Black Powder shooting

[smylee grouch]

I became infatuated with long guns before Walt Disney came out with the Boon & Crockett series on TV. I always wanted one but never got one of my own till after I came home from the service. A 50 cal Num rich Arms percussion. Great barrels poor lock. Shot several deer with it and then started making my own from blanks. $100 would buy a Douglas barrel, Siler  lock , all the brass and a great full stock sugar maple from Homer Dangler. Boy those were the days my friends. 

[Stoner creek]

I became infatuated with long guns before Walt Disney came out with the Boon & Cricket series on TV. I always wanted one but never got one of my own till after I came home from the service. A 50 cal Num rich Arms percussion. Great barrels poor lock. Shot several deer with it and then started making my own from blanks. $100 would buy a Douglas barrel, Super  lock , all the brass and a great full stock sugar maple from Homer Dangler. Boy those were the days my friends. 

Thank you for your service!

[rf50cal]

Fess Parker stirred my interest. In the 70's, a TC Hawken got me going. After a trip to Dixon's in 2000, it was goodbye Hawken, and hello Longrifle.

[Bill in Md]

Free meat.... I was a father at 18 and had mouths to feed. Since the county I lived in disallowed modern rifles for deer hunting I chose to go with a .50 caliber percussion Black powder rifle which was way more accurate than the old pumpkin balls out of a shotgun.....Then I realized that with a bow I could hunt 90 days a year and my guns began to collect dust.....My interest in flintlocks was born out of making and hunting with wood longbows which I consider to be the premier way to hunt whitetails. Flintlocks are cool though and offer quite the challenge when hunted from the ground at bow hunting distances......They are to hunting what the bamboo fly rod is to fishing!

[Daryl]

I can well recognize that comparison to a bamboo fly rod.
Every summer at the lake, my first rainbow is caught on my late father-in-law's Heddon bamboo rod.
Then it goes back into the sock, then into the plastic tube he built for it's storage. The rod is like new,
except for a crack in the reel seat which is held quite securely with the threaded ringed reel holder. I
surely enjoy casting with it, such a slow sweeping casting stroke.

[Bill in Md]

I can well recognize that comparison to a bamboo fly rod.
Every summer at the lake, my first rainbow is caught on my late father-in-law's Heddon bamboo rod.
Then it goes back into the sock, then into the plastic tube he built for it's storage. The rod is like new,
except for a crack in the reel seat which is held quite securely with the threaded ringed reel holder. I
surely enjoy casting with it, such a slow sweeping casting stroke.

I have an old Heddon from the 1930's that I will restore this coming year, Lord Willing.....I agree that there is something about the soft touch of these rods. For trout they are awesome....For crappie, sunfish and such I use old glass rods. The Phillipson glass rods of the 1950's have that "bamboo" feel yet are bombproof and able to withstand the "boat rash" from being fished from my boat and my canoe ......Old Fenwicks are the "bees knees"......