Hey there,
I have a dilemma. It is a gun buying dilemma as our kind often have. I really want a smoothbore in .62 cal/20ga like one of the Northwest trade guns. The first time I seriously started reading about them was about 5 years ago and since that time there have not been many months that go by where I did not think about having one. I am currently looking at getting a kit such as one of the North Star West, or Track of the Wolf kits. How are these as far as the quality of the parts?
I have also been very enamored with the Jaeger rifles and would love one of those as well. However my wallet will not allow both at the moment, so I am having a hard time deciding which route to go. I live in dense woods and shots are typically fairly close. I do hunt some fields though and shots can get a little over 100 yds. Mostly I hunt whitetail, but would like the option to be able to hunt small game and bird. This is where having a smoothbore would be very nice. I wonder though if having a smoothbore would be very limiting as far as the reduced range? In the next year we are moving up to the norther part of Minnesota so the hunting conditions will be similar.
The Yaeger is the most beautiful muzzleloading rifle in my eye and I would really like one, however the versatility of the smoothbore seems like it might be better. I do have a Hawkins rifle in .50 cal and never really cared for it too much. In fact it has only been shot once in over ten years. Part of that is because I shoot a lot of cartridge guns so most of my time has been using lever actions and single shots in that time.
So I am thinking that maybe the smoothbore would make more sense right now since I have a rifled muzzleloader and then at some point I could get the Jaeger. The only problem with this is that I was thinking about selling the Hawkins to fund this new purchase. Ahhhh what to do? Also if I am going to get the .62 smoothbore then it would make more sense to have a Yaeger in .62 so as to have only one round ball to cast.
So what do you guys think? I know that was a lot to read so thanks in advance for taking the time to read and respond.
Greebe