Several years ago a lovely light well balanced flintlock came along and I renewed my affair with muzzle loaders after a theft induced hiatus. It is a .45 long rifle built by J. Turpin an my first experience with a flintlock. Suffice to say it taught me many things.
I've never shot it from a rest so there is no telling what it might be capable of, but it carries easy, mounts well and by the time we were well acquainted it would routinely put 5 balls in a 2" cluster at 50 yards while I stood on my hind legs.
One thing led to another and before I knew it there were a variety of muzzleloading rifles in the locker. A more recent acquisition was a bench target gun of the type often referred to as a slug gun, or some call them bullet guns. It came with a cautionary note that suggested having a slug gun was akin to having 25 wives. That is true.
Couple of weeks ago I took a friend to the range, a bow hunter who has recently taken to rifles. On a whim I took along the Turpin rifle just to see if I could draw him to the dark side. It had been about 2 years since I had taken ol' #107 out for a stroll. We still put 5 in a 2" wad at 50.
Maybe I'll keep this one.
Dan
PS: I may have been a bad influence on my buddy. It depends if you ask him or his wife.
