Its the delusional thinking that irks me.
Dan
Dan, it's your insistence on my 'delusional thinking' that I find offensive.
I have no illusions when I'm making my gun art. You don't have to like what I make, you don't have to agree with my vision, but I ask you to respect my position, just as I respect yours.
Look. I do not remember mentioning your name. If I want to tell someone something I know how to do it and there will be no doubt.
What else is it when people try to recreate an era with a gun that looks like it would 100 or 200 years AFTER that era? Its not necessarily the MAKER, its the end USER that demonstrates a lack of understanding.
What is the word then? Ignorance?
Everyone wants to pretend things, they want to look the look but have no stomach to walk the walk. That is actual work afterall. They think that the way a gun looks NOW is how it looked when it was new of 3-10 years old. ITS DELUSIONAL to think this. I don't know another name, fantasy maybe, its certainly not real. YOU surely know this or certainly should. Rifles were VERY expensive and people did not willingly abuse them. A man could work a year or more for the price. And near as I can tell they used GUN COVERS.
The problem with this site is that its IMPOSSIBLE to make a point and explain a position or an idea outside the eastern clique's approved way of thinking or doing things without someone with a vested interest getting their panties wadded. Even if its based on written documentation from the PEOPLE originally involved. This is not proof since THEY are selling something else that is not compatible with the historical record. So the historical record is wrong??? I don't see it that way.
So while faking guns and powder horns and who knows what else and SELLING THEM as real is apparently OK or at least ignored, and don't bother telling me nobody here does it I have seen the proof on gun broker, but saying "this gun does not fit the era because its been over aged" "offends" people?
If this offends you then perhaps YOU have a problem. There are other people that see it as truth as well. But most won't even post here because they see it as a bunch of wannabes who OBVIOUSLY do not, for the most part, actually USE the guns. This is obvious from the POSTS. So these people who in some cases have an immense knowledge of actually using a FL in REMOTE areas for WEEKS or MONTHS on end hunting and other work like horse packing won't bother seeing it as a waste of time since some keyboard expert will take offense. People here who apparently hunt in ground blinds and tree stands in some 40 acre wood lot try to lecture me on how to take care of my rifle and equipment where I live where some years I cover 50+ miles ON FOOT and hundreds in the pickup (100 miles in a day is not unusual and I may not get out of the county) while deer hunting. Ever knee walk through 12-18" of snow for 100 yards or so trying to stay low enough the game can't see you and keep the FL "dry".
I have actually carried MLs horse back and even had a pretty good horse wreak in a BEAVER POND and been bucked off as well. The gun may well stay in a "loop" even if the rider "gets off" BTW. Not good if the horse is not caught. Many people in the AMM do similar things as well.
I trapped Beaver all one year with no waterproof boots just to get an idea of what it was like. I paid for all the bills for my first child with BEAVER. While I live in the west, an area the CLA for example loves to ignore so I did not renew this year, I HAVE done things. I don't make guns then age them so they do not really look like used guns but people will THINK they do.
I make stuff in my own limited way and often use them if they are not sold. I have killed deer and antelope with ML pistols at tree stand ranges without the tree stand. Lots of stuff. But if I say aging is not done properly or that its wannabeism (its like some jerk arriving at a SF convention with a shirt with patches sewn on upside down) I am some sort of jerk even though its true and irrefutable. I have shot and built ML rifles since the late 1960s. I have opinions based on that. I generally keep the "worst" of it to myself. But sometimes things have to be said if this place is going to be anything but a bunch of people enthusiastically patting each other on the back for doing work that rates from outstanding by any standard to little more than malformed junk. But I don't tell people its malformed junk because its not polite. Besides someone on the "blog" would be "offended".
I try to help people. I try to post valid information on ballistics, powder charges and effectiveness. I try to post valid research. Some of these things may not suit everyone here. People that never hunt or shoot don't need ballistics and such. Some research and experiences may gore sacred cows, I cannot help that. And I learn a lot here but if I cannot voice a VALID opinion on subject then this site is not what it should be. If someone REALLY wants to
accurately re-enact some period like 1777 is it OK for him to pack around a gun that dates 1775-1780 that looks like it has 200 years of use and abuse? Or should someone make it know that excessively aged guns would be out of place in the context of time. He would be more accurate with a rifle with just a little wear that was broken through the wrist and then repaired. But people can't say "it's excessively aged" because someone promotes and sells excessively aged guns?
So the re-enactor looks foolish in costume to anyone who understands how guns actually wear in USE over a
limited time frame. Now if the rifle (or two or three) is lost in a creek for 3-4 days it may look really bad when its recovered, or so I was told by someone who saw such a thing back in the 60s.
Some people here would go apoplectic if they were to sit in with a master gunmaker I know when he views one of the picture CDs the CLA sells on a big screen TV. He has a marvelous eye for line and a photographic memory of rifles he has handled over the decades and can pick out a error in my shaping as soon as I get in his door. But he would be very unpopular if he had a computer and posted here.
If Dickert, Beck, Armstrong or Hawk did not make aged guns why should I? I don't and will not. Why should someone WANT one? Its not real. But its "cool". Or maybe "far out solid and power to the people".
I used to do work for people that paid a lot of money for my work at retail. But they were not "re-enactors" they were shooters and collectors. Had I aged a gun, beat up the stock and screwed up the metal the guy that paid me and the guy that placed the order would have had a fit and there would be "issues". They had to be perfect. I worked in the real world and still do. I spent too much time making things that nobody could find fault with, spending a lot of time looking at old guns to refine the lines etc etc. Make a rifle then butcher up my work because someone with a substitute reality thinks its "cool"? I just cannot do it.
The only rifles I ever aged were the ones I did for "Quigley" and this was expanded on after they left the plant. I made them look like a rifle would look after a little use. Since I had used a number of them when new, but this was not enough to the Hollywood make believe director and/or the camera.
Dan
