What's your favorite style of muzzleloader

I'm with you--never saw a longrifle I didn't like. As for actually shooting, the early Lancasters and the early Lehigh area rifles (Christian Springs, etc) are among my favorites.

 

[PvtC]

Ditto the Rupp/Moll Lehigh/Allentown guns for beauty. The 1st model English kings pattern long land with the banana lock ranks a close second cause they were carried by brave (or unfortunate) men who endured the grueling campaigns and the horrors of linear warfare.

 

[arcticap]

My favorite would need to have a mule ear lock like my inexpensive Pedersoli half stock.

 

[PaulN/KS]

I like the looks and feel of the Jaeger rifles.I was lucky enough to purchase a TVM Jaeger from a fellow and it is a very nice rifle.

 

[Dave_B]

I've been reading Walter Cline's book, "The muzzle loading rifle, then and now" and I'm really liking the look of some of the early Kentucky style rifles. It looks like many of them were between .36 and .45 caliber.
Dave

 

[Johnny Tremain]

My Sheetz School Late Virginny

 

[faw3]

Gheee,, If you want to belive Al Raychard ( Journal March MB) only one out of ten of us isnt shooting a in.... ok whos cheating? Make mine the 48" H+A and Ithaca Hawken, because I havent got to try some others. Fred :hatsoff:

 

[ryoung14]

Looks like you and I are pretty much alone on this, 54roundball. A good clean gun that's reliable and shoots well is all I need. The one I like the best is usually the last one I shot...and sometimes that's an inline!!! :redface:

After seein' all this sophistycated knowledge of all the M/L styles it's surprisin' they let folks like us hang around on this forum. I allus figure I'm 'bout 1 post from being booted anyway...less than that now :shake:

Anywho, I wonder if all this shopping of various styles is PC. Are we supposed to believe that the gun buyer 'back in the day' stayed abreast of who was building what, where and mail ordered what he wanted? Wouldn't he have visited a local gunmaker whose work he admired and had a gun built in that maker's usual style...whatever that was?

Just askin'
Bob

 

[Slash]

My favorite is the VA. style that it took me 6 years to get out of Matt. I started collecting the parts and it was that long to get him in gear. I was like the shoemaker's wife. Beautiful curly maple stock with an octagon to round rifled barrel!
Slash

 

I've been reading Walter Cline's book, "The muzzle loading rifle, then and now" and I'm really liking the look of some of the early Kentucky style rifles. It looks like many of them were between .36 and .45 caliber.
Dave

That is a great book. Alot of good info in it. I have read and re-read it. But, statistics (and there have been discussions about this here and on other sites with varying interpretations)that I have collected on early "Kentuckies" (American longrifles)indicates that the calibers averaged in the .50s, decreasing somewhat through time. 18th century rifles seem to average about .538 but range from .40s to.70s. If you include younger rifles (from the early 19th cent) the average drops to ~.48 if my memory serves me. Many of the mountain rifles that Cline used were late guns and they were more commonly .30s and .40s.

 

[aragorn]

Anything in Shumway's Colonial Rifles.
My Chambers York as it nears completion.
Brown Bess Short Land Pattern/India pattern (I wish someone would make a kit of this).

 

[Tommy Bruce]

Ok, I'll go two categories for a rifle it would be a toss up between The JOH SCHREIT rifle (no 18 in RCA) and I believe number 119 which shumway refers to as a southern gun possibly made in Virginia. For smoothbores I think the French fusil de chasse is pretty cool. I'd like to have one with a 38" barrel in 24 ga. even though the barrels were much longer on the origionals.

 

[Swampman]

Anything built by Jack Hubbard.

 

[Mike Brooks]

British fowling guns. I like hudson valley fowlers, and any fowler built in the new england area in the 18th century. Aw heck, I just like fowlers in general..... :haha: