually started shooting the Bess, I found it wasn't all that significant. It might not be dirt cheap, but I figure that a...
  18. M

    More reduced loads in a Bess.

    I'm still not really sure about the utility of these loads yet. Despite the tiny powder charges, they still have some serious thump to them, but due to accuracy and trajectory, they are definitely short range loads. I'm going to do some more experimenting using shot instead of RB to see if I...
  19. M

    More reduced loads in a Bess.

    I spent a few hours yesterday shooting more reduced loads and took it a bit further than last time. This time I had more patching material, 3F as well as 2F powder and a new powder measure that went right down to 0 grains. I was really pushing things this time and I had several stuck balls...
  20. M

    Brown Bess

    My Indian Bess seems to shoot fine. I haven't had it for long and have only shot loads with up to 90 grains of FFG so far, but so far it's worked fine. There's only been one confirmed kaboom with these muskets and a lab determined afterward that the metal wasn't to blame. It appears to have...
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