First BP rifle.

[Mike Brooks]

I'll go first. :winking:
I started where many of you did I'm sure. I bought a used .50 TC Hawken rifle from a friend of mine's brother. All ready had "cool brass tacks" driven into the stock. I actually shot that thing so much I wore the rifleing out of it.
Next rifle was a home made flint gun......havn't shot a cap gun since.
Heck.....I havn't owned a BP rifle of any kind since 1996.... Every time I get one built for myself somebody decides they want it more than I do. I got to sight one in once, but that's as close as I've been. Oh well, maybe one day.... :redface:

 

[John Taylor]

I seem to have the same problem so the last 2 are not finished, that way I get to shoot them.

 

[biliff]

My first BP rifle was a Navy Arms Buffalo Hunter. Still have that one. I then went on to build a .32 flintlock which I still have. Unlike the previous two posters my rifle building skills are somewhat lacking and after 30 some odd years no one has made an offer on it yet.

 

[Okwaho]

My first BP gun was an old half stocked and iron mounted Tennessee rifle which may have had a cap box.I think it had a tang sight but can't remember.I paid $45.00 for it from an antique dealer in 1961.I didn't have a mold but guessed and found one that was close.Powder was cheap back then and I bought some lead and caps.I made some bullets and took it out in the woods with either lard or spit for the patches. When the lard and patches ran out I sometimes used spit and tree leaves for grease and patches.It shot pretty well.I had owned it for about 4 years when I had a chance to trade it for an old Colt @nd Model Dragoon with mixed and missing numbers.It was sorta rough and the boy who owned it was afraid it was hot so we traded even.I kept the dragoon for awhile,then traded it for a silver mounted signed middle Tennessee rifle and $200.00.I sold the rifle some years later.Gun trading was a lot more fun back then.
Tom Patton :applause:

 

[Harddog]

I bought my first two muzzleloaders at the same time. It was 1955 and I was offered a brown bess and a committee of safety musket for the huge sum of $11.00 for both of them. I was 11 years old and my grandfather and father were still shooting muzzleloaders at the time. I shot them both for several years. Seems like muzzleloading shooting never went out of style in my family.

I don't know what I did with those two muskets, but I don't have them now. Probably sold them to buy more and different guns or traded them for something else.

Harddog

 

[onefeather]

my first one was a traditions of some sort of hawken kinda thing.then a used t/c hawken i hope to build a kit soon :grin:

 

[Harddog]

Well, looks like my previous post should have gone under "First Smoothbore" in the other forum?

Harddog

 

[Mike Brooks]

Well, looks like my previous post should have gone under "First Smoothbore" in the other forum?

Harddog

So, we can all assume you've never had a rifle Randy? :winking:

 

[mikelange]

My first BP rifle was some sort of Italian Hawken that I bought on a whim, then sold before I'd ever shot it (I had "issues" back then that made cash flow a problem -- 'nuff said). Once I got my head right I bought a CVA .50 caliber Kentucky barrel, a small Siler flintlock kit, and a brass buttplate and guard. Scrounged a thick maple plank and some sheet brass, stared holes through the pages of "Kentucky Rifles and Pistols, 1750-1850", then proceeded to build the most god-awful ugly longrifle I believe has ever been allowed to pollute the earth's surface. It worked, though, and the nastiness of the thing just made me want to build another -- and another -- and another -- till these days, sometimes, I come close to getting it right.

 

[Harddog]

Well, looks like my previous post should have gone under "First Smoothbore" in the other forum?

Harddog

So, we can all assume you've never had a rifle Randy? :winking:

Ahh come on Mike, you know better than that. When I was a kid my grandfather was the keeper of all the family guns. Ones from his three brothers and his father, my great grand father who had all passed away. They were all original southern type rifles, mostly percussion, but a couple of flinters. I don't remember if any of them were signed or not. My great-grandfather was a blacksmith all his life and I believe he made a couple of them. I could use any of the family rifles and did quite often. That was a long time ago and I didn't get any of the family guns. When my grandfather passed away They all went to an antique dealer from Peoria, IL for a couple of hundred dollars.

I built my first rifle, scratch built, in 1962 and still have it stored away. I built another scratch built in 1965 and still have that one also, but have not taken either of them out for many years. Other than smoothbores I currently shoot a custom jaeger, a custom Issac Haines, or a custom made 40 caliber poorboy.

However, I guess the scratch built one from 1962 would be the first "rifle" I ever really owned. It is a basic southern poorboy with hand forged hardware, an original Golcher percussion lock and a salvaged 40 cal, 3/4" across the flats 39-3/4" barrel.

Randy Hedden

 

[squirejohn]

.50c TC Hawken kit gun - eary 1980's or there about

 

[AZ-Robert]

My first BP and probably still my favorite is Miss Late of the Lancaster sisters, built by Tom Faux of Littleton, Colorado. She is a slim, trim .40 cal that shoots pretty darn straight and, with so little recoil and her small appetite for powder, is just plain fun to shoot.

 

[bob1961]

it was bout sept 03 that i bought my .50 T/C hawken flintlock....then soon i wanted more drop at the comb to shoot it better and went with a pecatonica river inletting stock fer the T/C....

then when finished it looked better....

now i'm building from parts a 1770 lancaster in .54 with a grade 4 maple stock like the T/C and steel (iron) furniture....sorry no pic's yet till i'm done....next project will be a .54 flintlock pistol....all this in two years after gittin into black powder....thanks guys ya could have warned me first how i would have gottin bitten....oh yeah ya did....sorry..........bob

 

[dlemaster]

My first rifle was put together from a bunch of parts that I scrounged up or bought.
A .40 cal Douglas barrel 13/16" I bought at Golden Age Arms for $27.00
A back action lock scrounged from a neighbor kid who chopped up his Dads Joseph Manton fowler hanging over the fire place to make a pistol, I still have the trigger guard.
And a plain pre-carved Kentucky Rifle stock, butt plate and trigger guard from Dixie Gun Works.
Ugliest damned thing you ever laid eyes on, but it was accurate. That's what hooked me.

Regards, Dave

 

[rich pierce]

My first was a Sharon Trade Rifle built as a kit, .50 percussion, iron mounted. I shot it as built for about a year or two but did not like the narrow stock and buttplate. Back then I was a fool for heavy loads; figured I had to be shooting at least 90 grains of powder behind a .490 ball. So restocked it in from a cheap curly maple blank with a wider home-made flat buttplate. Over the years I added a .54 barrel and a 20 ga smoothbore barrel. My old buddy Ferg used to kid me that I carried a "quiver full of barrels". It's still a good bad-weather hunting gun or loaner, would be good for another hundred years of hard use, if only we had the time.

 

[curt songer]

my first rifle was a 45 cal[url] flinter.made[/url] bt ulta.2 piece stock i think i paid 90 dollars for it .had button rifling.didnt take me long going to club shoots that i had to have me a custom gun.that was 1979 and been going every since
curt

 

[hawkeye1755]

My first BP Rifle was in Pedersoli Frontier (Hatfield) Flintlock cal45. I had it over 2 years and never shoot it. Because you must have a licence in Germany to buy Gun Powder and i had no licence.
I sold it to get money for a holiday-trip to Australia to my aunt. 6 months later i had a licence but no gun. :redface:
:hatsoff:

 

[Swampman]

Mine was a CVA Kentucky that I built from a kit that they sold at J.C. Penny's in the mall. Do you remember when they sold guns in the mall?

 

[Rebel]

.50 cal caplock T/C HAwken.

 

[jethro224]

A .50 CVA Frontier Rifle that I bought in unfired condition for $75.00 because I can't pass up cheap cool stuff. I oiled it and put it in my gun cabinet for WAY too long. Several years too long.
I was scairt to shoot it for fear I'd screw it up or something. Didn't really know anything about muzzleloaders other than that they rust if you don't clean 'em right.
Illinois finally made it so you can apply for both firearm AND muzzleloader permits in the spring drawing. I got both permits so I asked my BP shootin' buddy for some advice (Thanks Ron!) and got it out this past August.
Shooting the dang thing was so much fun and the cleanup is, IMO, easier than cleaning my modern guns, I got bit HARD by the bug. Next thing you know I bought a .32 Crockett for squirrel huntin'. Lots more fun than shotguns or .22s :thumbsup: .
In September I sold a bunch of broadheads and bought a crusty old Jukar to work on and a .54 caplock Springfield Hawken 'cause they were cheap and cool (there I go again).
In late October I sold a couple smokeless shotguns and a revolver and bought a .54 GPR flinter. 3 weeks later I used it to take my first BP deer.
Oh yeah, I got a .50 caplock pistol too.
Wont be long I'll probly have to get a second gun cabinet...
Jethro