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What are you using for the finish? Boiled linseed oil? Tru-oil?

My local library sells used books for $1. I just noticed a new arrival, in excellent condition called "artillery Drill" It is a hardcover re-print of an original 1863 date and there drawings show "Yankee Troops." It looks like a sort of dry book, basically how to line up the cannons, where to...

WSAR15: There are some very common faults on a lot of replicas. Probably the most common is the bolt popping up too early. This is controlled by the tail on the spring not positioned correctly on the stud/cam of the hammer. This popping up of the bolt too early doesn't do any mechanical harm...

Are tacos period correct? No kidding. When the mountain men got out to California, etc. they wrote about dinners with fruits, cheese, various meats, bowls of beans, etc., and that "their" bread was flat. Nothing about food rolled up in "their" bread. In Taos, the mountain men wrote that the...

If your replica is a Colt, the lock work on the percussion revolvers was carried forward into the cartridge era so any book on lock work for a SAA Colt peacemaker will work on a percussion gun. The only big deal is on a SAA you can look through the frame and see the bolt drop as you cock the...

If I recall that barrel has a 1:48" twist. The ideal for a patched round ball is a little less, maybe 1:40 (for 36 caliber) so you theoretically ought to lower the powder charge a bit for best accuracy but that fortunately makes it better for a squirrel. I'd fool around with some little...

Some more info: https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/american-muskets-of-the-revolution/

I'm reading: "The First American Republic 1774-1789" by Thomas Patrick Chorlton. It covers the First Continental Congress, the 2nd Continental Congress up to 1789. Very interesting.

I may be wrong, probably am, but I thought committee of safety muskets were made at the time of the American Revolution and were clones of the Brown Bess with a couple of minor changes and they cost about $10 a piece. It was then found muskets could be purchased from France for only $6 a piece...

For whatever it's worth, I've used machete blades in the past for scalpers and butchers and they are "pretty good" which means probably about as good as the original steel but not as good as the steel in the Russell Green River knife series. And... come to think of it, I've used them for copies...

As I understand it, the steel is supposed to be thin, most of the replicas are too thick. Not sure what kind of steel. I was thinking a machete that I cut to size. Any steel suggestions welcomed.

Starting a new thread on suitable knives for those carried a NW Trade gun. Anyone make or carry a dag? I've thought about making one but it's in the bucket list.

You got to make your own. QUESTION. I've had a lot of trouble trying to find Mexican Oregano which is actually a different plant. Also, do any of you grow tomatillos? How hard to grow? Can you use seeds out of a supermarket tomatillo? My "green Salsa" is about a 1/3 each of tomatillo, green...

And...we have to remember these knives were not intended for hand to hand fighting. They were for skinning elk, buffalo, and beaver and for that type of work the blunt tip was ideal. On the Russell, it sort of gets into a fine line thing, use it to skin game, etc. and you can appreciate the...

I maybe wrong but I think on originals it was about 50/50 between swamped and straights. Others probably have better info.

A couple of nuances. The Nowill knife I posted- You can buy that direct from England using your American credit card and they'll adjust for the Euro. The price is about the same as the Russel, Green River knife. A stated, copper rivets are around 1880, the pins like the Nowill knife has are...

Well, you would carry either a butcher knife or a scalper. This gets CONFUSING because the items are listed separately on the fur trade inventory lists but then if you read the journals and diaries of the actual mountain men they seemed to have used the terms interchangeably such that if so and...

I haven't done a swamped barrel yet, how much harder is it to inlet into the stock?

Well, mention has been made of running a patch with rubbing alcohol in the bore to remove oils prior to a day's shooting. Good advice. This brown "tar"- I agree about impossible to get out.

The Northwest Trade gun had a long history and was used in many areas by a lot of different types of people. Could you define a little more what type of a persona you are interested in? Mountain man from US. British type in Rocky Mts. Long hunter, French Canadian Native person. Etc.