Murphinator
36 Cl.
Earlier I posted about needing a rifle to start out with for deer hunting and I posted about a DGW Mountain Rifle which I ended up not buying. Earlier this morning and over the past few days as well a forum member here who has been very helpful to me in the past and a fellow Marylander @SmoothboreMurph sent me a couple of PM's asking me to come over to his farm and shoot his collection to fet a feel for what I want and need. So I shot his friends Jaeger and found its shortness not to my liking. I shot his Brown Bess and that was an awesome experience, especially his Turkey load that feels like a mule decided to send your shoulder off to California via air mail. After talking with him and his friends and explaining to them what I wanted in a rifle they gave me a good starter point to take off from. They suggested that I just build a Kibler kit. I got to talking about an everything rifle for all the years to come and well the answer seemed simple to them. "Kibler Colonial .58 caliber", that way I could hunt all over the country if I ever wanted to do that. I never even thought of that, then they suggested a few smoothbores. The biggest two suggestions were either a 16ga folwer/fusil or a 12 ga as they werent big fans of the .62/20ga. Im definitely got a Brown Bess though from Murph he was fixing one up, a Pedersoli he bought from a local who didnt take care of it right. Its got some surface rust I get cleaned up but for his price at $475 I couldnt turn it down hell the barrel marking makes it only 3 years old that beats the $1100-$1200 retail price. He did tell me that a bess is merely the tip of the iceberg and a fowler is better for hunting. Lastly, they suggested a squirrel/game rifle. They all kinda decided that .32/.36 are the best calibers but they dont own any so they said to ask questions here. Over the coming days or weeks I will ask the forum a few questions to try and get all my ducks in a row and finally get this damn train of mine moving. This is why this forum is a godsend. I have always wanted to get into traditional muzzleloading and at first I was terribly lost trying to sift through all the different things. But after about 6 hours yesterday of spewing smoke and making about 2 acres of land smell like rotten eggs as well as a few long disscussions I can move on with getting my first hunting flintlocks.
