traditional MLs ?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I still have my first muzzle loader. A *CVA* Kentucky pistol that my dad bought for me in the 70's. Had to take to my history teacher to finish drilling the ramrod hole. He made custom muzzle loaders. Fellow by the name of Gary Brock if I remember correctly. Wish I had picked his brain.

For those you have started wondering, did he tell you anything like this? The general rule with holes is that it is better to do the inside first, and then put the outside around it.

This one doesn't have any hammers. But if I could afford to go back to the heirs of George Gibbs and say "Make me another, please," they would do it exactly the same way a hundred and twenty years later. For nothing inline gives you a safer or more durable gun, or a faster lock time. Is there something else?

[Squeeze]

everyone thinks the inline was invented in 1985. Allens inline action was available since the early 60's and there are many examples dating to the 1700's
from munich firearm museum, these and several more are pre 1800 inline actions

[sharps4590]

That's a fact squeeze. They also were never, even remotely, commonly used.

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

The problem are traditional forums IMO. You get a group that are hardcore snobs and treat new members looking for help, like ****. Seen it done of 2 of the more well known traditional forums and then those new guys leave and find something else or get help elsewhere. Plenty of young shooters, especially on facebook. They need some guidance to help set them in the right, but at times, snobs can really ruin a new guy with poor treatment or IMO, knowledge overload where someone helping completely overloads a post and the guy goes...well, I can't exactly say lol.

[warboar_21]

My neighbor is responsible for my love of traditional muzzleloaders. He took me to a Rendezvous and while there let me shoot his T/C Hawken in 54 cal. I was hooked from then on.
I moved away from the area and when I was old enough to buy a muzzleloader I bought a .50 cal CVA Hawken since I couldn't afford the T/C at the time. I used it to hunt for 3 seasons in Indiana before I moved and joined the Army. Two small bucks fell to it with patched round balls and pyrodex.

When people talk about muzzleloaders the side lock is the only thing that comes to mind. Most are referring to the inlines but I have a hard time calling them muzzleloaders.

To each their own.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N920A using Tapatalk

[dtknowles]

More like finding an inline without a separate ML season would be like hen's teeth. The special season must surely be almost the only reason to own one of those - unless they dodge the background check for those who need to?

If you look at the section for hand-made new muzzle-loaders on www.trackofthewolf.com , it seems plain that people aren't buying those just for an extra season. Plenty of people would shoot muzzle-loaders because they are historically evocative and a technical challenge, just as they do shotguns. Yes, it is possible to improve on performance of the commonest types of muzzle-loading rifles - with small calibre, faster twist shallow rifling, lube-grooved or paper-patched elongated bullets and aperture sights. Do that and you leave the entirely modern inline with scarcely any advantage in performance, and with a rifle that satisfies anyone's percussion rifle regulations.

I am sure my in-line was built because of the special seasons but I don't hunt but like shooting it and experimenting. I shoot smokeless with saboted cast bullets but I have shot REAL's in it too. Some people just like to shoot and this gun saves time at the reloading bench since you don't have to deal with brass, priming is easier, ramming the bullet home is a little more trouble than seating bullets. I don't have to size and lube the bullets.

I have a Hawken but it is hanging over the fire place and I have a New Englander and it get shot some but the 10ML doesn't need the black powder clean up.

In-lines side locks reasons, lots of reasons to shoot what ever you want.

Tim

[dtknowles]

We are the ones who GOT you that special season all predicated on the fallibility of a TRADITIONAL muzzleloader and not those of us who shoot the old ones are swept aside so folks with front loading scoped cartridge guns can hunt an extra season. Grrrr!!!!

Some states let you use a single shot cartridge rifle in the Primitive Season.

Tim

[Hickory]

Some states let you use a single shot cartridge rifle in the Primitive Season.

Tim

What states are those?

[Ballistics in Scotland]

everyone thinks the inline was invented in 1985. Allens inline action was available since the early 60's and there are many examples dating to the 1700's
from munich firearm museum, these and several more are pre 1800 inline actions

Yes, that type of inline flintlock probably dates from the early eighteenth century, though not as early as the breechloader. I have seen several pictures, and the one below may be the example which used to be in the Tower of London, and is probably now in the Royal Armouries in Leeds. A lot of high quality work went into some and even double-barrelled versions are known. The design appears to be of central European origin, and the only one I have seen named was by Wenceslas Morawek. There were various Moraveks in the Bohemian arms industry, and the patent system, if one existed, was so loose that names don't prove much.

The great thing about this design was that it was supposed to be waterproof. With a little grease, or greased tissue if it didn't impede the frizzen too much, it may really have been. I am not sure how they made the barrel rigidly attached and yet permitted access to the ring frizzen spring, which would surely have needed to be grease-packed. It would have been difficult to clean the mechanism or sharpen up the flint. It is possible that it used shaped pyrites, like the wheel-lock.

The position of the flash would have been undesirable. A really efficient flintlock will work upside down, and if this one could be made really efficient, an upside down one would surely have been more comfortable to use.

If they had caught on, I doubt if they would have been more expensive to make than a conventional flintlock. Clearly there were cons and pros. To say they were common would be more than a fact squeeze. But they weren't by any means a freak which found no acceptance.

[dtknowles]

What states are those?

Mississippi "expanding the definition of primitive weapons. In the fall of 2005, a new class of firearms was deemed "primitive" that for the first time included single-shot, breech-loading rifles with exposed hammers that could utilize metallic cartridge, primer-driven, smokeless ammunition. They just had to be .38 caliber or larger."

Louisiana
"Single Shot Breechloading Rifles which are NOT Primitive Weapons:

• Ruger Number 1 and Number 3 (no exposed hammer)
• Thompson Center Contender or Encore Carbines (designed after 1900)
• Mossberg SSi Single Shot Rifle (no exposed hammer and designed after 1900)

Single Shot Breechloading Rifles which are Primitive Weapons:

• Sharps rifles or replicas
• Remington Rollingblock rifles or replicas
• Ballard rifles
• Maynard rifles or carbines
• Burnside carbines
• Frank Wesson rifles
• Farrow rifles
• Remington Hepburn rifles
• M1873 – 1888 Springfield (Trapdoor) Rifles and Carbines and replicas
• Snider (British) rifles or replicas
• Wesson & Harrington 1871 Rifles
• New England Firearms or Harrington & Richardson Handi Rifles in caliber .38 or larger
• Winchester M1885 Hi Wall or Lo Wall rifles or replicas (Also Browning B78 or 1885) .38 or larger
• Knight KP-1 in caliber .38 or larger
• CVA Optima Elite in caliber .38 or larger
• Traditions Pursuit break-open single shot in .38 caliber or larger

I know about these because they are local to me but there might be others.

Tim

[rfd]

wow, i thought i'd seen it all ... a breech load metallic cartridge rifle considered a "primitive weapon". imagine comparing a classic trad .50 flintlock muzzleloading rifle to a '74 sharps .45-70 #1 sporter. wow. geez, i wonder if an exposed hammer RPG will be added to the "primitive" list next? ya think?

[charlie b]

It all depends on what the people in your state lobby for with the game and fish department. Some states still require flintlock and open sights (PA and WA?). Some states call it primitive, some just say muzzleloading.

If you want your state rules changed then go do it.

I don't hunt now days so don't care what it says. I still like all my guns though

[rfd]

as firearm owners and users, whether we gun hunt or not, maybe we should care what the state and fed hunting rules are all about. there always seems to be peripheral effects of most legislation ...

[FergusonTO35]

Mebbe this sounds weird, but when I went inline I still intentionally kept things on the low tech side. I shoot an NEF Huntsman .50. It wears sights, no scope. I use Triple 7 loose powder and Lee REAL boolits that I cast. Other than the T7 all of this could have been invented in the 1800's. Scopes, sabots, pellet powder, jacketed bullets I will not use. Not only because they are more high tech than I am willing to go, but because a .50 caliber rifle doesn't need them!

[Swamp Fox]

Guess I'm the young guy in the crowd. I'm not yet 40 but have been enjoying and hunting with traditional muzzleloader for about 10 years now. My grandfather was a real history and gun lover, and had a decent collection of original and reporduction stuff, mostly civil war but some earlier as well. It gave me an appreciation for them, but I never took off shooting them until I got a muzzleloader in a package gun deal from a coworker. I guess it brought back a lot of memories. I enjoy shooting them, and prefer to hunt with one, both for the challenge and the experience of learning what it was like for our ancestors. I aspire to get a flintlock someday, but haven't had the opportunity and money line up yet. Im about the only one my age I know that uses something other than an inline to extend their hunting season. I have shared it with several, maybe they will take it up later.

All that to say this: Don't give up on the young guys yet, muzzleoading is more of an interest that comes with age. I've always been interested in history, others still haven't discovered it. Or if I'm wrong I'm going to buy lots of really nice rifles for cheap.

[rfd]

get y'all some trad ml vintage stoke of yesteryear (with a bit o' bpcr in there as well )... www.bpgang.com/images.html

[slim1836]

Never had an inline but have a dozen side locks ranging from .45 to .58 cal. Some are cap locks, some are flinters, some pistols, some rifles. Love them all and will probably never own an inline. Still looking for a .32 cal. squirrel rifle at a bargain.

I still start fires with flint and steel when camping, throw hawks and knives, have long bows, and never owned a compound bow.

Guess I'm old school, each to their own.

Slim

[bignut]

Well said, I prefer some guns and styles over others, but don't tell me I have to have certain powders, cloths, etc.. . I love history and like to see period stuff, but have neither time, money, nor availability for all these gadgets and fuferaw. I'll do what pleases me, and others should do the same.

[sharps4590]

rfd I enjoyed the pictures of those paintings. In one the water looked almost as if I was standing next to a creek here in the Ozarks looking into it.

If you want to know of a really, really goofy season you should check into what Missouri Dept. of Conservation did to what used to be "muzzleloading season". With a method of reasoning yet to be determined by anyone with a lick of sense about firearms they decided to include handguns such as the Contender, scoped or not, firing rifle cartridges, revolvers and even those short things built on the AK are legal. Of course they had to change the name so it's now called "Alternative Season". Oddly black powder cartridge rifles are not allowed but you can use an in-line with sabot's that have identical ballistics....or a Contender in 45-70 loaded to the max. of the handgun. Soooo.....lemme see here.....I can use a smokeless powder cartridge in a modern handgun with a scope that generates greater ballistics than a 45-70 loaded with the standard 405 gr. bullet and between 60 and 65 grs. of black but I can't use the 45-70 so loaded? Ah well....no one has EVER accused MDC of having thimble full of sense about ballistics.

[Fly]

rfd I enjoyed the pictures of those paintings. In one the water looked almost as if I was standing next to a creek here in the Ozarks looking into it.

If you want to know of a really, really goofy season you should check into what Missouri Dept. of Conservation did to what used to be "muzzleloading season". With a method of reasoning yet to be determined by anyone with a lick of sense about firearms they decided to include handguns such as the Contender, scoped or not, firing rifle cartridges, revolvers and even those short things built on the AK are legal. Of course they had to change the name so it's now called "Alternative Season". Oddly black powder cartridge rifles are not allowed but you can use an in-line with sabot's that have identical ballistics....or a Contender in 45-70 loaded to the max. of the handgun. Soooo.....lemme see here.....I can use a smokeless powder cartridge in a modern handgun with a scope that generates greater ballistics than a 45-70 loaded with the standard 405 gr. bullet and between 60 and 65 grs. of black but I can't use the 45-70 so loaded? Ah well....no one has EVER accused MDC of having thimble full of sense about ballistics.

Wow now that makes no sense. Maybe use a modern rifle if you shoot a deer standing on your head, makes as much sense.

Geeeeezzzzzzzzzzz Fly