This was my first flinter, bought back in 1991. It is a handsome piece, well-made, but is a generic firearm--not really accurate to a particular timeframe. On the downside, I always had problems with the drift pin working out of the stirrup, causing the mainspring to fully expand during a match. This of course renders the firearm inoperable until the lock is removed and the pin replaced--if you don't loose the pin when removing the lock. I finally ordered a new lock for it about three years ago, and shot it only once after that. The touchhole is too small for my thinking--you can run a nipple pick for a percussion gun through it, but not a touchhole pick--if you're not careful, you will have lots of fouling with only a pin-sized hole for the flash through it. It also eats flints--used to go through 2 new flints per club match, about 35-40 shots. This may be because it uses a 1/2 inch flint. My Chambers Colonial Virginia lock uses a 7/8 flint and I've gotten 95 shots from one flint with it. Also, the lack of a cheekpiece makes it impossible to use moderately heavy loads--unless you want to look and feel like you've tangled with Mike Tyson. It is a pretty accurate shooter, and much cheaper than a semicustom gun. If I were to buy a mass-produced factory gun, I would go with a Pedersoli, but first I would consider one of the semicustoms. If you just want to shoot flintlock until you acquire one of the semicustoms, then I would recommend the Pedersoli over the others. It makes a good first flinter.