I first started when I was about 9 years old with my grandpa. He had a double barrel Parker shotgun that had 3 brass caps between the toe of the butt and the back of the trigger guard. Under the caps were inlaid brass tubes.In one he kept caps. What the other 2 where for I haven't a clue. He had a little brass cup with a twisted wire handle and he used that to measure out the powder(Dupont I think) and the shot. We used crumpled up newspaper as an over the powder and shot wad. I remember on of my jobs was to stomp out the smoldering wads. We killed quite a few squirrels with it on the farm west of Clinton, Ok. I remember too how hard it was to pull out all the hair that had been carried into the meat by the shot. Also recall getting a lesson in making sure to stomp the heads of the squirrels before picking them up as one wasn't near as dead as I thought he was. Still have the scar on my right thumb. That was 43 years ago. When grandpa died grandma gave shotgun to cousin hope he took care of it.

In the good old days when Daniel Boone in B&W was the most watched weekly TV show, I wanted to be just like him. Made my hat from a dead cat, made my own Bowie knife from some flat steel, made my cartridges by empting out the smokeless from pa's 12ga shells and filling them with cracker powder from those 1c bungers you bought at any corner store.
Dammit, I'm over 50 now an still doing it!!!

Yeah, the TV shows back then were great for a kid. Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett etc. Had a store bought coonskin hat. Also used a towel around the neck to make me a superman cape.

Built a T/C Renegade from a kit due to my association with a hunting friend. Was the most accurate rifle I owned for years. Black powder and lead rule!

Got started at age 11 with a CVA Kentucky in .45 that I was given as a kit. My father said if I take the time to put it together right he knows I am serious and we can shoot it after that.

Still got it and several more to boot. I am 35 now.

Fess Parker rules!!

Technically, I have yet to take my first game with my muzzle loader, but the thing that got me started was our state regulations. The area that I hunt deer in is restricted to slug guns, hand guns, and muzzle loaders. I've been seriously looking to upgrade the accuracy of my smooth bore with fosters slugs for the last couple of years and was considering rifled slug guns or a striker or encore in .308. Last fall after deer season was closed, I decided on neither and went with a muzzle loader because 1)it extends my deer season (which was 2 days) 2)It is cheaper and more pleasant to shoot than 12 guage slugs. 3) I don't reload yet, so I probably wouldn't have gotten the most out of a striker or encore.

I got started in college. I had two kids, and was very broke, but wanted a pistol. I went to a gun show, almost at the close on the last day. A dealer there had a Kentucky Pistol kit, with some of the furniture missing. I had received $15 for my birthday, and I talked him into selling it to me for that amount.

I worked on that pistol all winter, and believe me, it was beautiful. I was too broke to buy powder and ball, so one of my friends gave me a few .45 cal ball.

Being totally ignorant of black powder, I cut down a shotgun shell and dumped the ENTIRE shell's worth of powder down the pistol barrel. I tried to set it off with a kid's roll of caps.

Fortunately for me, God watches out for Idiots!!!, and it never went off. Later, when I could afford possibles, I did not know to swab between shots, and ended up seating the ball about 1/2 of the way down the barrel and shooting it a number of times. God was still watching...

Finally, an experienced BP shooter took me under his wing and trained me on proper procedure.

Later I got another broken kit, this time a CVA Hawkin. Still being broke, I worked on it all winter (because I could not afford ammo, I spent a lot of extra time polishing everything) and made it into a very pretty gun. This was when CVA used good walnut for the stocks.

I have put about 5000 rounds through that Hawkin, and have won a number of club matches with it, and also matches at Rendevous shoots and at the Territorial Match.

I have since graduated to a custom underhammer rifle, but I still have a soft spot for that old Hawkin.

At one time you could buy real cheap imported copies of something that resembled a colt navy. Cost was about $40 bucks or so. All you really needed to do was file,sand,polish and finish the grips. Then I'd sell them for about $50-$60 bucks. I'd take about 2-3 hours to do one but could do it at the kitchen table at night while watching tv.

At age 15, I had a friend who bought a .58 cal. English caplock "breechloader". We got a pound of powder, and proceeded to shoot patched marbles in it for target shooting, using LR primers wrapped in aluminum foil! Most of them remained intact, and after about 5 rounds, the breech system became so fouled it would not open. But this was good, because bnlowback from the breech stopped at that point also. Shooting it was so much fun, I bought a Dixie .45 cal Penn. rifle kit, and built myself one. I have built several ML rifles since then, but that was the only kit.

Did any of you make bicycle spoke guns or the match head guns made from clothes pins?

Eldeguello,
That English rifle, was it a Furgeson patern breach loader?

BTW, I am almost afraid to ask, what made you choose deguello for your handle?

Re spoke guns.

I never made spoke guns, but I made firecracker guns. My brother and I would take a two foot piece of 1/2" EMT and bend one end almost shut. We would drop a firecracker down the tube and pull the fuse through the hole at the bottom. After that, we dropped a marble down the muzzel and lit the fuze. It shot pretty good, and we were about to get the hang of aiming the thing when my father caught us. ouch.

[ 05-09-2003, 06:20: Message edited by: El Viejo ]

El Viejo, I am not sure what pattern the breech action on this gun was. It was supposedly a sporting rifle that was made in the British military caliber, and it also had a British government military ladder-pattern rear sight with a large silver bead front sight. The idea was that it was supposedly a "militia" arm, which could be used for sporting purposes, but could be used with British miltary ammo also if the owner was called to duty in the English Home Guard.

The action had a lever on the right side parallel to the barrel, which, when rotated up and back, removed a centrally located locking bolt up and out from behind a sliding breechplug, which then could be thumbed back out of the barrel breech. The ball was dropped in, then powder was poured into the breech behind the ball. The block was then thumbed back into place in the breech, and the lever rotated forward and down, locking the breechplug closed. Then you cocked it and placed a cap on the nipple, aimed and fired. It was a simple and easy to operate action, but, as I mentioned, the breechplug, locking bolt, and lever fouled up so badly after four or five rounds that the breech could no longer be operated!! It then became a muzzleloader. Fortunately, it had a nice strong wooden ramrod in pipes under the barrel that it could be loaded from the muzzle without having to carry a rod separately.

The rifle weighed about 7 pounds. It had a half-round, half-octagon 24" barrel, was nicely fitted, a figured walnut stock, and a lightly engraved lockplate and trigger guard. All metal fittings were iron or steel, and beautifully browned with a Damascus pattern on the barrel. I suspect it was a "gentleman's hunting rifle" originally, and could be used for military purposes as well. My friend bought this gun in England in the 1950's, and paid around 10 pounds for it. These values are long gone!!

At one time, I was contemplating joining the SASS, and needed a handle. I thought El Deguello sounded like a bad-ass Mexican Border killer/bandido, and a close relative of Antonio Lopez D' Santa Ana!!

[ 05-09-2003, 17:50: Message edited by: eldeguello ]

It is not a Ferguson, which was a flinter produced in small numbers in the Revolutionary War. Later, I think that a percussion was made in the USA, using the same pattern, but called a "Halls" pattern.

Hall's pattern opens from the front of the chamber, this sounds like a "monkey-tail" (dang CRS prevents greater accuracy!).

However, it is ALL great stuff!

As a boy, maybe two or three years old, my parents let me watch a friend of theirs cast little round balls for his muzzleloader. I was entirely intrigued by those shiny little things.

Maybe 12 years later, a friend from a rich family liked to shoot blackpowder in various original flint- and caplock guns, often inviting me to go shoot with him. The most fascinating was his Remington Model 1858 .44 revolver(s): we shot these a lot. From that point on (and maybe earlier) I was "hooked."

Gosh, that was a long, long, long time ago......