Where did your Black Powder addiction come from? Where you at now?

[Deadeye Bly]

Watching Davy Crockett on TV in the 50's was my first inspiration and I wanted a flintlock rifle but I was much too young. In my late teen years some neighbors had a keg of black blasting powder that was probably 50 years old at the time. We experimented trying to make firecrackers with limited success. I made a cannon out of a bicycle tire pump that shot D size flashlight batteries at the corn crib. It's a wonder we didn't blow ourselves up but I was always very careful. Later on a friend bought some old single barrel shotgun barrels at an auction for a few bucks. I took one and made a muzzle loading shotgun out of one with some parts from Dixie Gun Works. the movie Jeremiah Johnson inspired me to make my first Hawken rifle. Then Virginia started a primitive rifle season for flintlock only so I ordered a kit from Dixie and built one. I finally had my flintlock rifle I had wanted as a kid. I spent some years with a Rev War re-enactment unit during and after the bicentennial.Then I got into shooting in the N-SSA with Civil War rifled muskets. In 1992 I started shooting BPCR silhouette with a Sharps rifle. In 2024 I'm still shooting in the N-SSA and shooting BPCR silhouette. That's about it.

[JFoster48386]

I gotta be honest. A Quigley Sharps is on my wish list too...

Jon.

[armoredman]

How did I get addicted to the Holy Black? I blame @LAGS...

[Kraschenbirn]

Around 1974 (or, maybe, 75) I worked with a guy whose father was Commanding Officer (he owned the cannon...a 6-pounder, relined to shoot beer cans filled with Sakrete) of 'Battery C, 1st Illinois Light Artillery. Being something of a history buff, I got interested and, eventually, ended up with a set of red-striped blues and a '63 Remington 'Zouave'. The rest, as they say is history...currently, three 1885 Winchesters, two Rolling Blocks, and a Trapdoor carbine.

Bill

[JFoster48386]

I wanted to buy and shoot a handgun ... but I wasn't old enough ... you had to be either 18 or 21 to buy a handgun in Louisiana at the time and I wasn't ... this was about 1963 or 1964 ... but the shop owner showed me a Replica Colt 1851 Navy cap & ball revolver that he said I was old enough to buy ... and the price was only $35 ! Who-Wee I left the shop with the 1851 Navy , lead balls , black powder and percussion caps and that got me off on a life-long addiction to Handguns and Black Powder . Own several and still enjoy shooting them .
Never did get into rifles ... handguns always were my love and main interest .
Gary

Man, I hope you still have that 1851.

Jon.

[square butte]

Old Davy kicked it off - Then a local gun shop and it's gunsmiths ( Jackson's Arms ) , Dixie Gun Works , and the NMLRA - Those were the culprits along with a healthy appetite for things that make a good bang and a lot of smoke & fire - And a great love for history with the desire to be a rugged and self reliant individual

[Lead pot]

For me it started back in 1952 when my Mother bought me a .22 single shot rifle to help put food on the table. She sent me to Town to have Spike, the fellow at the gun shop that sold her the rifle to teach me how to use that rifle. Spike was different from other people I knew. I peddled my bike to town with the .22 over the handle bars and saw Spike. The first thing Spike said before we go in the back yard to shoot you have to drink a spike special after that long bike trip into town. Well that Spike special was a mix of orange juice and cream that looked like cottage cheese LOL, but I downed it and it was pretty good
Well I spent a lot of time with spike and he told me stories of his Dad and Grandpa being a hide hunter. Very interesting fellow.
Spike got me into black powder, he said we only use black powder in these rifles I will let you shoot. He took one off the rack and we went out the back door and he handed ne a very long shell and it was a .22 Stevens, man that shell was 2" long and it was loaded with black. That got me hooked. A couple years later I found a NRA magazine and in the back pages were guns for sale and I saw a 11mm rolling block for $14. and some sharps for around $30.+ well I spent all summer hay season stacking hay bales in the haymow till I had and I sent for that roller. It turned out being a .43 Spanish. Man how time has changed since I was a Kid. Well Spike shows me how to load those shells with black powder and Since then except the time in the 82'nd spending time behind the M-60 I spent time with the BPCR's and till just these couple years I went from using 4 cases plus a year to less then 3 lbs last year because of eye damage caused from the heavy recoiling rifles like the .50-90 with a 700 gr+ bullet or the large capacity .44 BN shells, but got most of my vision back so back at it again this coming season.

Kurt

[Chill Wills]

Lead Pot - I am glad to hear your vision is doing better! By extension, getting back out to shoot!

[Lead pot]

TNX. Chill.

It happen twice these last years at the Quigley. I should have parked the heavy recoiling rifles after the first when the eye Doc regimented over at Miles City, but it's hard to break giving up what you really like.
Pulled down the Southern Mountain rifle yesterday because the temp is warm at .40º out now but it has a 42" long barrel and I cant see the front sight.
Have to make one I can see.

[greyhawk]

TNX. Chill.

It happen twice these last years at the Quigley. I should have parked the heavy recoiling rifles after the first when the eye Doc regimented over at Miles City, but it's hard to break giving up what you really like.
Pulled down the Southern Mountain rifle yesterday because the temp is warm at .40º out now but it has a 42" long barrel and I cant see the front sight.
Have to make one I can see.

Good to hear you are getting it back
You will do ok with open sights if you make em big enough you can see em

I am up to 1/8" wide steel blade for fronts now (have one with 4mm wide) - getting to where I can shoot a smaller group at 100 than what the front sight covers (benched of course) ---
I reckon coarse is better than blurry.......................

[45workhorse]

Dang, CRS just hit...
Received a CVA Kentucky pistol kit for Christmas. Had to get my History teacher to drill the ram rod hole. He built muzzle loaders.
Went into a gun store in Greenville IN, they had the black powder Colt series pistols all calibers.... that Colt Walker caught my eye.
When they were moving to a bigger store, I left the store with that Colt under my arm, 17-18 years old and a $750+- dollar gun under my arm, with a hand shake.
Every two weeks I was at his new shop, making payments.

Made myself a blue jean material holster complete with a leg tie down! I don't know how many days I walked the Indiana side of Ohio river shooting both guns. Louisville KY on the other side. (Don't try it today!)

Joined a Black Powder Club in 2004, if I wasn't working I was there, second Sunday of the month. Now that I am semi-retired I am there every meet.

[LynC2]

Like most kids growing up, I watched Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and other tv shows. When I found out Daniel Boone was an ancestor (through his daughter that had been kidnapped by the Indians) it just added fuel to the fire. Then not much later I discovered that my great great grandfather had been a buffalo hunter in Texas and had survived three Comanche massacres in that period according to his obituary. Needless to say I was hooked at an early age.

[M-Tecs]

I had killed my first buck with a bow when I was 10 but I could not legally hunt deer with a rifle until I was 14. Dad may or may not have let me shoot a couple of deer and an antelope using his license before I was 14. You could take one buck per the type of license you had so I wanted a muzzleloader so I could take 3 bucks a year. One each for archery, muzzleloading and centerfire rifle but at times depending on population one or two doe bonus tags were available. I wanted a TC Hawken's but they were out of my price range so I ended up with an Interarms copy of the TC Hawken. It shot as well as the later TC's that I owned.

[Eddie Southgate]

My grandfather, Bailey Wright Southgate was a gunsmith in Nashville who collected Remington revolvers. His brother, Royland , built custom muzzle loaders in Franklin Tennessee signed R. Southgate on the barrel and lock , all hand made . I was kinda born into it .

[John in PA]

Around 1974, I bought a Hopkins and Allen Minuteman kit (long rifle) from Numrich Arms. Started a fairly long string of muzzleloaders, handguns and long guns. Then around 1992 I joined the N-SSA, have been shooting cannons, mortars, as well as Musket, Carbine, and Henry rifle in N-SSSA competition ever since. I have a 10-pdr Parrott Rifle (South Bend Replicas, Paulson Brothers rifled liner, on a Stafford Carriage with Limber) which I've shot in competition as well as reenactments and living history for the National Park Service. I have NO idea how many pounds of GOEX I've gone through over the last 30+ years, but it's got to be well over a thousand, mostly through the Parrott and 24-pdr Coehorn mortar (also N-SSA competition). Still shooting N-SSA, quit reenacting a couple years ago. Hoping they'll get the Grayling Michigan Historic Artillery Match going again, where we've been very successful over quite a few years. Most fun you can have with your clothes on...

https://youtu.be/QVZkuK0NjoA?si=hl3OR8jRmd73tGtO

BTW, my photo to left shows 2 variations of the 7 lb cannon pellets (3" diameter) that we use in the Parrott for N-SSA 200 yd target competition. For Grayling, we use authentic 10 lb solid shot with brass sabots, and 1 lb 1F GOEX per shot, a full service charge, for 1000-1200 yard target competition.

[Electrod47]

Jeremiah Johnson............Still in the Army when it came out and had to have one. Bought the kit soon as I got out. Some reason I was hung up on ,45 caliber and went with that on my first rifle. There after all the rest 50 cal. One of my hundred gun regrets that I let my Ruger Old Army go long ago for Stupid Stupid reasons. Basically, I thought I'd pick up another down the road.....yeah, right.

[dverna]

Never got bit by the BP bug. There was no attraction. Mediocre to poor accuracy and a pain to clean.

[HWooldridge]

Never got bit by the BP bug. There was no attraction. Mediocre to poor accuracy and a pain to clean.

One of the most accurate rifles I ever owned was a .54 Santa Fe Hawken. It would stack balls at 50 yards and stay on a playing card at 100. Only reason I sold it was because I couldn’t see the front sight anymore…that was a sad day for me but the new owner killed two deer with it during his first season.

[Babbott213]

Probably when I bought my first Original Winchester Model 73 about 12 or so years ago. Manufactured in 1879 and had assistance from our old friend who has since passed on, w44wcf. May he Rest in Peace. He helped me with bullet selections and powder loads for the old girl. Been hooked on the black stuff ever since. Now I just bought my first muzzle loader, so my addiction has now gotten worse. 🤣

[DAVIDMAGNUM]

March 2013
I had been trying to find an accurate load in my 44WCF 1873 Spaghetti-Chester. Just for fun I tried Goex (2F I think). That was fun !! It wasn't very accurate but I noticed cleanup of a lever action rifle is so much easier than a traditional muzzle loader. I found the infamous John Kort on another forum. He suggested using Swiss 2F and a milder primer . I had tried Winchester LP with Goex, switched to CCI#300 with Swiss. WOW! The most accurate and most powerful load I had tried up to then. I was hooked. A couple of years later I got a Uberti/Remington New Army conversion in 44WCF. Talk about a fire breathing dragon. I now load 357 magnum and 45-70 with black powder for the fun of it.
If it wasn't easy, fun and accurate I wouldn't do it. But it is all three. Through trades and purchases I came into a few pounds of Goex Cartridge and Elephant. I have been able to use them with satisfactory results also.
.......and the adventure continues.