Best and Worst Muzzleloaders

[musketman]

Time to voice your opinion, no one is right or wrong, everyone has the right to their opinion...

"This is just for the sake of fun."

What would you vote as the all time best and worst muzzleloaders ever designed?

Best: Early Lancaster County flintlock (thought I'd say "Brown Bess", didn't ya?)

Worst: Any modern in-line (defeats the tradition aspect)

 

[Haggis]

Best: Original walnut stocked Kentucky Poor Boy's Rifle in .40 caliber, 44" barrel, an inch across the flats, or a copy thereof.

Worst: "Modern" stainless steel, boltaction, plastic stocked, primer using, scope mounted, pelletized powder using, sabot shooting, pieces of junk that some folks use so they can horn in on muzzleloader season.

 

[Voyageur]

Best: Any of the drop-dead-beautiful perfect Trade Gun, Long Rifle, full stock Plains rifles/smoothbores that I have seen created in the last 30 + years.

Worst: It was 'something-Hi' import with a welded in breechplug that was offered back in the 70s. They had a write up about it in the old Buckskin Report at that time. That was also about the time that T/C was having some lawsuits about a couple of accidents due to improper breeching methods. As I recall they went to a finer thread and stopped applying so much pressure to the breech plug when aligning the 'flats'. I believe, also, that they had a few 'snails' let go because of undercutting it too thin or some such. I saw some pictures that were published at the time.

The Buckskin Report put so much pressure on the industry with it's reporting that a lot of sloppy (not shoddy) metal work was tightened up. Those were the days of the National Association of Primitive Riflemen and the attempt at a National pureist Rendezvous. We tried hard but the tin-tipis and credit-card traders finally had their way.

 

[RJR]

Voyager, you wouldn't by chance be a past member of AMM? Take care, Rick.

 

[Voyageur]

No Rick, I've never been a member. Those guys would show up at our Rendezvous and be reasonably content but they were a little too 'strict' for me. No, there is a white hot passion for the truth of history that burns within me and I'm interested in truth...not romance.

Let's put it this way...if you and I were in a hunting 'black powder only' camp together and you told me that you had brought your centerfire rifle along 'just in case', well, I would be packin' up and hitting the trail out of there. But if you had your coffee in a ceramic cup and were wearing thinsulate boots cause it was 10 degrees outside I would be there as long as you were and happy to help you haul your game out.

In other words...I have hunted with 'percussion and flintlock only' many times but I do not see any reason to proove my manhood by sleepin' on icy ground with only a blanket. That sort of stuff is for those that want to...me?...I'm trying to recreate the traditional hunting for myself, not try to make myself miserable or sick to proove something. I've taken Whitetail, Mule Deer, Black Bear and Elk by myself and hauled it out by myself. I don't have to proove anything to anybody. If some others want to practice a life style that emulates what is known of the original mountain men, that's their business and I've got nothing bad to say about it.

I admire the dedication of the AMM and their website...they are preserving something.

 

[roundball]

Voyageur, I'm pretty much the same way...I've gotten myself well into flintlocks for two years now and love them but for some reason don't have the interest in the lifestyle extremes.
I think a full set of buckskins would be great to hunt in but I'd want them fleece lined with thinsulate and gore-tex (VBG)

 

[tg]

I think the best are the early 18th late 17th century French gun Tulles, trade guns and fine fusils, the worst are the kinda, but not quite, sorta like the originals, but mostly made for the modern shooters, that have skewed the notion of what a PC ML looks like and spawned a couple of generations of historicaly missinformed shooters.

 

[Zonie]

I sure wish Haggis would just come out and tell us what he thinks instead of beating around the bush about it!!

Best? That's really hard to say. There are so many Very will made traditional style guns (mostly custom) out there.

Worst? In 1972 I bought a 28 gauge shotgun made in Spain. It had a 2 piece "full stock" with a piece of brass sheet metal about 1 1/2 inches wide covering up the joint in the stock.
I fired it once. So much smoke came out of the breech plug joint I never shot it again. I would have saved the parts to build something but the workmanship was so poor there was nothing I wanted to save.

 

[RJR]

I originally joined in 78 and stayed until I went overseas in 80, then I lost contact. I try to be as authentic and period correct as I can afford. I enjoy the primative rendevous but like you, I am within reason. I don't mind someone using a flashlight inside their tent when the kid wakes up in the middle of the night screaming from a nightmare, or starting a fire with a lighter, or wearing insulated boots because it's cold and wet outside. Each one of us has to choose our own level. I like the lifestyle and wish I could be more the way I used to be, but the body has gotten old and I can't tolerate the elements the way I used to. I didn't think anything of setting camp in the middle of the winter for a couple weeks in northern Michigan, I actually enjoyed the peace and quiet. Hell, the game warden wouldn't even bother me, he didn't want to hike the two plus miles back to where I was. It was nice being young, dumb and stupid and not considering that I could have froze to death if my camp fire went out. End of my rambling. Take care, Rick.

 

[weasel]

best my opinion. any of jake and sams rifles mountain man era is a passion with me.
worst any inline no matter how much it cost
weasel

 

[Voyageur]

quote:Originally posted by DEADDAWG:
I try to be as authentic and period correct as I can afford. I enjoy the primative rendevous but like you, I am within reason. Rick. I hear you Rick...you seem like a kindred spirit.

I was always pretty persnickety about my outfit and nothing I had in camp was post-1840. When they started putting up camp 'bulletin boards', makin' rules about loaded guns in camp, only havin' shoots at certain specific times and sending cheechakos around to check on us...well a bunch of us just sloped on out and never came back.

There's no doubt that the Hawken 'craze' really got a lot of folks into Rendezvous, helped Cherry Corners and The Hawken Shop, supported The Buckskin Report and the reprinting of a lot of out of print books. We were all glad when high grade Hawken and Leman rifles started showing up. It was something to strive for...that and having an authentic outfit. I got my lodge off of a Forest Serivice guys who hired on for the summer to cut trail and bailed out after the first week. A brand new lodge, liner & door for $100 cash! Being a machinist/gunmaker it was easy to start putting muzzle loaders together. Getting the 'lines' right was as easy as finding a good maker and cultivating his friendship. That and the fact that I could do custom machining that he couldn't.

There were a fair number of fellas puttin' fullstock flint Hawkens together and it was real popular for awhile. After about 10 years a lot of those guys got into rebuilding Sharps and the rest of us slipped into Trade Guns.

There are a lot of really good guns out there and very few cheap reproductions draggin' down the average.

I think for looks I never cared for the Underhammer guns...that and the caplock guns that are made with two piece stocks and a metal receiver. Just never cared for the looks.

 

Like Musketman, I'm partial to the early Lancasters.

Worst: damn inlines. And while I'm at it, any of those trainin' wheeled bows. The only reason them inliners and compounders got what they got is cause they can't do it the right way ta start with. Have to put out to much effort, I guess.

tuffy

 

[Haggis]

I don't want to hijack this thread but I have to say that I agree with Tuffy about those: bicycle bows, come-along bows, bows with training wheels, or call them what you will; oh yeah, and don't forget those aluminium arrows with plastic fletching. I started shooting my long bows and recurves when I was just 10 years old; that was well over 40 years ago and I've never changed; and I still shoot wooden arrows with real feathers. I'm the same about my traditional firearms; keep them traditional.

 

Get out the tractor with the steel wheels again. I sometimes wonder if you ever tried some of the new stuff. In my bow hunting days I had all the latest gagets and do the same with my inline. I look for the most accurate way to hunt/shoot. I have tryed all the old stuff and it doesn't interest me at all. So inlines top my list and my friends smooth bore flintlock is on the bottom.

 

[Haggis]

I actually prefer a yoke oxen and wooden plow. I want something that I can make and repair.

 

[Voyageur]

quote:Originally posted by Haggis:
I actually prefer a yoke oxen and wooden plow. I want something that I can make and repair. I assume you're letting the Oxen 'make and repair' their own Oxen.

Voyageur

 

[Haggis]

Actually no, cows and bulls make babies, some of those babies are little boys, I make a few surgical cuts and the little boys become little oxen. The yokes and bows I can make from my "100 Acre Woods". The grass to feed the oxen can come from my fields.

 

It's exactly like Weasel say's. "Those that can, do. Those that can't, in-line."

 

I'd say the best flintlock ever made was the "Transitional" type longrifle - utilitarian, sturdy, accurate, and functional - an beautiful on its own merit.

The best percussion cap is probably the British Two-Baned Enfield Naval Musket, Model 1858 with progressively deep rifling. Deadly accurate. Parker Hale made the best copy of this and I have one of the early models of that reproduction piece. It shoots better than I do.

(I know some people might say the Whitworth snipers rifle was a better percussion gun, but I heard that it had a tendency to loose its accuracy with time due to its peculiar construction. The Hawken was a great rifle, but an Enfield could do just as much damage, almost as accurately, and at a much faster speed.)

My thoughts, anyway.

 

[Voyageur]

Snake-Eye...can you give a little more detailed description of what you envision as a " "Transitional" type longrifle"?

Voyageur