Amusing/Ridiculous Muzzleloading Misconceptions...

[rp77469]

DUNKS said:
The year was 1760.

Missed the conversation, but the phrase I recall was from 18 years later:

O the year was Seventeen Seventy-Eight
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
A letter of marque came from the king
To the scummiest vessel I’ve ever seen ...

 

[tenngun]

DUNKS said:
The year was 1760.

Missed the conversation, but the phrase I recall was from 18 years later:

O the year was Seventeen Seventy-Eight
How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now
A letter of marque came from the king
To the scummiest vessel I’ve ever seen ...

I spent a bit learning that song. Unfortunately not much of an historic piece. It was written in the 1970s. Stan Rodgers, one of Canada’s greatest gifts to the world

 

[Tb54]

I have to ask why you'd want to shoot a robin.

I got my BB gun when I was 12. Mom said I could get up at the crack of dawn and shoot the robins out of the strawberry patch, so I did. The next morning I got out there and shot a robin. I was so excited I hauls my trophy in the house to show her. She said she didn’t want me shooting the robins any more. I said, “but you said I could!” She said, “ yes, but I didn’t think you’d hit any”. . So I stopped shooting robins, like a good, obedient boy, and entertained myself shooting the iris stalks in the flower bed. She wasn’t happy about that either.
The robins weren’t entirely safe either.

 

[Steveoko922]

Myths: That's 3f is hotter than 2f powder, paper patched cartridges can cause cookoffs and range fires and that the NSSA is a historically correct shooting organization.

 

[cvco]

Actually, sad to say, the best joke of all time is also the one about to defeat shooters, that a .50 ML ball is the same as .50BMG, and like the .50BMG can also fire 3500 rounds a minute.

The many misconceptions and lies in that Dem statement has caused them to re-visit cap and ball and ban them along with "assault weapons." Ive tried to correct those who repeat that insanity but I always get "well, thats not what I heard." Colion Noir on YT has almost made an industry out of trying to correct the misconceptions of firearms in general but it goes nowhere -- except into bills now like HR125, 126, 127 etc which basically cancel the 2nd completely. Please burn up the phone lines to voice your demand that these be cancelled because they are on the table for votes. If you are not familiar with the bills, google HR127 on YT.

 

[GREENSWLDE]

Dale,Do you use Silk Lines with your Cane Rods ?? OLD DOG..

 

[DUNKS]

Hi BILIFF. Yep that's the one. Difficult in the book to place a date. Author is talking about 1760. Does not give a date for the incident though.

 

[TFoley]

Ah, yes, your North American robins are much bigger than the European bird, and pose a real threat to the environment, what with all that flapping around and noisy tweeting...

 

[Kid Shelleen]

View attachment 61196
Ah, yes, your North American robins are much bigger than the European bird, and pose a real threat to the environment, what with all that flapping around and noisy tweeting...

That’s a good way to get your hand shot off with a BB gun! I’ll bet that guy isn’t even wearing an orange vest.

 

[Tb54]

I’ll bet that guy isn’t even wearing an orange vest.

The ones around my house did. Just made better targets. That’s why I don’t wear one when hunting these days.

 

[Dale Lilly]

Dale,Do you use Silk Lines with your Cane Rods ?? OLD DOG..

No... I am not that much purist … just collector. I usually use a custom 5' 3" 3/4 ounce modern rod that my wife had made for me … and … modern line. I do tie some flies. Polecat

 

[Dale Lilly]

As to shooting birds: I never shot robins but the sparrows caught h___. I also practiced some falconry as a young teen. I had a kestrel that was death on sparrows, almost as much fun as muzzle loading. Polecat

 

[Sean Gadhar]

I have to ask why you'd want to shoot a robin.

I think as we get older many of us gain a larger picture of the world.
I was 6 or 7 when I realized I viewed the world differently from most people. I was predatory through & through.
Others would see a deer and think "OH!! How cute ❤" while I was already at that young age thinking "how could I sneak up close to it" (and not to give it a hug) . . .by 10 I was positively bloodthirsty. My BB gun took more lives than I can count, Frogs, Birds, squirrels I never gave it a second thought.
By 13 I was running a trap line. . . . .

Now in my 50s I could still set a mean muskrat line. . . . but I don't. . . . .I've grown soft and squishy about taking lives.
A deer here, a rabbit there. . . . but each one weighs a little more on me. . . so I'm lots of hunt and little harvest nowadays.

 

[appalichian hunter]

As you SEAN, it was about the kill and how many, not so much now I have become more selective in the hunt especially for deer. When hunting rabbits or squirrel two is my self imposed limit, used to also run a trap line for muskrats a few years ago sold all the steel only kept the canoe. I now find myself enjoying the watch and learning the habits of deer. I often think when watching a young buck, a few years back you would of been on the ground bye now. Guess we go through stages as we grow long in the tooth. Anytime you take a life it is good to be a bit sorrowful, and respect the life that was given.

 

[flntlokr]

Another old idea, from the country areas of the UK, was that Chewing the shot before loading your smoothbore gave better patterns at long range.
(When you've tried it let me know! )
I can see Some logic to this;
Maybe wet shot slides up the barrel better, but damaged shot spreads wider.
Maybe the chewed grains stuck together for so long, in which case it Might appear to work at times!
Still, it's summat I never tried!

Re. some folks commenting on how slow a flintlock fires;
I have sometimes offered these folks the opportunity to try it;

"You stick your hand over the muzzle and I'll fire it. See if you can get your hand out the way before it goes off".

Long ago, I attended a workshop on shooting, and the fellow who gave it told us he rolled his smoothie ball between a couple of double-cut files to flatten out the sprue, and to dimple the surface. He claimed that the dimpled surface (as on golf balls) resulted in more range because the velocity didn't fall off as fast. (Also, doing away with sprue wil lessen the tendancy of your ball to wander as it slows down and the irregularities catch the air) The front part of the ballistic curve was extended somewhat. Something to mess around with at some point. I suspect if one insists on 'chewing' the balls to get the dimples, it may do the same thing. But it may also cause your hair and teeth to fall out prematurely as well. Your choice, of course.

 

[Bob McBride]

. Anytime you take a life it is good to be a bit sorrowful, and respect the life that was given.

Exactly right. That sorrow mixed with joy is an integral part of the hunt for me but the subtle sadness I get from killing it myself doesn’t come close to the feeling I get when buying my protein cheap, and sorrow free, from the corporate mega slaughter farms. Taking the life of a free thing is what we were made to do. The sorrow is part of that. And an important part of ‘being’ to me. (As Vegan-ing is da*n well out of the bloody question.)

 

[Justin.44]

Exactly right. That sorrow mixed with joy is an integral part of the hunt for me but the subtle sadness I get from killing it myself doesn’t come close to the feeling I get when buying my protein cheap, and sorrow free, from the corporate mega slaughter farms. Taking the life of a free thing is what we were made to do. The sorrow is part of that. And an important part of ‘being’ to me. (As Vegan-ing is da*n well out of the bloody question.)

Very well said sir!

 

[nkbj]

As to shooting birds: I never shot robins but the sparrows caught h___. I also practiced some falconry as a young teen. I had a kestrel that was death on sparrows, almost as much fun as muzzle loading. Polecat

To borrow from an old comedy record...
How's robin? Good with rice, about like woodpecker.

 

[Buck Conner]

I spent a bit learning that song. Unfortunately not much of an historic piece. It was written in the 1970s. Stan Rodgers, one of Canada’s greatest gifts to the world

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When Stan Rogers died in 1983, a piece of Canada died with him, and the folk community was stunned. His resounding baritone, saturated with emotion, embodied the spirit of the fisherman, the farmer, the working man, the common man. His unique portraits of the Maritimes, western Canada and the Great Lakes region grabbed you by the heart and pulled you in.

.

 

[Buck Conner]

Long ago, I attended a workshop on shooting, and the fellow who gave it told us he rolled his smoothie ball between a couple of double-cut files to flatten out the sprue, and to dimple the surface.

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Use do the same with a couple of 1/4 inch steel plates 12 inches large and a 1/4 inch ring to keep the balls with in the plates. Worked very well, then one day I put a handfull of cast balls in my tumbler to see what would happened, it worked. The plate system was retired.
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