Haggis
Appalachian Ridgerunner
The Other Black Rifle…
I have a confession to make…please don’t heap scorn upon me…I don’t own a semi-auto rifle. Gasp…I know… that’s pretty lame but there it is. Thought about picking one up, shot quite a few but in the end I was like…meh. As putting game on the table is my prime reason for gun ownership and semi-auto rifles are illegal to hunt with here in the Keystone State it doesn’t make much sense to own one other than for target shooting fun. And as I already have too many money depleting hobbies I’ve passed on tacticool gun ownership. But… there is a black rifle that I love…black powder that is.
I’ve been shooting, building, and running the woods with smokepoles since I first learned to shoot, and that was a while ago. Heck I even won a national shooting championship with one back in my helicon high school days. That didn’t help me get a girlfriend though, I guess a guy in buckskins and a possible bag slung over his shoulder was considered a geek. Go figure. What started off with a simple CVA Kentucky rifle kit soon became a whole slew of flintlocks and percussion guns. The attention to detail that is involved in firing and caring for one, the history surrounding them and the fact that you’ve got one shot to get it done is what drew me. This also led to buck hide brain tanning, flint napping and a whole lot of winter days tracking down a tasty critter to put on a plate. Oh yeah, we’re getting all Jeremiah Johnson and Natty Bumpo in here.
It wasn’t long until a couple of muzzle loading shotguns were in the rack and out hunting down bunnies and geese. Ain’t nothing more frightening to a flight of setting ganders than a load roar and the billowing of blackpowder smoke out of a cornfield blind. A sweet little .36 caliber Pennsylvania long rifle with curly cherry stock and German Silver hardware was built up for chasing squirrels and a good old Thompson Center Renegade was modded to my specs for chasing them there fuzzy heads. I still hunt with that gun today. Heck I’ve even dappled with an inline muzzleloader despite my protests against its non-traditional ways. My dad actually bought me one and forced it onto me just so we could go hunting together during the early season.
So is there any other flint-napping, sulphur sniffing, retro real old school lovers of the muzzle loader? And for the doubters just remember that during the start of the Revolutionary War the Pennsylvania Long Rifle with its Rifled barrel was the tacticool rifle of the period and the bane of British and Hessian officers.
I have a confession to make…please don’t heap scorn upon me…I don’t own a semi-auto rifle. Gasp…I know… that’s pretty lame but there it is. Thought about picking one up, shot quite a few but in the end I was like…meh. As putting game on the table is my prime reason for gun ownership and semi-auto rifles are illegal to hunt with here in the Keystone State it doesn’t make much sense to own one other than for target shooting fun. And as I already have too many money depleting hobbies I’ve passed on tacticool gun ownership. But… there is a black rifle that I love…black powder that is.
I’ve been shooting, building, and running the woods with smokepoles since I first learned to shoot, and that was a while ago. Heck I even won a national shooting championship with one back in my helicon high school days. That didn’t help me get a girlfriend though, I guess a guy in buckskins and a possible bag slung over his shoulder was considered a geek. Go figure. What started off with a simple CVA Kentucky rifle kit soon became a whole slew of flintlocks and percussion guns. The attention to detail that is involved in firing and caring for one, the history surrounding them and the fact that you’ve got one shot to get it done is what drew me. This also led to buck hide brain tanning, flint napping and a whole lot of winter days tracking down a tasty critter to put on a plate. Oh yeah, we’re getting all Jeremiah Johnson and Natty Bumpo in here.
It wasn’t long until a couple of muzzle loading shotguns were in the rack and out hunting down bunnies and geese. Ain’t nothing more frightening to a flight of setting ganders than a load roar and the billowing of blackpowder smoke out of a cornfield blind. A sweet little .36 caliber Pennsylvania long rifle with curly cherry stock and German Silver hardware was built up for chasing squirrels and a good old Thompson Center Renegade was modded to my specs for chasing them there fuzzy heads. I still hunt with that gun today. Heck I’ve even dappled with an inline muzzleloader despite my protests against its non-traditional ways. My dad actually bought me one and forced it onto me just so we could go hunting together during the early season.
So is there any other flint-napping, sulphur sniffing, retro real old school lovers of the muzzle loader? And for the doubters just remember that during the start of the Revolutionary War the Pennsylvania Long Rifle with its Rifled barrel was the tacticool rifle of the period and the bane of British and Hessian officers.
