Search results

Anybody else's frizzen have a little channel in it like this? I am too lazy to climb up and pull down my other rifles to check them at the end of this rainy Thursday. The rifle in the pic is a Schimmel-esque, poor-boyish, Lacastrian .40. I didn't build any of my guns. This one is iron...

Mine are all covered already. Just offering advice on smoove vs grooved!

Oh, not me! A Kibler is in my future at some point, but I already have every level of game covered with an appropriate caliber flintlock rifle, and a .60 smoove rifle for shotgunning!

Deer rifle now, smoothy after Kibler finally... finally... does a Fusil De Chase or some such! Win/Win!

Is that the book with R.E. Lee on the cover holding an AK? Remember seeing it in my school library many years ago.

Size of the ball is pretty much out for rifles. They weren't standardized and you couldn't just buy another size of ball from a store. Your mold either made the ball size the Smith intended you to have, of you would have to have the Smith make an entirely new mold. And he would probably call...

Upon reviewing an article about a 300yr old Jager rifle earlier, it was pointed out by the author that the ramrod was a very stout steel rod and that it led him to believe the original load must have been tight. Got me thinking: why do we use wood? There is only one reasonable answer: cost and...

I've been shot at. Clipping fingernails? Not so much. But given that we are hobbiests, you just made a world class argument for why using starters now is a moot point(and thus historically should not stop one from using one) historical or not, and why our ancestors would have vastly preferred...

Reminds me of a tale of two Winchester Model 12s. I've owned a heap of them. One had an original Winchester branded wooden dowel in the tube as the plug. It was a very cool piece of Winchester and that particular gun's history. The other M12 had a crudely stripped stick in the tube that...

On the other hand, you may be laughing at something that is far more accurate than you wish it was. A .38Spl case on a modern "short-starter" is an improvised tool. As were a lot actual frontier implements. Having a stout little stick to whack with your knife or palm isn't a historical...

This is a great idea. I just had another that would not alter a gun in any way, like the above. It ain't HC, but if one could somehow make a decent rear sight shape out of a rare earth magnet, it could be attach to the top of the barrel using indexing marks and almost certainly wouldn't move...

My .60 smooth rifle, signed by a J. Woods, and what several here have said was a Narragansett Arms.

What's the low-down on that danty smooth rifle?

Reminds me that two of my favorite hobbies/collections use the same materials. I love a curly stock, and I love a curly top on a guitar. I'd like to imagine Paul Reed Smith and Kibler both trying to wine and dine a wood vendor over getting the most flamiest bit of maple for their products!LOL!

It's actually how I got all my current rifles. They were modernish built estate guns, which to me is more apropos than any new built gun. People come to my house for a visit and ask when my rifles were built, and I suppress a smile, and say, "Oh, roundabout the year I was born."

You don't, but you certainly can erode the muzzle of a barrel over time, which is how many originals appear to me. Got us a reference to coning other than a bunch of worn muzzles we suppose are coned? Also, it hardly needs repeating, but there is an old parable regarding water dripping on a...

I could see speed being an issue, although I imagine unless you are in a fortified position like a blockhouse, you may be getting hands on in a fight vefore you could even get reloaded. Circumstance might dictate, but we also know for a fact that riflemen in the Colonial forces during the AWI...

Maybe true colonial style shot pouches/possibles bag? Lotta folks slap together their own idea of them, but real historical ones are hard to find to replicate.

I doubt it. Unless we have proof we're just blowing smoke and contributing to the, what was it, unraveling of our society?

The earliest known English etymology of the word "ramrod" is 1750-1760. Yet they existed for centuries. They were also called gun-sticks, whiping-sticks, and several other forms. But they had existed for centuries when the word ramrod came into being. Lack of a written word for an object...