New shooters and so-so guns

I was going to reply to the "traditions" post but figured it would best served to start a new thread to continue this topic.

Several folks have expressed the problems with new BP shooters buying off the shelf production guns that are to say the least of so-so quality. I think the biggest reason you see this is because of the lack of knowledge of what's out there and available in high quaility gun and also parts. I've got a lot of experience in CF guns and only some in ML's and that with a T/C and a CVA. The CVA was the first and quite a problem child. Not easily deterred, I took over the CVA from my dad who decided it was easier to just buy the T/C. After weeks of trial and error and testing, I finally got the CVA flinter to fire good and then started working on getting it to shoot good.

Part two of the problem is lack of local support for ML's. Around here, the main reason to purchase a ML is to get the extra two weeks of deer season rather than having a love for the ML's. Because of this, the most of what you find is cheap guns in .50 caliber only. Occasionally you'll find a .54 GPR that's been swapped in for something else in CF or in-line but it's rare. You won't find a quality built repro of a Lancaster or Dickert, ect...

Part three is when you have someone buy a 150 dollar rifle, take it to the range and can't get 3 rounds into the black at 25 or 50 yards then they start looking for places like this to get answers/help. That's when they, like me, find out about all the good stuff that's out there. I had no idea there were BP hunting magazines, custom barrel makers, stock makers, ect until after the inital purchase.

 

[Doc Arroyo]

Mark-

Don't feel bad. Most of us, including the real grey beards (mines just salt & pepper ) started out the same way. Mistakes are part of the game. But there is a wonderful bit of human nature...some folks forget all of their mistakes! When they do, they have never made any...and then they are experts ! The real problem is that some of them chase more beginners away than they help into the sport! :curse:

But ya can't blame the gun makers...as long as there are new sheep to fleece! And for some reason alot of 1st time buyers jump into muzzleloading as an impulse purchase! ::

I have bought, built or rebuilt about a dozen CVA & TC rifles and pistols. Learned alot from them. I now use the rifle kits to train "apprentice" gunsmiths. They are a great gun to learn from, cuz alot will go wrong with them!

When folks ask, I try to steer them away from the many mistakes I made. And when someone asks me for a historically correct, accurate out of the box, ready to hunt with shooter...CVA ain't it.

 

Mark; Doc....great comments. I too got into b/p only to extend the hunting season and that was a looooooooong time ago.
We didn't have the choices we do today. I had no idea it was even possible to build or have built a truely fine rifle, so I bought what in our area was considered the best, the T/C Hawken caplock.
We knew NOTHING about loading, cleaning, patch material, proper lubes, and store clerks knew even less.
Accuracy was mediocre at best. All we knew was shove in a cupful of of black powder downbore and let fly with a Maxiball. (nice name for a bullet what?)
Store woners told us "awe ya can't get enough black powder in there to hurt anything", and a ton of other bad advice, like " use 10 grains of bullseye as a kicker charge, makes 'em easier ta clean up too".
And way too much other misinformation.
I've shot b.p. for over 25 years and it's just in the last two years that 've really learned, from these forums, how to properly care for, shoot, manage the black powder arm.
The ONLY book we could get back then was the ancient Lyman Black Powder manual, which was out of date the day it was printed.
I well remember two fellas that show'd up the 1st morning of the 1st Ohio late "primative" weapons season each with a new T/C Hawken IN THE BOX! They assembled the things right there in the parking lot explaining that the store clerk said they were all sighted in with Maxiballs and 120 grains of 2fg from the factory! :bull: :curse: :bull:

 

[doverdog]

I ran into a situation concerning a moderately priced factory gun, a Cabela's Blue Ridge of a model similar to a T/C Renegade. It was percussion and .50 cal. and was being used by a lad of about 8 or 9 years old to shoot the Mt. Man portion of our yearly rondy. The nipple on it was so oversized that it required at least one, and sometimes 2, falls of the hammer to seat it far enough down to enable ignition. A #11 cap would barely fit on the stubby nipple enough to remain there without falling off. Pushing it on was not possible. They had no spare and when someone offered them one, we found the thread on the gun to be metric and it would not fit. It had to be a very unsatisfying time for the boy and probably did little to build his intrest in the sport. The really bad part of the whole ordeal was that the boy's father knew of these problems beforehand and did nothing to remedy them.

 

[bob1961]

.....................I well remember two fellas that show'd up the 1st morning of the 1st Ohio late "primative" weapons season each with a new T/C Hawken IN THE BOX! They assembled the things right there in the parking lot explaining that the store clerk said they were all sighted in with Maxiballs and 120 grains of 2fg from the factory!...............................


did they get a shot off that day at a deer :shocking: ........................bob

 

I

 

Well, I see I'm not totally alone. I did start like many others, getting the extra deer season but watching and listening to dad gripe and grumble and FLINCH with that CVA....I think that's when the bug bit me. I heard many a long drawn out fffffffffssssssssssssstttttttttttttt boom's too, at least till I learned how to load it. Dab of 4f in the pan and then give it a shake left and a shake right leaving only a one granual thick coating on the bottom of the vent hole (no liner in this one). Ignition was pretty good this way as long as you had the flint tuned. She didn't shoot too bad off the bench, the kentucky stock never fit me and there's no way I could shoulder shoot it to save my life.

I like my Lyman deerstalker, she fits me and feels good but w/o the prior experience not only with the ML's but also CF rifles, I think I would have been very disappointed in it. The bore was rough, you could feel it seating a PRB and the groups showed it too. I lapped the bore, tuned the trigger, made a new vent liner, replaced the sights and tuned the lock a little. Nothing took an inordinate amount of time but for someone who does not have experience, the combination of relatively minor things can lead to major disgust. The bore had to be lapped without a doubt. Maybe it would have smoothed out with a couple hundred shots but I didn't have the time option needed so I cheated and went with the high speed grinding compount method. The lock was pretty good and all I really did was some polishing to smooth out the trigger and took some play out of the hammer, nothing was necessary but I like it better now.

Hind sight being 20/20, I more than likely would own one of these Lymans no matter what and it has turned into a great multi-purpose gun for me until I have the time and funds to complete more custom guns. .32, .40 and .50 rifle barrels and a .58 / 24ga shotgun barrel make up the set now. I've been "flintified" and won't hunt with anything else and the low cost effective barrel swapping thing has allowed me to be able to whatever for a very low start-up cost. It's a trade off for time and money right now but it works quite well.

Personally, I think if it had not been for that old CVA I would probably not have been bitten so hard. The thrill of victory getting it to not only fire but actually hit where aimed was a major booster for me. I seriously think if I had personally would have purchased a top end rifle from the start, I doubt I would have followed up with any more ML's.

 

At the last "rondy" I attended, the rifle shoot was won by a guy with a stock cabela's blue ridge. I have seen TCs shoot good, too. My first ML rifle was a H&A underhammer .36 I bought back in about 1970. It shot great groups. I lusted after a PA longrifle, but few were available then and I had little cash. About 1978 I built my own PA rifle from components, a nice curly maple blank, a Green River .45 barrel, Cochran lock, etc....had guidance from a local builder. Since then, I have not owned a factory ML. Custom is the way to go if you do it yourself or have the $$$ to have one built, but some of the factory rifles will shoot good.

 

[riarcher]

:haha:
Boy, you got it right!
Being one of them "Stuborn English" sorts, I've still got the very first ML I ever bought. Was from a sporting goods store going out of buisness sale. $75 for a CVA kit Kentucky (talk about a rude piece of manure?). Everything was an ordeal!!!!!! Nothing fit and I had no clue what I was up against. This was around '74 and was pretty much hung out to dry for help and support. "Junker" barrel and flinchlock, I had my share of trouble. But, being (moderately?) stuborn, I got it to shoot fairly (stretch your imagination) good. Having been a toolmaker for years, there isn't much left of the parts that came with it. Parts have been remade, polished, replaced, welded, rehardened, brazed, and scorched. Probably worth about $0.02 now. But, the things I've learned! :: If'n I wernt so damned stuborn I'd burn the stock and hammer the barrel into a pry bar! :curse: Least then I'd have a bonafied excuse for keepin it about. ::
Right now, it just keeps nagging at me about being so damnd cheap, and how you gets what you pays for. ::
One of them Love / Hate things, I just love to hate it. ::

 

[bejohnson]

I am a beginer in the historical treking and the only gun I own is a Tradisions flintlock. I love this gun and have had absolutly no problems from it.

The reason I purchased this gun was the fact that not all of us have a lot of cash to spend and I purchased what I could afford.

I am very please that I did purchase this gun.

 

Most of us started with cheap guns or guns we 'thought' emulated or copied by name, (advertizments) an original piece of reputed quality, ie: Hawken rifles. Rude awakenings resulted when good information was finally obtained, but persist we did. Altering combs and re-stocking then re-barreling as money allowed,finally ending up with hand made rifles of excellent quality.
: Most any of the reasonably well fitting production rifles can be re-barreled to turn into excellent shooting rifles.
; With the advent of the Lyman Great Plains Rifles, and the Mortimers, :applause: finally, there are fairly good quality rifles, with proper Round Ball AND Conical twists, close to period, :: and available for well under custom charges. These are the guns we should be steering people to, I believe. The GPR isn't much more if any more than many of the other, less-than-original-type rifles.IMHO

 

[chickenlittle]

I am pretty new to flintlock, having got my first last thanksgiving. Got a Traditions Deerhunter. For the money I paid, it's worked alot better than I deserved. No noticeable delay on the lock and it's always gone off, which is more than I can say for my in-line.

If I had it to do over, though, I should have done what I did last saturday, buy a Lyman GPR. It cost twice as much as the Traditions but still quite affordable ($360 if you shop around). I shot it a bit Sunday and it seems real nice. I think I'll be very happy with it. Unless I can't suppress these thoughts about smoothbores.

 

I guess I started a bit differently than most. Back in the sixties I bought a kit from Dixie Gun Works. $25 for a .45 percussion that shot prety well. No BP season back then. No deer season at all! Shot it for the pure joy of smelling BP! Couldn't get anything but cannon grade, about as course as gravel, shot it anyway.

In the mid seventies, when I returned from the army, someone gave me a copy of Foxfire V. It was full of BP information, including step by step instructions on how to build a rifle outlined by Hershal House. It was the Bicentenial, I wanted to start reenacting and needed a PC gun from the get-go.

I got two Siler locks from Don Eade Muzzloader Supply, two stock blanks from Log Cabin Shop and a 12 bore smooth barrel and a .45 Douglas tube from Dixie. I built those first two guns from blanks with chisels and a pocket knife, complete with proper cast off and drop on the stock, forged my own hardware right down to the curlly triggers and followed Hershal's instructions to the letter. Both of those guns fired the first time I pulled the triggers. Both still fire on a regular basis. The .45 will still ring an 8 inch steel gong off hand at 50 yards in spite of the extra 30 years the shooter has aged.

You can still buy a GM barrel for $100, a siler lock for $100, a precarved stock in TN MTN style for $100, and all of the hardware you need is a $10 trigger guard and $10 ramrod thimbles. There are web sites with step by step instructions that are free. A custom gun for lesss than $350 that will shoot as good as any you'll find, and you'll know every detail of its birth and life.

You can't do that kind of work? I couldn't either, before I did it. Now I have built a gun every two years for the past 30. Some have been good. Some I hide from view. All of them will shoot better than I can hold.

I've picked up some factory guns along the way, mostly kits someone couldn't get to shoot. Always amazes me that any one can make them shoot at all! I usually tear them down and completely rework them before I even try to fire them. It's just gotten to be a habit. I know I'm going to have too anyway, why put it off?

If all you have ever owned and shot is a production gun you owe it to yourself to get with someone that has a really fine ML and shoot it for a session. Not one or two shots, but an afternoon of shooting. Most factory guns are built with the knowledge that they will not be fired more than a dozen times during their existance. Most hand built guns are fired thousands of times during their life.

The diference becomes obvious during a long shooting session. Pull back the hammer on a Blue Ridge, then pull back the hammer on a well built gun witha Siler lock. The difference is drastic and immidiate, and you could have built one yourself for the same money as the Blue Ridge.

If you're gonna be poor you'd better be handy!

 

bob1961: Matter of fact they did, And missed!

 

[Donny]

I have run across several guys shooting Kit guns, put together, hunted with, took to BP shoots for years, but still in the white. Brass with machine marks on it, wood raw, etc. They say someday, maybe...

 

I replied yesterday but I guess it got lost somewhere in cyberspace???

I wanted to clarify that I in no way intended to offend anyone with this post. There are many cheap guns out there doing just fine. Some work great right from the box while other need a little TLC and other need a whole lotta help to even reach a functioning level.

My whole intent with this post was two fold; one to see how many people like me were not deterred by less than functional cheapies and two, to see if there was a way to get the word out to prospective new BP buyers that there's a heck of a lot more out there than T/C, Lyman, CVA and Traditions. I know that's all you will find around here and at that there is no one who knows their foot from a tornado about ML's. Some time back I was looking for a pound of 1F to try in a shotgun and several places I called told me "they stopped making that like 100 years ago dude". Others just flat out do not want to be bothered with anything other than CF, in-lines, plastic sabots, jacketed pistol bullets and imitation black powder chemicals. It's very discouraging for anyone who wants to really get into BP shooting.

Granted I'm not a traditionalist as in my guns don't need to be PC nor do I dress the part but I am very traditional in spirit as in I'll only hunt with flinters and perfer using only PRB's. A small temporary exception to this self rule is in place until I get my .62 done but I still will NOT use anything with plastic on, around or under it. About all you can find locally are corruptions of traditional equipment.

Don't get me worng, I love my Lyman and even more so that it has allowed me to swap barrels easily and become a .32, .40, .50 and 24 ga shotgun. It's a small investment of money and time yet allows me to hunt traditionally with a flinter in all seasons until I have both the time and money to build some specific use guns.

So, how do we get the word out about custom guns and parts for those who wish to build their own before they settle on something that may turn them off on BP and ML's forever?

 

I think a good way is to get magazine distributors to display and sell our reads on their magazine racks.
I don