Traditional Firearms
 

Just wondering how many traditional firearms /re-enactment enthusiests there are out there? I noticed in the Archery forum there is a "traditional bow" section. I put in a request/wish in the technical forum for a traditional firearm forum as well. I know we have the black powder forum, but there is a HUGE gap between a traditional firearm and a modern muzzleloader.

Anyways, just wanted to get some posts going about Ye old smoke poles. I have a 50 Cal. Hawkin and pioneer style 50 cal pistol, both in cap lock. I am just getting into the Fir Trade era reenactment and going on "primitive hunts" with those in my community who share my interests. I may be looking to get a 54 cal. Great Plains or Trade rifle in a flint lock. Any suggestions?

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

I started shooting black powder in 1954 when a kid I knew had a British Home Guard rifle he'd purchased while his father was stationed in England. It was a .58 cal. sidleock with arotating wedge system breechblock that made it a breechloader-for the first three or four shots, after which the breechplug was so crapped up it would no longer open. From that point on, you had to load from the muzzle!

Then I built a DGW Kentucky kit, a .45 caplock which some turkey later stole out of my mother's den, where it was hanging over the fireplace. My next project was a Bedford County flintlock, a .45, which turned out nice. I gave it to a friend. Since then I've built a flintlock fullstock Hawken (.58) with a Green River Rifle Works barrel, and am now working on a .73-cal. flintlock Jaeger. In the late 60's, I was fortunate enough to purchase two Hawkens made by Virgil Hartley in Indianapolis using Bill Large barrels-these two are extremely powerful and accurate rifles! I also have two inlines, a .45 and a .50, which I have zeroed in but never use, a Jedediah Smith Coimmemorative Hawken, and a Navy Arms "Hawken Hunter " with 1/22" twist for shooting heavy conicals. I use the Lyman 342-grain 457122 HP (Gould) bullet sized to .451" in it.

I like the flintlocks best of all! They're fun, and a challenge to shoot!

Bill Large barrels shoot well!



I personally think a flintlock should be a fullstock, but that Lyman Great Plains rifle is about as close to the architecture of a real Hawken as you can get in a production rifle - AND they shoot well!

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Sounds like you know your rifles!

I may have a friend build mine. I want a 54 cal flinter in the trade gun style. He makes a beautifull rifle and usually gets some great wood for a stock (full stock would be my preference in the flinter too). He also does soem great carving work on the stock to give a more personal look. Hopefully I can help him build it, or just have him guide me along...

keep your powder dry!

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

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Awe C'mon!

If you're going to take that plunge..... break into the wife's piggy bank[:@]anddrop the jaws ofthose enactors when you show up the very first day. This make belowhas got your name written all over one of these models.... you just figure out which one it is.

http://www.austinhalleck.com/AH-Mountain.html

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Nice looking rifles, but I still think i am looking for a full stock.

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

i shoot a T/C 50 cal hawken flinter.......when im done with college i plan on building a few flinters......big bore....and a small bore for squirrels and such.........till then...the hawken makes smoke just as good as anthing

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

The Great Plains & Trade are not full-stock in traditional lingo... I think! I'm not into reenactment so I don't know for sure. Ialways thoughtthe rifles with stock all the way to the muzzle are full-stocks. Ihave always looked atthe one-piece ones like the Lymans & A & Hsas beingmore "modern traditional". I just prefer the wood, looks & shouldering of the Mountain rifle over the Great Plains.

I own one of these below in percussion. It's a wall hanger rifle that I hardly shoot.

http://www.basspro.com/servlet/catalog.CFPage?&mode=article&objectID=2875 8&cat=Gear&subcatID=0&objectType=artic le

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

I also own and hunt with a number of traditional rifles. They range in caliber from .50 all the way to .62 caliber smoothbores. This includes flintlocks and percussion rifles. In fact the most accurate rifle I own that sports open sights is a .58 caliber Green Mountian Barrel that sits in a T/C Renegade stock. The rifle hasa 1-70 twist and will lay roundballs out at 100 yards with 110 grains of Goex 2f all day with the best of them. My flintlock rifles are also excellent shooters with good fast locks and the right load, they are nothing to over look. My biggest problem is deciding which rifle gets to go hunting with me that day....

I also shoot a number of inline rifles, all .50 caliber. Most of them are used in the modern rifle season.

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

I'm not 100% sure where the breakdown on full or half stock is, especially when your talking historical accuracy (full stock being wood all the way to the muzzle). My observation when looking around at shoots with the re-enactment group I'm with is your later period (post 1800) rifles incorporated the 1/2 stock. You see them in the Hawkin and Great Plains style rifles. Your earlier frontier period (pre-1800) rifles had the full stocks. You see them a lot in the Kentuky and Tennessee style rifles.

I'll post this inthe re-enactment forum I'm in. There is a few history nuts in that group and I should get a thorough response as to the "what is what".

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Early periods, check some of the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Jaeger, and Cumberland style rifles... http://www.earlyrusticarms.com/main.htm take a look at some of his rifles.. That's where I am headed next is a early Lancaster rifle in the big bore caliber. The bigger the better, but I am going with a rifle and not a smoothbore.... I had my fill of the smoothbores already with my .62 caliber...

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

I've seen that site before.

I'm trying to stay in the late 18th/ early 19th century era. Here is a couple sites I like:

http://www.northstarwest.com/index.html

http://www.possibleshop.com/

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Here is a little info from a freind of mine, Charlie Starks, about full and half stocks relative to traditional muzzleloader history. He is on the board of trustees for the TraditionalMuzzleloader Association http://www.traditionalmuzzleloadingassociation.org/
He knows his history and is also a great part time gun builder & gunsmith.

"well both have been around along time so to narrow it down some we
must ask where , what country we are talking about . german and dutch
makers made some very fine half stock rifles and fowlers as did the
french i believe.

here in the Americas thought Its my understanding that the half
stock or plain rifles didn't real become to prominent until about
the time of European involvement onto the plains .
Before them full stock was the order of the day . Sure you will
find original trade guns that are half stock however I believe this
was from damage being done to the forstock and thus the stock
shortened .
With everything else though even all full stock rifles are not the
same . Commonly English rifles as well as some American made ones
can be found with heavy fronts while those with French and German
influence are normally very light on wood in the front . This also
changes with grade within the same rifle line so its not a stead
fast rule

There still is a lot of discussion of why the difference in weight
and length to the shorter and heavier weapons of the plains . Many
think this was due to the use of the horse . While others lean to
the greater knowledge of ballistics and how weapons work thus
making the transition a natural evolution of the weapon
What we do know when it comes to the plains style rifles that the
most popular know of them , the hawken
While probably sought after ,was most likely not very prevalent
during the fur trade . There has been a lot of information put out
about the hawken bros here recently and the common consensus seems
to be that the hawken rifle " or what we know as the hawken"didn't
come to prevalence until about 1842-43 and even then the bros were
only putting out close to 100 weapons a year while other makers like
Larson and Wilkins were putting out close to 500.

One thing is we are living in interesting times right now , lots of
people digging into history now so a lot of new info is coming to
light . What was common knowledge yesterday is not being debunked
today"

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Just got into flintlocks last spring and built this .62cal. Virginia smoothbore for spring gobbler hunting and just this month finish this .54cal. Bucks County Rifle for deer and hog this year.

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Ifly...that is one sweet looking flinter! What kinda wood is the stock made of?

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Where I live there's no primitive season, only a general ml season.
I've gone to five different gunshops here in lower Quebec and only one place carries a flintlock. Dumbest thing I ever saw!!! A flint lock with a synthetic stock! It was a Lyman. I can't beleive they put their name on that! It's a real shame there's no market for them in my area. I love bp
and all I find is modern stuff. Even that's hard to come by. Only two shops carry bp and everything's always coverd in dust! And there's almost no selection of anything. I miss the states... last time in Maine,
I went to a shop that makes magazine hill in Nove scotia look like an ant farm!

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

I prefer traditional muzzle loaders,and do not own or shoot any of the 30 gajillion "modern muzzleloaders" on the market now. If I am going to shot modern rifles, it will be with a cartridge gun, thank you very much!
That said,I havefour flinters and a percussion rifle. The percussion rifle is an almost thirty year old T/C Hawken. Yeah, it looks about as much like a Hawken as my F150 looks like a Corvette, but it is good, servicable traditional rifle. My flinters are an older Dixie Tennesee Mountain Rifle in .32, a TOTW parts gun I built as a southern style mountain rifle in .45, and a Jim Chambers 20 bore Pennsylvania Fowler. Last is an Italian "M1803 Harper's Ferry" copy in .54. As close to a real M1803 as the T/C is to a Hawken, but I've reworked it into a decent shooter. Hardened the frizzen, polished and rehardened the sear and tumbler. It will work until I can build a better M1803 from TOTW parts.

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

Grapeshot: I can understand how you can't find many "primitive guns" up your way if your regs don't call for a traditional gun. For many hunters they want to go with the most reliable and accurate equipment out there, and those modern inlines deliver reliability (sealed breach so the powder won't get wet) and accuracy out to 200 yard.

Comparitably, there is only a handfull of us "traditionalists" that like the added challenge of a primitive weapon. It's more of a personal thing to know you just harvested an animal with an ol' smoke pole.

We have traditional hunts here in Idaho that call forthe rifle to beopen breach loaded withblack powder or pyrodex and apatched round ball. That synthetic Lyman flinter would actually qualify for that hunt, but I think it would be better suited as a boat anchor.

Even with that, the market is pretty week as far as finding traditional weapons on the shelves. We had a great gun shop here that stocked a lot of good traditional guns and accessories, but the owner died and his widow shut the place down. A freind of mine (and primitive gun builder/shooter) and I were talking. I suggested he start up a shop. He said that there just isn't the market for it, especially when everyone seems to want to get the modern guns. Plus he said it is even harder to compete with the internet shops, where a guy can get just about any type traditional gun made if he looks hard enough.

RE: Traditional Firearms
 

IFly, That .62 Virginia smoothbore is fabulous! I'd prefer rifling, but that's a great gun you built - you are obviously talented!