Buckskin question

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Hairy said:
But...there's correct and there's correct...and that's what I been on about...you either is...with everything correct entails...or you ain't but you're legal.

HUH? :confused:
 
Hairy: You have a balance to make if you are going to have anyone show up " qualified " for your " primitive rendezvous".

The guy wearing the moc tops over his street shoes just MAY have trouble finding shoes to fit his feet, or he may have injuried his foot and this is the only way he can participate in an event that he has looked forward to all year.

Finding someone who will make lens for old time eye glasses has been a real pain for most of my 30+ years in the sport. I can find orignal frames, but not someone who will cut the lens for me. I also have trouble finding hats- both modern and old ones, because I have such a huge head. If I do find anything that fits, its very expensive.

I don't know anyone making Hemp Canvas, do you? If you prohibit everyone using Cotton Canvas from participating in your rendezvous, you are going to have a very small campfire going.

I don't know any wannabe buckskinner who is not interested in learning about the " real deal", but they all are forced to " Make DO!" with what is available. Not everyone has the skill to make all their own clothes and gear, nor the time.

We had a strictly Buckskinner club near us many years ago. You had to have period dress down to your underwear, proper gun, gear, and lodge, and even eating utensils, pots and pans, and plates, BEFORE you could join. At that time, one of our members, who had been rebuffed at joining that club, figured out it would cost him more than $5,000 to buy all the equipment he didn't have to meet their " Standards". That was more than 25 years ago. I don't even want to compute what inflation has done to his estimate! :surrender:

That club no longer exists. Death, retirement, job relocation all took members away until the group was less than 4. I understand a couple of remaining members of that old group have joined another club about 50 miles away.

We had a relatively new member at my club propose that our by-laws be changed to make us a Buskskinner club only, and after much arguing, the motion was defeated. I believe we saved the club.

Ironically, when this guy first came to the club, he had a CVA " mountain rifle", a cardboard box with his can of powder, some pre-cut patches( the wrong size) a box of swaged lead balls, a tin of percussion caps, and a bottle of commercial solvent. No rags to wipe his hands, or the gun off, No powder measure, no jags for his Ramrod.

The first time he loaded his gun, I happened to be working as the Range officer and he didn't run his ball all the way down onto the powder. He took the ramrod out of the barrel and began to put it in the pipes under his barrel when I stopped him. He wanted to argue with me about whether the ball was seated, so I showed him how to measure the rod against the barrel, showing he was a foot short! Then I had him push it down onto the powder, and had him shoot. We loaned him a powder measure for the match, gave him an idea on how much powder to use, showed him how to lube his patch, gave him some cleaning patches, and showed him how to use them, etc. He still went home that day looking like " PigPen", but at least he didn't blow himself up!

Over the next couple of years he was unemployed, so he spent all his time making gear for himself, so he could be a " Buckskinner". Some of the stuff was pretty good. Some was awful. He learned, attended lots of events, went home and made better " stuff". But, along the way, he apparently forgot where he started, and how long it took him to get to his " Buckskinner " level.

We wanted to welcome new shooters, even when they show up with a cardboard box of " stuff " and a cheap gun. :hmm: :thumbsup:
 
paulvallandigham said:
He learned, attended lots of events, went home and made better " stuff". But, along the way, he apparently forgot where he started, and how long it took him to get to his " Buckskinner " level.

We wanted to welcome new shooters, even when they show up with a cardboard box of " stuff " and a cheap gun. :hmm: :thumbsup:
I've noticed a trend that often occurs in organizations of any type, there are always those members those want to change the club, etc. to something that wouldn’t have let them in as they were originally. :youcrazy:
 
The only really bad thing I can say about the guy is that after all the years of belonging to the club, he still can't shoot worth a darn, and still is not too handy throwing an axe or knife. He seems totally unwilling to accept advice or training from anyone better at doing these things than he is. I haven't tried to coach him since he lost his Motion, but others have, including his drinking buddies.

My last confrontation with him was when my team of three men, all with advanced degrees, won a " Survival Walk " course, and blew the top off the scores. I was told he was angry that a bunch of " docs" had beaten his team so soundly.

I went over to confront him, and his group, to tell them that the " secret " to our high score was that I told my two companions to let me " Cut Sign" ( as a tracker) no matter whether I was first in line, or last, as I could tip the front guy off when we were approaching a target, or ambush, by reading the footprints that left the trail, first to put up the targets, and then to score any hits from prior shooters. I Told him I learned to Track when I was a kid, long before I decided to go to law school, and that I would be happy to teach him, and others how to cut sign, if they were interested.( NOT!) :youcrazy: :cursing:

I walked away from them when they grumbled about how we could possibly be so good. What they didn't know, besides my ability to track, was that Dr. Sundberg had fed his wife and babies on Venison he killed when he was in college and grad school. Or That Dr.____ had grown up hunting in Western Missouri, long before he began Med school.

We were, combined, probably the three most experienced and skilled, " outdoorsmen" in the club. He let his bias about our college educations interfere with his judgment about what else we might just know. He was not the first guy to make that mistake I have met, nor has he been the last. I also know college educated people who sniff at the idea they can learn anything from anyone who hasn't gone to college, so, this is not a one-sided character flaw. :shake: :confused:
 
paulvallandigham said:
I walked away from them when they grumbled about how we could possibly be so good. What they didn't know, besides my ability to track, was that Dr. Sundberg had fed his wife and babies on Venison he killed when he was in college and grad school. Or That Dr.____ had grown up hunting in Western Missouri, long before he began Med school.

We were, combined, probably the three most experienced and skilled, " outdoorsmen" in the club. He let his bias about our college educations interfere with his judgment about what else we might just know. He was not the first guy to make that mistake I have met, nor has he been the last. I also know college educated people who sniff at the idea they can learn anything from anyone who hasn't gone to college, so, this is not a one-sided character flaw. :shake: :confused:


I also find that people really have pre-conceived ideas of what someone is like knowing just one aspect of them. Especially what you must be like if you hunt. Why, it's just inconceivable that you could be well educated AND hunt!

I hunt. I was a full time, professional “big city” firefighter for a number of years before university. I went to "Unspecified Big-name University (UBU)" and I'm university faculty.

People seem absolutely shocked that these things can go together. I've had a number of people over the years say "You hunt??, but I thought you went to "UBU"!" And the same thing with "You were a fireman?? Really? But you're a faculty member!" And other combinations of the same. As if doing these things together is the weirdest thing they ever thought of.

As far as I can see, they’re completely unrelated, doing one doesn’t preclude doing the others. Why is it so odd that someone could do all three? :confused:

Although I have to admit, that given the choice of people to hang around with, I’d take my old buddies from the fire department over my university colleagues any day. :wink:
 
Yep, I have friends at the University who are shooters, and hunters, and try their darndest to keep that part of their lives secret.

For me, it began in high school, when I took Shop classes. The shop guys couldn't understand why someone planning to go to college would take shop, and the college Prep. kids thought I was nuts to take a machine shop course my Senior Year!

None of them knew about my hunting, or my passion for tracking. That would have stopped them all! I even tried to keep the fact I was reading tracks and sign every day walking to and from school from my friends and neighbors, and even from my own twin brother, who did not approve!

Only recently, when he decided he wanted to hunt, afterall, has he dropped the pretenses, and asked me to teach him how to hunt. It hurts him to do so. And, while I have shown him how I cut sign, and read tracks, so that he understands the basics, he still cannot see the things I do, unless I point most of them out to him.

He now knows enough about tracking to no longer challenge my competence as a tracker with his belief that" only Indians can do that!" as his sole basis to doubt what I tell him. And, as long as I give it to him in small doses, he is willing to look and listen to me show him tracks and sign and explain how to determine what made them.

I don't worry much anymore about the narrow minded people you meet in all departments of the University. They exist in all professions, and jobs. Their work is important, and if that is enough for them, and they are happy, who am I to expect them to try to learn to do something else?

It still is FUN to surprise people who know you from one activity by sharing some other talent you also have. I am slowly becoming convinced that the Renaissance Man is born, not made. The variety of intersts and his mastery of several is a reflection not of courage, or higher intellect, but of boredom. For me, I would not have it any other way.
 
mrbortlein said:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-MEN Hairy. I just got back from the Old North West and I saw a lot of hoakey stuff there. But a good time was had by all. Though it wasn't the young people with the non-P.C. stuff, it was the 30-50 yr old crowd that were the "relaxed re-enactors". I even saw an appartment sized propane stove in someone's camp. I do agree with most about standards, and we must remember that those getting started have many obstacles to overcome. Most can't afford buying the most accurate stuff, don't have anything to trade, don't have the skills or supplies to make the right stuff. So if we are loosing the young, blame the P.C. nazis. Let them host their own events and keep to themselves.
mrbortlein
There ya go!.....Everybody wins!.... :yakyak:
 
Hairy Said:But...there's correct and there's correct...and that's what I been on about...you either is...with everything correct entails...or you ain't but you're legal.




HUH?

Confused?

When you get right down to it...hc/pc don't mix. Historically correct includes drinking on the firing line. Politically correct says no drinking.
HC doesn't want to allow white women
PC says you have no choice but to allow women
HC says serve dinner from the right
PC says feed me.
HC wants hemp canvas
PC wants sunforger
HC wants the indian woman to set up the tipi
PC says...you better help!! or have it ready when she gets there.

There's hc but the club that insists on it won't grow.

PC clubs grow...and sometimes there's even babies involved!!
 
Wow, this thread went way :eek:ff .

When you see "PC" here on the Forum it is almost always shorthand for "Period Correct" as in "correct for the time period one is attempting to portray".

Hardly any of the members are "Politically Correct"... :rotf:
 
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