Search results

For convenience's sake I turned to precutting patches rather than carrying a big piece of ticking and cutting it at the muzzle. So I needed to come up with a size. Cutting roughly square pieces is a lot easier than cutting or punching round ones. The patch needs to fully cover the contact area...

How low can the honey go and still be squeezed out?

I know exactly how "easy" it is to learn on your own. Been there, done that. Still learning.

I built a Dixie flintlock .50 caliber Tennessee Mountain Rifle in 1980 and have always thought it was about perfect with its 41-1/2" barrel and 9-1/2 pound weight. However, I now also have one of the aforementioned cumbersome 51" barreled smoothbores, and I love it! Its muzzle is at a perfect...

Well, it's interesting. More traditional than the inlines. Sounds practical as a hunting tool. Definitely period correct for the 21st century.

I greatly admire Aladdin lamps. Never have owned one.

"Boiled Linseed Oil" in these times is raw linseed oil with a small amount of drier added. Often cobalt naphthenates or soaps. Lead carbonate used to work best, but they took that out many years ago.

Yes, particularly turpentine. Mostly it's done to help the first coat or two penetrate into the wood, but you can do it on later coats too.

Kentucky, Virginia, I think North Carolina... They don't respect borders. Virginia's came from Kentucky's stock.

Boiled linseed oil has to be applied super thin. As in rubbed out with the fingers as thin as you can get it, leaving just a sheen. You won't get much buildup. Then it takes longer to get completely dry than you might expect. The old saying to apply it every day for a week, every week for a...

I have a pair of copies of those in shiny silvery metal, probably stainless. Got 'em at Walmart many years ago. The burners on mine don’t work that well, and when they get rained on water intrudes. A fun thing I have is a reproduction "Yellow Dog" oilfield lamp. Need to get out and light up...

I have (among others) a Deutz Jupiter kerosene lantern. It has a much larger fount than their other lanterns. 84 ounces capacity, 75 hours burning time. When I bought it I read on W.T. Kirkman's site that this model was originally produced to heat greenhouses, to prevent freezing. On that site...

Now it appears they only offer up to .58 caliber rifles. Maybe they'll do a .62 as a custom upgrade.

Dixie's instructions with my .50 Tennessee Mountain Rifle in 1980 said "Maximum charge is 70 grains of FFg black powder. Do not exceed." Gave me a chuckle. But after trying heavier loads, I settled on 70 grains of FFFg as my standard load with a PRB.

Good old BLO darkens (yellow) that way, too. It's a nice combination.

My kit built Dixie Tennessee Mountain Rifle has a cherry stock. As those were made in Japan, I think it may be Japanese cherry. I finished it with some Fiebing brown spirit stain that was branded Dixie Gunstock Stain and some pure bright red water based stain that Birchwood Casey called "Cherry...

Grits don't compress much. Corn meal and sawdust do.

I'm not! They open and hold doors for me.

Very pretty! I LOVE the red color!

Right now, until Halloween, the William King Museum of Art in Abingdon, Virginia has a display on "The Long Rifle In Virginia." They have many fabulous pieces on display, never shown all together before. This video plays on loop in a back corner. Worth a drive to see.