Wife wants a muzzleloader, please help

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I suggest you put her in the car and take a field trip to Tip Curtis' shop where she can handle different styles and weights of guns to see what suits her best. I took my wife to Ft. Frederick years ago to see Tip and she was able to determine what she wanted and had Tip build one to here specs. It was unfinished and the price was quite reasonable.

Tip Curtis
P.O. Box 203
4445 Jernagin Rd.
Cross Plains Tn 37049
 
I recommend a .45 cal half stock. I've built two for two different women who shoot competitively and both do real well with their rifles. The rifles weigh just under 6.5 pounds and have a shotgun style flat butt plate. The rifles are roughly on the Ohio style.




 
You are right about the H&A underhammers. I used to sell them in my shop. We used several at the range in Friendship. My wife won stacks of medals and other awards using one of the short Buggy rifle models. For a factory made, if you can find them, the TC Seneca is fine for a smaller person. Budget allowing, a custom made would be perfect. Personally, I do not favor anything under .40 cal. It is fine for target shooting. Smaller calibers can present problems with ramrods.
 
This is one idea for a kit for your wife. You can pick whatever caliber you want and whatever length of barrel you want. If I were picking a barrel for this gun, I'd want either an A weight for calibers up to .40 or a B weight barrel for calibers up to .50. Keep it light and use a short barrel. They offer to cut the butt for the butt plate and it is surely worth the extra cost. That is not an easy thing for an inexperienced gun builder to do.
http://sittingfoxmuzzleloaders.com/k-47/
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Short jaeger in the maximum size caliber for the weight barrel =lightest barrel, swamped of course. Relative wide buttplate make .50 a breeze to shhot. Much better than a slender .45. Wide and straight buttplate helps in a myriad of shooting disciplines. Crescent buttplates are nice but impossible to shoot prone for a fun chunk gun match. Half stock is in the eye of the beholder. I like the full stock jaegers better.
As a beginner I would not build anything with steel furniture (despite the lock plate of course). Brass can be softened and hammered to conform to minor imperfections much better than steel. The "blocky" buttstock in a jaeger will take most of the recoil. Correct drop at comb is important. Build a few cardboard forms first. To determine ideal drop at comb. If one shoulders his /her rifle, the line of sight should line up with the sights naturally.
 
Here's a good one 32 cal. T/C Cherokee..

no recoil--nice loud crack.accurate..easy on lead and powder...Build one similar..nice little rifle.

P1310272_zpsh0boz25n.jpg
 
She definitely wants a full stock, brass mounted, no inlays, patch box or carvings with 30"-38" .50 B weight barrel.

If y'all have a shorter rifle we would love to see pics to kinda pinpoint a style
 
Maybe get her a full stock Hawken for a TC from Pecatonica. Could be a good option without breaking the bank and still have a good shooting iron. Greg. :)
 
Critter Getter said:
Maybe get her a full stock Hawken for a TC from Pecatonica. Could be a good option without breaking the bank and still have a good shooting iron. Greg. :)
Click to expand...

I did that with a flintlock T/C Hawken. Not a difficult project at all. You end up with a very nice, good shooting, carbine size rifle. Not too heavy and is easy to carry in brushy areas. I like mine a lot. :thumbsup:
 
Care to post a pic of your gun? I would think that would be a nice option for my wife as well! Greg. :)
 
Critter Getter said:
Care to post a pic of your gun? I would think that would be a nice option for my wife as well! Greg. :)
Click to expand...

I'd love to post a picture of it but I Am technically challenged and have no idea of how to do it. I don't know how to get the photo from my phone to the forum site. Maybe when my granddaughter comes for a visit, I will get her to do it for me.

Right now, I have it partially apart and am changing the brass fittings for steel. I bought the steel "conversion" kit from The Hawken Shop. They have a four part conversion kit that includes a butt plate, trigger guard, nose cap and a fixed buckhorn rear sight. But the nose cap is for the original T/C stock so I just bought the other three parts. I have done the final fitting and polishing and have fire blued all them. Now, I am refinishing the stock because I had to do just a bit of sanding to make the parts fit exactly. The rear sight needs to have the two holes drilled to match the rear sight holes from the original T/C sight. Fortunately, that is not a big deal as long as you have a drill press and do some very careful measuring. The conversion kit did not include a patch box but I didn't want one anyway. However, if you did want a patch box, they do offer one that is a true copy of an original Hawken patchbox for $80. It also didn't include steel thimbles so I had to make some. I had a 1/2 inch steel rod and I line bored a hole through it big enough for the ramrod to slide through. Then I welded a saddle on one side to give enough "meat" for the screw to seat out of the way for the ramrod to clear when the thimbles were mounted. The saddle required a bit more inletting but it was not all that much work to get them to fit. My next project is to make a steel side plate to replace the brass washer that came from the original T/C rifle. The original conversion from the T/C stock to the Pecatonica stock was pretty simple with just a bit of inletting and a bunch of sanding, staining and finishing. I did all of that and then decided that I wanted steel furniture rather than the T/C brass. All in all, it is a work in progress but I am quite happy with what I am getting out of it.
 
Hi Bill. I used the Hawken Shop iron hardware on the SIL's project (.40 and .54 GM drop ins) along w an L&R flintlock. Still have the brass patch box .... well for a while.

Looks like tomorrow to be a good day to shoot. Hope you make it to Canyon Lake.
Later
TC
 
I'm getting ready to order a stock, and trying to decide on either a blank or one of Fred Miller's preshaped/profiled stock from Knob Mountain, is it worth the extra money to have the stock preshaped?

I've only worked with precarves so this is about new to me
 

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