Ken Gahagan Artical in "Muzzleloader

[Mike Gahagan]

   There is a great article about my long lost cousin Ken Gahagan featuring his beautiful guns,knives and furniture in "Muzzleloader" magazine this month.Great job Ken.

[Pennsylvania Dutchman]

Beautiful furniture as well as guns and knives. I particularly liked the maple highboy.
Mark Poley

[johnny]

Ken and his contemporaries from the Fort Pitt area are the most humble pleasant artisans you could ever meet.  He will gladly have a show and tell anytime you meet him.  Genuinely a good guy!

[David Rase]

I have yet to see a piece of  Ken Gahagan's work I did not like.  Great article about a great artisan.
David

[olddiamond]

Can you fellas enlighten me? Looking for the issue of "Muzzleloader this article is in?

[David Rase]

Can you fellas enlighten me? Looking for the issue of "Muzzleloader this article is in?

I just received mine a couple of days ago so I am guessing the Sept./Oct. 2013 issue.
Dave

[olddiamond]

Thanks a bunch!!!

[k gahagan]

Thanks guys, Nice seeing you again at the CLA show cousin Mike (acutually we don't know if were related or not but I'd like to think so). I would have to thank David Wright for getting that together and laying out some of the pages. John Hayes for writing the article and Jason Gatliff for the layout and publishing the piece. I'm sure we all wish Jason the best with Muzzleloader, he's doing a great job with it so far.

[Darrin McDonal]

I second that! Great work Ken, and Mike. You guys have to be related with work like you are doing!
Darrin

[Hungry Horse]

 Ken;

  I have a particular soft spot for muskets, and fowlers, produced in the colonies from salvaged European locks, and barrels. But, I am puzzled by the lack of modern representations of these beautiful, and graceful, guns, with French locks. The vast majority of the builds I've seen, seem to use one of the many replica Brown Bess style locks. Is it just that the Brown Bess style lock is easier to get than the 1763, or 1777 French locks? The design of the 1763 Charleville is easily back dated to the 1750's at least.
 My wife hid my Muzzleloader Magazine, because she could see that the beautiful guns you built have started the building juices flowing again, and we all know where that goes.

                             Hungry Horse

 

[k gahagan]

Hungry Horse, Looks like we share a fondness for the old Fowler's and muskets. Mostly what was represented in the Muzzleloader article were Hudson Valley Fowler's. With the architecture of the wrists on these pieces a banana shaped lock fits their profile the best. If you check out Grinslades excellent book on Fowler's you will

   note nearly all of them have this style lock. The ones used in the Hudson Valley Fowler's pictured had round faced Dutch locks or English Queen Anne locks in them. The New England Fowler's that I make are a very good candidate for French locks as well as many others. It fits their often used French architecture perfectly and it's fun to mix and match parts for these type of guns. I hope your inspired enough to collect some parts you might have laying around and put one together. Send me a picture if you do I'd like to see it. Ken Gahagan

[Hungry Horse]

Ken;

  Well, as my wife will tell you, collecting parts are not a problem. I have barrels, and locks, for two Committee of Safety muskets (among other various future projects). One with a 1763 Charleville lock, and one with a Davis trade gun lock. The barrels are 42" 12 ga. round barrels I acquired years ago from a sale of stuff from Numrich Arms. I intend to make one musket with iron fittings, and the Charleville lock, and a French fowler style maple stock. The other will be a club butt walnut stocked New England gun with the Davis lock. I hope to make the iron fittings for the French influence musket. I will probably use brass castings for the club butt musket, if I can find something suitable. Thanks for the encouragement.

                       Hungry Horse

[James Rogers]

I re-upped just to get this article. Expecting it any day now. Well deserved Ken!

[Hungry Horse]

Ken;

  I had a senior moment, in regards to the average caliber of most of these composite muskets and fowlers. But, you mentioning Medad Hills, got the train back on track. I have a book, that I haven't looked at for a long time, that has some Medad, and Benoni, Hills, fowlers in it, along with a lot of others. I went back into the book, and discovered that my assumption, that most early fowlers were large caliber, was wrong. As yours are, many of them are .24 and .28 gauge, with the larger calibers being more military muskets, than civilian fowlers. Thanks again.

                      Hungry Horse