what is your favorite style of rifle?

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
In general terms I love the flintlock longrifle. Exact regional style is not especially important though excessive butt stock drop doesn't appeal to me. I guess that, a bit more specifically, the Lancaster (old or later style), York & Virginia types suit me very well. But something about the simple, iron mounted SMR vies for the #1 spot. I do like everything about these plain and excellent rifles, but all need to be flint.

I do like the Germanic jaegers and would dearly love to have one. Never cared much for half stocked guns but have owned and used a few. IMHO, you can't beat a gun with a wood stock starting at the butt plate and going all the way to the muzzle.
 
with out a doubt, the SMR. simple, smooth, skinny, effective...
but then again, i'm a Bauhaus kind of fellow.
 
it surprises me how many on here favor the southern rifle. it is also my favorite with the jaeger being a close second,,,,,,,,,,,,
I would say it’s reflective of our philosophy. You will also note a lot of favorites were the christian springs, early Lancaster/ Virginia style.
When we dress up to play we are mostly plain middling sort. You will see some upper crust sights but mostly we are farmers hunters, shop keepers the sort drawn to plain workaday things.
We want good or fine.
 
I've always preferred the earlier styles with their flowing lines and wide recoil absorbing buttstock. Flintlock all the way for many years now. For some reason the "Hawken" or plains style never appealed to me. Over the last decade I've developed an affinity for smoothbores although not "smooth rifles".
John
 

Attachments

  • 20200226_172712.jpg
    20200226_172712.jpg
    109 KB
I have always been enamored with the Hawken style guns. I mean, the real Hawken style guns, not so much the T/C and traditions type Hawken pattern guns, but I do have them as well. I also have a goal of getting a smooth bore flinter someday.
 
I still have several styles to explore however, I favor a skinny well balanced rifle, the Lancaster is fine in several fields and does play to that regard. I revert to my heritage in the SMR as the Southern rifle is comfortable in its own way and I have great favor towards it. I believe the transition of the SMR is evident in the typically larger bore Hawken seen in its earler years to the half stock big bore. I land in an improper favor to the later as I still have several styles of rifles to handle and fire to give a precise conclusion. Everything I own other than the Lancaster is of the later although and what I carry to the range.
 
The two I own.
Flint: Lancaster Issac Haines 58cal
I purchased it this past August from a local builder.

Percussion: TC Hawken 50cal
I built this from kit in mid ‘70s
 
Back
Top