Your First Muzzleloader?

[hawkeye1755]

Did you remember your first muzzleloader.
What was it?Flint or Percussion?Was it a gift or did you bought it by yourself?How old were you?And did you have it right now?

:hatsoff:

 

[Gordon Horn]

After the Jeremiah Johnson Movie came out and my muzzleloader craze began ( I was finally old enough to buy my own guns) I had to have a .50 cal genuine Hawken. OK it was a Thompson Center, but it said Hawken on it so I had to have it. That was my first, no I don't still have it. From the first time I shot that gun I knew that Blackpowder Muzzleloaders was it for me. I'd been a fan of Davy and Dan'l since I was old enough to read and TV helped that along. Probably a lot of similar stories like that out there.

 

[Halftail]

16 Or so years ago I bought a T/C Rennegade 50 cal.Caplock.Fired that one a bunch of years.I still have it.

 

[Parzifal]

Almost 3 yr ago I lucked onto a old japenese trade gun 2 piece stock "I thought it was a baker" it was dirty and rusty with a good bore and a strong lock, patch box.

I still have it and would shoot it more except the breech plug looks as though It may be secured by a simple tac weld.."scary" considering how many times I shot it.

It is

 

[Legionair]

About 3 years ago Mrs. Legion got me a Tradtions Hawken Woodsman, .50 cal in flint. It is my deer rifle during ML season.

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I'll have this one forever... I don't believe in selling firearms, but I do believe in collecting them! :grin:

Legion

 

[walruskid1]

my first muzzleloader was a cva kentucky percussion .45 kit. it was a birthday present and i still have it. don't shoot it to often, but haul it out every now and then. it started a long time hobby and a good collection.

 

[renovato]

I remember it well and I still have it. My dad got me into shooting at a young age. First a BB gun, then a .22. Then as money allowed, an inexpensive surplus Mauser and a Mossberg 12 guage. We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up, but he made sure to get me the basics as we could afford.

He was never into muzzleloading and had never shot one. I don't know what attracted me to it, actually, but for my 11th or 12th birthday, I asked for a muzzleloading pistol.

I had browsed through a few gun rags and saw a cheap, brass, double barreled pistol, and asked for it as a birthday present. It's the gun now sold by Classic Arms as the Snake Eye Derringer. We went to the gun shop to see if they had them in stock and the guy talked us out of it, stating poor quality. Something I discovered years down the road after I bought a few of their guns.

Anyway, he had in his shop, a used "Corsair" double barrel .44 percussion pistol for only a few dollars more than the Snake Eye. This was my first black powder gun.

I still remember the old guy at the shop explaining to me how to load and shoot it safely. One of the things he said at the time was "black powder is the most addictive substance known to man. It's more addictive than heroin, power, fame or fortune. It's so powerful that you will absorb the smoke through your skin and be hopelessly addicted for the rest of your life after the first few shots." I knew he was jesting but I remember thinking "wow, this must be FUN!" I was right...and so was he! :rotf:

I managed to get my dad to fire it a few times, but it never seemed to call out to him like it did to me. He never had any interest in them, but I went on to become absolutely obsessed with them.

I can almost feel him looking down on me, smiling and chuckling as I type this. We shared a lot of laughs over the years about muzzleloading.

 

[soggy]

:hmm: First one was a .50 cal. Investa arms "Hawkin", I've still got that although I'v re-stocked it to full wood, next I built a .45 cal flint, longrifle with green mountain barrel and silar lock, it was a great rifle but I just couldn't master the flintlock so I sold it :cursing: . Next I picked up a spanish .50 cal. barrel off a blanket and built a rifle around it (still got that one).
Finally I built a .50 cal longrifle percussion which I still have and shoot regulary. It has a green mountain 1 in 70 twist 42" barrel, silar lock and is a real "tack driver" I hope To own this till the day I die.
This black powder addiction all started one fine evening back in 1986, and I haven't been able to overcome it to this day.
Soggy

 

[RiverRat]

In 1977, my brother bought me a Percussion CVA Mountain Rifle in .50cal. Over the years the bore got ringed up by the front sight, the lock and breech area were rebuilt, and it still shoots better than me. And YES I still have it

 

[MikeChapin]

My first was a CVA Colonial pistol kit my grandmother got me when I graduated college. I still have it hanging around. My first rifle was a year or so later. It was a .58 Navy Arms Hawken Hunter. I sold it off a few years later for the parts for a Tennessee that I still have.

 

[FFFarmer]

About 8-10 years ago I had a couple of buddies bugging me to get into the sport (more so for the December hunt). I fought them off as long as I could until one day I got a call from one of them telling me to get to Sam's Club and buy one of the ones that just came in for $100. He said "try it if you don't like it I'll pay you what you have in it", how could I go wrong? It was a CVA inline with a complete starter kit (only had to buy powder and caps). After one day of shooting with the guys I was hooked. I really liked the traditional guns my buddies had and asked the Mrs. if I could buy one. She quickly told me that if I quit smoking I could buy one. GAME ON! within a couple weeks I gave up the Camels and took a $20 bill every week and put it into the last Camel pack I had. When I had enough twenties saved up I called Dixie and ordered a DGW Hawken 50 cal.

I am now up to 8 smoke poles but still find that the DGW Hawken is my favorite, I consider it my first because I really wanted it and had to sacrafice to get it. In fact I put a new Green Mountain barrel on it this year.

I still have the "other thing" and have loaned it out to people that think they may want to try the sport. I even tried to sell it to the guy that offered in the first place, he said "the deal was off when I decided I was hooked on MLing".

 

[roundball]

And the most important thing is you stopped smoking cigarettes... :hatsoff:

 

[kjmillig]

I know it was 1981 or '82 (I was 17) at a gun show in the Houston Astrodome. I wasn't neccessarily looking for a muzzleloader but this one caught my eye. A blonde finish, .50 cal., half-stock plains rifle with a brass powder flask, some balls, sobots, few conicals, half a can of powder, some pre-cut round patches, worm, and ball puller for $40. The guy said he didn't deal in muzzleloaders and had taken it on trade there at the show. I couldn't make it shoot and took it to a guy who worked with my mom, who now works for Uberti on muzzleloading designs. He pulled the stuck ball out of the breech and cleaned it up for me and I've been shooting it ever since. Shoots like a dream, :grin: even though I've since learned that Markwell was an inexpensive Spanish made gun. I've also since had the lock smoothed up, changed to PC sights, and am browning the barrel.

 

[trent/OH]

I also got my first in '81 or '82, a replica griswold and Gunnison 36 caliber revolver, while I was in college. I sold it to my roommate a year or two later.

 

[bwhoffman]

Early CVA mountain rifle in .50 with the Douglas barrel. its a shooter! It may sit in the safe, not get shot much anymore, loaned to certain friends and used to bring new players to "our thing", BUT it will NEVER liquidated!
it keeps up with the big boys, is reliable and has been a good teacher.

...thats just the first gun,there are others...but that wasnt the question!

 

[Mike Brooks]

1979 one of my friend's brothers brought a TC hawken over to shoot. After watching him shoot it several times I bought it from him for $110.
A year later I started shooting at a club that had several guys shooting custom flint guns....my TC didn't look so cool after that. I then bought an original 3rd model brown bess for $200 and shot that untill I finished building a custom flint hawken from a peckertonica stock. I havn't stoped building guns yet.... :haha:

 

[Larry Pletcher]

My first was a pistol that I made from loose parts from Dixie. I was probably 23 at the time. A friend showed me a half stock he made and then showed me the Dixie catalog. I got a chunk of cherry from my father-in-law who was a shop teacher.

The barrel was a smoothbore .41 caliber. Drill marks were easy to see. When I went to a gun shop to get powder, I was sold a can. After I shot it a while I showed it to my friend. It was he who noticed that the gun shop sold me 4fg. Until then I had no idea BP was graded by particle size.

(Moral - sometimes when we're young and uninformed, we luck out; sometimes we don't.)

Regards,
Pletch

 

[RonT]

My first was a CVA Mountain Rifle kit that I bought at the Log Cabin Shop in early August ,1978. I know that because the target shown was shot on August 28th. Two buddies talked me into buying the CVA, but they both had T/C Hawkens.
The match here was immeditaely after sighting in at our club range, and we made an impropto "traditional" target out of a scrap piece of cardboard. They never lived it down, and are constantly reminded when they are in my workshop. Bahahaha.....

 

1964, I was 14. I rode my bicycle to a local flea market and bought a percussion pistol kit out of the trunk of some hawker's car. I think I paid $8-10. I assembled it in the garage and my parents never knew I had it.

No black powder or caps were available in my area (at least not to a 14 year old). I powered the gun with ground match heads, cap-gun caps, newspaper wadding and shot bought a pound at a time from the hardware store.

I used this gun as a pattern to provide BP guns for my friends made from whatever junk we could scrounge. That pistol turned me into a gunsmith and a historian. I have worked professionally as one or the other since 1975.

One buddy became a chemist (our powder man) and another an engineer (proof firing was his idea). At least three of us found our life calling from that BP pistol!

 

[AeroncaTAL]

I'm new to black powder (less than a year) and I built a Lyman Great Plains Rifle. It is the first and will not be the last. :grin:
Scott