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"......

[Edm1]

I worked as a volunteer at the Vicksburg National Military Park at age 13.  Fell in love with Black Powder.  That Christmas my parents gave me a Tc Hawkin kit that my dad and I built.  Also bought a kentucky pistol from a guy for $25.  We spent a lot of time learning the ins and outs of BP together with those 2.  Then as I got older I started building. 

[NDduckhunter]

My mom’s friend had a TC hawken she wanted to sell,  so my mom brought me over to the lady’s place to look at it and we bought it for $100. I was 12 or 13 maybe. Been shooting black powder ever since. My mom also bought me an original Springfield 1816 musket, I can’t recall where she got it, but I bet she got it cheap.I don’t think we owned a gun that we paid over $150 for till the late 1990’s, lol. Kiblers kits are introducing folks into flintlocks in a very profound way, I personally know guys who would not have tried the sport if Kiblers kits weren’t available. Lately I’ve been watching Daniel Boone at night before I go to bed, great show.

[reddogge]

The T/C Hawken kit was my second M/L. The first was a Zoli Navy Arms Zouave around the late 60s. I could never get that thing to shoot right so I sold it to a re-enactor who accuratized it, shot an improved minie ball design, and won trophies with it.

[Robert Wolfe]

I built a TC flintlock Hawken kit in 1974 or 5. That was a lot of lawnmowing money at the time but it started me down the road.

[hanshi]

While Davey Crockett was a great show to watch and expanded my interest in muzzleloaders, It was my natural curiosity and love of guns that actually got me started.  My first rifle was an H&A .45 underhammer.  A year or two after that I got a flintlock Minute Man.  That was back in the 1960s.  A couple of others made their way to me along with a c&b revolver.  Never had much interest in the T/C guns.  It would be quite a few years before I finally got my first "custom" built rifle.  It seems, however, that I always had 2 or 3 MLs around to play with.  A good looking gun is simply lots more fun to shoot than an ugly one.

[Pukka Bundook]

Hanshi,
What you say resonates with me too.

Growing up in the Uk, we had a natural choice of lots of original muzzle loaders and being so interested in these and history, they were my first guns, and set a pretty tall order on what to expect of any reproduction.
Bought my first original for 9 Pounds, and another I still have for 20 Pounds.

Wonderful times!