Quality of the Sikligar products

[Mike Brooks]

Oh good golly, I surrender! :surrender: :rotf:
Get out and see some antique 18th century muskets. If you can't see the difference in those and what the indians are making there is no hope.
When seamless tubing is manufactured with rifling in it I'm sure the indians will build longrifles.......that should be interesting.... :haha:

 

[Rock Island]

I have handled some of the real muskets, military ones anyway. To me, a lifelong rifleman they are all big clunkers, the originals are just old ones. I know full well that the originals were made to a higher standard most of the time, and they have the weight of history behind them that no repop can ever come close to. I use them ( repops) mostly as noisemakers, and to make an impressive amount of smoke to startle the pistol shooters on range trips. My little CVA rifle is a better shooter than any of my Italian, or Indian big bore smoothies, but then it's got rifling so that's expected. I spend serious money on rifles, I buy cheap Indian ( if you call $500-$600 cheap) big bore repop military smoothbores for fun plinking, and wallhanging, they fit the bill for that, and I suspect most of the guys buying them are using them like I do, not very seriously. They are not going to blow up in your face unless someone does something dumb like leave an airgap, or overcharge them. If you want to do some serious target shooting, or blow bambi's head off with a big military smoothbore then get the better quality, and probably more accurate Italian repop, or a custom made US one. I just don't want to see folks scared off from buying the cheaper Indian muskets when that's all they need for the type of shooting they plan to do if any. It's a stepping stone, nobody starts off with a new Lincoln ( most of us anyway ) as a first car, no reason they should start off with top of the line guns when they may lose interest in a few months or a year and then the gun sits in a closet.
Indian was not my first selection either, I was looking for a used Italian Bess, but couldn't find one that was priced realisticaly, so I went with a used Indian, and it fit the bill, I bought two more mostly for decoration, and so friends can shoot with me without my having to loan out my expensive and mint Pedersoli 1816 to them.

 

[JV Puleo]

A REAL Long-Land pattern musket was made to a standard that often surpasses the middle grade of 18th century commercial arms... some would say almost as good as the best. To quote Mike Brooks... the Indian reproductions are "cartoon" versions. They couldn't be mistaken for a real one in a dark room. I've no interest in reproductions of any stamp and am not prepared to condemn them all as dangerous but please... don't compare the workmanship! Get the new book "The Brown Bess" by Goldstein & Mowbray if you want to see what the real thing looks like, inside and out.

 

[Rock Island]

I believe I mentioned that while I do not own any original Bess's, a friend does own several and has allowed me to look them over in the past. I know the Indian guns are not the real thing, they are just a gun made similar to, not the same as the original Brown Bess or whatever the case might be. Like any repop they are new commercial firearms like a .22 Marlin, Night inline, or Remington 870, they lack the weight of history and can never compare to 200+ year old historical firearms. They are just guns, for making noise, and holes in things, or for reenactors to beat the hell out of. They are not the real thing.

 

[kingsax26]

Rather than Bash the curry guns I will play devils advocate... I do not own a curry so I have no opinion either way at this point. But I would imagine that if the curry guns were such manure even the reenactors would not use them yes? Obviously they are not really H/c typically they only resemble an original...and parts uses may not be tottaly accurate to the rifle represented. And yes, they may need soe tinkering. Oh and dont forget theres the oft spoken claim they will blow up in your face.... I know several reanactors that use them.. because theyre cheap and they dont want to beat up the 2,000$ custom gun or the expensive pedersoli. All of them are satisfryed with the guns in general and all of them had to do a little tinkering at some point. Also I think if the claim that they will blow up were true, there would be a few people on the forums saying "it happened to me" Ive heard of it but ive never seen it. and the story always gos "years ago I knew a guy"... so I dont really see why some people rail against the guns. I am considering buying one myself....just to shoot squirrel deer and mess around with... if you buy one accepting them for what they are....and what you might get. then there should be no problem... if you expect a masterpiece then youll be sorely disappointed. as far as tinkering....theres nothing wrong with it....its good practice.

 

[Knapper51]

I think I may have something to contribute to this thread. A year or two back I purchased an East India Pattern Brown Bess from MVTC. As luck would have it, I came across a Pedersoli Bess at a good price a few weeks later and bought it as well. Looked like a chance for a side by side comparison. The lock on the India Bess had problems. The sear spring was so strong that the trigger pull weight was off the scale on my gauge. Once I got that reduced I discovered that the nose of the sear would not clear the half-cock notch reliably and would fall into the notch. I reshaped the tumbler to fix that problem. Then I found that the frizzen spring was dragging on the lock plate. That, combined with the spring being overly strong, would cause failure of the frizzen to fully open. At that point I completely disassembled the lock and treated it like a kit. I polished all contact surfaces and got the thing to work slick as silk. It turned out to be one heck of a sparker, too. Ignition was as fast and reliable as any flintlock I've ever fired.

On the other hand, the Italian Bess worked from the get go. Absolutely no problems and no need to tinker. It just worked.

I decided to compare my two foreign ladies for accuracy. I was sure that the Italian would win. I got a surprise. I used PRB, shotgun wads, and tow, firing two 5 shot strings with each type of loading from each gun. I was shooting from a steady bench to take the "me" out of the equation as much as possible. To make this shorter, the India Bess won. Her groups were undeniably smaller regardless of the load used.

Of course, I can't claim that every India Bess will outshoot every Italian one. What I can say is that the India guns from MVTC are not "junk". MVTC is the only importer I've dealt with so I can't speak for any of the others. The lock you get from Peter may work perfectly. Mine needed work and frankly was not functional when received. MVTC guarantees their locks so I could have sent it back but I had the tools and skills necessary to fix the problems. And last, there's price. IIRC I paid less than $600 for the India including shipping. Cabela's has the Pedersoli's for just short of $1,000.

Knap

 

[Alden]

I know some of the indian made stuff is great quality

Could you please tell us what is? I'd very much like to know.

Can't -- NO-ONE ever thought, wrote, or said any such thing. Maybe someone whispered it once , just in case, so he could deny it later if he had to...