Whatever happened to Tick Licker?

[BEP]

I bought one of those Belgium muskets with the two piece lock and two piece stock from Someone's Rifle Ranch - I forget the name. The frizzen was soft and flints were hard to get in the mid 60's anyway so I cut some wood blocks to fit in the hammer jaws, drilled a couple of holes in the side facing the frizzen and would insert broken off Ohio Blue Tip strike anywhere matches in those wood blocks. Click - hiss (while the match tip flared up) - bang. Actually pretty reliable. And I developed one heck of a follow-through because ignition took about a second and a half. Oh - powder was $3.00 per pound at Schroeder's Sport Shop and I used 1/2 inch ball bearings that a friend got for me from Continental Motors in Muskegon Michigan. Absolutely wonderful times.

 

[rich pierce]

Back to original question. I heard old tick licker got Lyme disease and died.

 

[Zonie]

You mean to say, the old tick licker had a problem with his ticker? I bet that ticked him off.

 

[azmntman]

If tick bit use yer licker to clean and then swab with some more liqueur, then drink some more liqueur fer yer ticker.

 

[DNS]

Maybe someone should make a reproduction of the one used in the Daniel Boone series, before us old guys all die off.

 

[Bill hughes]

I definitely second this opinion.

As some have said it was 100% a working flintlock! Tick licker is made from a Belgium Trade Gun, that much I know. Can’t seem to get my hands on one so I’m just starting from a long trade gun and working backwards... will show progress.

 

[Bill hughes]

I’m making a replica... post progress as I get to it.

 

[Frontier's]

African trade musket or pirate musket. I have one in 54cal which shot amazingly well for a smoothy and only a little bead front sight. Ignition was even a bigger surprise considering how rough they were put together lol.

 

[rickystl]

Bill: The photos you posted of that Belgium made trade gun sure does look close to what the original Boone gun started life as. I remember the opening segment of at least the first season of the Series showing Parker shooting a real flintlock. What few close up pics we do have of that shootable gun looks real close to the photo above with the one piece lock. I would guess the mocked up trapdoor rifle was used for some scenes, while the genuine flintlock for other scenes.
Rick

 

[Bill hughes]

Bill: The photos you posted of that Belgium made trade gun sure does look close to what the original Boone gun started life as. I remember the opening segment of at least the first season of the Series showing Parker shooting a real flintlock. What few close up pics we do have of that shootable gun looks real close to the photo above with the one piece lock. I would guess the mocked up trapdoor rifle was used for some scenes, while the genuine flintlock for other scenes.
Rick

Actually (from what I can tell) the trap door was only used in a few publicity photos. The one he carried through most of the show was actually a working flintlock... the same one used by Henry Fonda in the film Drums along the Mohawk. By the end of the show it was pretty beat up and had even lost the front thimble... might even have been painted up a few times for the screen. Darby Hilton says it was at a recent Hollywood Museum display, but I couldn't see what he was talking about from the photos he posted.

I'm full on building a replica based on a 46", 20 gauge trade gun... I have no idea why, it's a pretty ugly gun, but it's a powerful memory and I guess I just figured someone has to do it!

 

[BEP]

Way back in 1971 Fess Parker was featured on the cover of the Dixie Gun Works catalog. Here's what he had to say about Tick-licker:

"In case you're wondering about it too, the rifle I carry in the show is only a reasonable facsimile of old Tick-licker. It was never made to fire. Thanks to our script writers I daresay I've given my rifle far harder treatment than Daniel ever gave his. I've taken it into rivers and streams, high country and low, wet weather and snow. I've dropped it, thrown it, and carried it on dozens of personal appearances around the United States.

For what it is, though, my old prop rifle still works fine. It touches off a squib of black powder with an admirable puff - while Daniel Boone turns over in his grave."

 

[sawyer04]

I read that the original tick licker was a 28 caliber, any one know?

 

[Zonie]

I've read that and I think that 28 caliber was written by someone who did not know that the guns bore sizes during that time period were often described by the number of balls per pound the gun would shoot.

28 balls per pound equals a ball that would weigh 250 grains. A 250 grain lead round ball would be .550" in diameter making the rifle a .550 caliber shooting a .54 caliber patched ball.
Rifles during Boone's time were often in the neighborhood of being this size.

 

[Bill hughes]

Way back in 1971 Fess Parker was featured on the cover of the Dixie Gun Works catalog. Here's what he had to say about Tick-licker:

"In case you're wondering about it too, the rifle I carry in the show is only a reasonable facsimile of old Tick-licker. It was never made to fire. Thanks to our script writers I daresay I've given my rifle far harder treatment than Daniel ever gave his. I've taken it into rivers and streams, high country and low, wet weather and snow. I've dropped it, thrown it, and carried it on dozens of personal appearances around the United States.

For what it is, though, my old prop rifle still works fine. It touches off a squib of black powder with an admirable puff - while Daniel Boone turns over in his grave."

I guess this is a bigger issue that I figured. The rifle unquestionably started life as a working, Belgium trade gun. It was probably 20 gauge, but hard to tell the length because Parker was a pretty tall fellow. But it did function at some point. I’ve worked in and around the film business for over a decade of my life and the deal is any working firearm must be attended to by a union stunt coordinator on a movie set. All except for Brandon Lee films, but that’s another bad story... at any rate, a long running TV series like Daniel Boone would never spend that kind of money tending to a working rifle. When the working flintlock was made into the Ticklicker prop, I’m certain they bored out the breach or poured concrete down the barrel. So absolutely it did not work on the show (beyond sparking flash powder) but it was a working gun at some point. Hope that clears it up.

 

[Bill hughes]

After thinking about it and looking at an old Daniel Boone episode... I just can’t tell how much of the Tick Licker rifle is a real gun and how much of it might be plastic, so let’s just figure it was based on a trade gun...

 

[sawyer04]

28 balls per pound equals a ball that would weigh 250 grains. A 250 grain lead round ball would be .550" in diameter making the rifle a .550 caliber shooting a .54 caliber patched ball.
Rifles during Boone's time were often in the neighborhood of being this size.

Ah, ha, that's make more sense. I couldn't figure out at the time what the barrel maker was using to make the bore. I would think at that time in history a mandrel for 28 caliber would be far and few between.

 

[Zonie]

Even today, a .28 caliber muzzleloader is as scarce as hen's teeth.
About the smallest bore size today is .32 caliber and it's primarily good for hunting only squirrels and rabbits.

I really don't think things have changed that much between the thoughts on a muzzleloading rifles bore size today when compared with the thoughts back in the 18th and 19th century.
The gun has a job to do and the muzzleloading rifle caliber needed to do those jobs hasn't changed over the years.

To be an effective deer or bear rifle or, a rifle for defense, something at least .45 caliber is needed (IMO) to do the job reliably.

 

[Bill hughes]

Nah, that doesn't look like a working flint lock there. I'm a baby boomer fan of Davy and others, but that is a studio-prop type gun, for the photo shoot. I'm sure others will concur.

I’m still on the working side of this one. It’s a Belgium trade gun 100%.

View attachment 13790 Here is an example of the above mentioned gun

 

[springfield art]

I just saw a 1957 copy of Gun Digest; guns just like this were selling for about $37.50 back then; there was a page with about half dozen similar variations...bet this is one.

 

[Gene L]

Read a book a LONG time ago, a teen-book called Kentucky Stand, but Jere Wheelwright. I was about 9-10 YOA at the time (I was an advanced reader) but found the book fascinating. One of the things that got me interested in ML rifles. Wheelwright apparently did a lot of research and had real historical figures, some minor characters of the era, (Mad Anne Bailey) but historical.

Anyway, the book was about Boonesboro and a young man traveling from Baltimore to Kentucky to claim land that belonged to his father. Boone was a central character in the book and there was a lot written about him, however fictional, I believed it at the time. It covers the capture/escape of Boone, and the siege of Boonesborough.

Several references to Boone's appearance and his ability with shooting, but no mention of the caliber of his weapon or him naming it "Tick Licker." It was a "heavy caliber" but I don't know what that means. I wonder now if that name is indeed historical or fictional.