How many muzzleloaders have you built

[Jamie Hurley]

I'm pretty new to the muzzle loading world. I built my first kit thinking I wanted a nice long rifle for my collection. But I enjoyed the process so much, I've started my second kit, ordered my third kit, and have an antique fowler in need of restoration on the way. I'd like to get my skills honed a bit and then try a scratch build. It feels like I could have found a lifelong hobby. Then of course the nagging question of "just how many flintlocks does a man need?" starts to creep in.

Just curious how many muzzle loaders have you hobbyist builders have made? For the non-professionals among you...do you keep all your pieces? Sell or give some away? Have a large collection after many decades at it?

 

[tenngun]

I’m 66 and been playing in this since seventeen
Counting them up sounds a tad like a life review
I’m counting eighteen, maybe some ones I’m not thinking of

 

[IanH]

I've revived two originals, put together one kit, bought another kit ready to finish, and built two from scratch. Working on a third, got the blank out of a tree and the original wrought iron barrel from a junked-out percussion mountain rifle but it needs rebored and rifled. I'll probably make the lock from scratch, too.

 

[TDM]

8 builds and 4 store bought. And no, I do not have the energy to shoot them all. Then I have a bunch of revolvers too that never seem to see the light of day. At this stage for me I’d be better off with just one rifle and one smoothbore, maybe one revolver too. I’d get to know them much better.

 

[Comfortably_Numb]

Just under 400.

 

[TDM]

Just under 400.

 

[deerstalkert]

i started building muzzleloaders late. i built many modern rifles over the years and only after i retired did i give up on the modern and shift full onto flintlocks. 8 so far and none were kits. stocks , except a couple were just planks. am in the middle of a build right now. wish i had started with building muzzle loaders many years ago. the enjoyment factor over building a bolt gun is 10 fold for me.

 

[Rob M.]

62 scratch build guns , mostly trade guns but a few rifles ( the handmade stock starts out as a plank from a tree , hand made parts , lock and most barrels bought ) and 27 kits , guns and rifles. Pics of No. 62 , my N.W. gun I just finished for myself ! . The cobbler finally has shoes for himself !! LOL !

 

[TDM]

62 scratch build guns , mostly trade guns but a few rifles ( the handmade stock starts out as a plank from a tree , hand made parts , lock and most barrels bought ) and 27 kits , guns and rifles

 

[Rancocas]

Only 4 "scratch-built" longrifles. 2 kits. Up-coming winter project is to "scratch-build" a pistol.

 

[French Colonial]

How many have I had built........

Someone has to keep people like Comfortably Numb is business!

 

[sdilts]

Just finished #79

 

[ColonialRifleSmith]

I've lost count. However, it's somewhere between 200 and 300. In the last 4 years, I've assembled just over 50 Pecatonica kits for Sitting Fox Muzzleloader. Semper Fi.

 

[The Appalachian]

i started building muzzleloaders late. i built many modern rifles over the years and only after i retired did i give up on the modern and shift full onto flintlocks. 8 so far and none were kits. stocks , except a couple were just planks. am in the middle of a build right now. wish i had started with building muzzle loaders many years ago. the enjoyment factor over building a bolt gun is 10 fold for me.

My resume kinda mirrors deerstalker's.

In my 20's I bought a lot of beat up sidelocks and restored/refinished them, and either sold them, used them for trade fodder, or hunted them myself. That was at a time when "inlines" were considered just a passing fad by the two grouchy gunsmiths I hung out with regularly. Lol.

Lots of modern rifles over the years in the context of buying a donor rifle and rebuilding them. New barrels, made stocks from planks, or building a synthetic stock for them.

When I "retired" from centerfire rifle competition my "true love" shifted to old lever rifles and traditional 18th century flintlock muzzleloaders.

I'm not retired from work yet, about 8 years left, but when I do retire I plan flintlocks to be one part of a working retirement. I'm setting my shop up better for that a little bit at a time; along with gearing up to make other 18th century wares. I plan to have a great time with this stuff in the last phase of being upright on this forlorn rock we all live on.

 

[rickpa]

I've built ten between 1975 and 2021. Started shooting BP at age 14 in 1962 with an original .36 percussion. Sold it for a T/C after seeing JJ. Sold that in 75 to buy parts to build one. Still kicking myself for that one. Harry Schoeller ran Antique Gun Parts in Pittsburgh at the time and I bought parts for 2 more during the late 70s..... then I got married. Built a Jaeger in 85 then a SMR in 91 from parts I had. Didn't build another until 2016 then built 5 between 2016 and 2021. I've never scratch built one but I specify barrel and RR inlet only. I do my own lock inlets. I had Dave Keck at Knob Mt do a barrel and RR inlet and rough shape the butt for an English rifle I did in 2019. Had Dunlap send him a plank and Rice send him the barrel. He does excellent work. The only flintlock I've ever bought was a 20 ga NWTG from Curly Gostomski at Friendship around 1978. I still have them all. How do you sell your children?

 

[wiscoaster]

Four, all kits. One rifle and three pistols. Would like to build one from scratch sometime in this life, but skillset and toolset and most important, patience not up to the proper levels yet. But time is growing short ....

 

[Eric Krewson]

Two from a plank with barrel inletting and ramrod hole done by Fred Miller, 2 pre-carves that after I finished fixing the pre-carve mistakes, I wished I had done planks instead. A Kibler SMR (does that count)? An early TC kit that took some gun building skills to complete and two TCs made from random parts, I put a L&R RPL lock in one of them, a GM barrel in another. I have a TV bear pistol in the works, barrel inletting and ramrod done by Mark Weader.

 

[The Appalachian]

Four, all kits. One rifle and three pistols. Would like to build one from scratch sometime in this life, but skillset and toolset and most important, patience not up to the proper levels yet. But time is growing short ....

If you wait for your skills to just happen you'll be waiting a long time. Just start doing it and your skills will grow if you learn to recognize two things. 1) recognizing exactly when you make a mistake. This will evolve into knowing where there is the potential to make a mistake and avoiding making that mistake. 2) if you do make a mistake knowing how to fix that mistake so it looks like you never made the mistake in the first place.

One of those grouchy gunsmiths I mentioned above told me one time that the difference between an amateur and a professional is, the professional will make a few mistakes too, but knows exactly how to fix them so nobody knows any different.

Patience will grow with your skills because things just become easier to accomplish. Buy the tools you need when you need them to do a particular job. Before you know it you have the tools you need to do just about anything.

 

[dave_person]

Hi,
Five to 6 a year for the last 10 years and about 50 before that. So somewhat more than 110 of many different styles and mostly from rough planks. I've done very few kits or guns from precarved stocks. I kept 6 long guns and a pistol. The rest were sold, donated to young reenactors, or given as gifts. I have a live queue of 9 guns to do: 2 Brown Besses, an Elliot carbine, a maple stocked English-style fowler with rifled barrel, a copy of an original New England fowler, a John Twigg sporting rifle, a John Manton sporting rifle, a turn-off pistol and a Baker rifle.

dave

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Two pistol kits. A .54 Hawken, .50 Late Lancaster, a full stock .54 Flint Hawken, A flint Tennessee with interchangeable .40 and .50 barrels, a .54 Isaac Haines and a .58 Lancaster is in process.