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Several years ago I bought a really cheapum smoke pole for my son. I didn't like it, he didn't like it but it was cheap and a good place to start. Well, I sold the cheapy one and have a Lyman Deerstalker on order for him. He doesn't know it yet so I, of course, am the excited one! It should be hare next week.
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And just now as I post this the pisser was reading my previous post because the iPad lay on the counter open... Damn it!!
Well, now you can get him involved in the discussion.
Post us a picture when it comes in.
.45? .50? .54? .58?
Whatcha planning to try in it? PRB, Maxi, Sabot?
BP or Pyrodex?
Gonna put a peep sight on it? (You ought to.) Sling swivels too.
Here's my $.02 from thirty-five years of making clouds of loud smelly smoke, ignore whatever is irrelevant: :)
You probably have a flinter for hunting in PA, do you?
Most of my experience is with caplocks. I have enjoyed shooting flinters but have no experience maintaining them, except for their barrels.
This is for caplocks:
Buy two Hot-Shot Musket cap nipples (you need an extra one) and a tin of musket caps. Replace the #11 nipple it comes with. You will never need to resort to it again unless you can't get musket caps, not often for me anyway. Why? #11 caps suck royally in the field and aren't much fun on the range either, they are small and difficult to handle, hard to install and usually impossible to remove if necessary without some small tool. Not exactly safe. Don't bother buying any #11's. Musket caps are the only way to go. They larger, easier to pick up with frozen fingers and they have a brim on them you can grab and makes capping and decapping easy with fingers alone instead of prying a live #11 cap off the nipple with a pocket knife. No modifications to the hammer are necessary. A used musket cap tin will hold all of your field tools, spare nipple, and a few cleaning patches stuffed among to keep them from rattling. It is waterproof and fits easily in a pocket or a possibles bag.
Ball puller, patch worm, patch jag, nipple wrench, nipple pick. A traditional ball starter is nice, too. TC makes an all-in-one charge holder and ball starter in .50cal that is great for the field and ones that hold ball & charge with no starter. I am a firm believer in premeasured charges, even for the range, there are all kinds of small waterproof plastic containers that will do the trick.
Always clean any m/l as soon after firing as possible, bp or pyrodex or whatever, and never put off cleaning until the next day. It is amazing how quickly rust can form on the inside of an uncleaned m/l barrel, even in a relatively dry climate. Never leave it charged after hunting season, you will forget and find it next fall. Maybe you will be lucky. Maybe you will be replacing the barrel. That's why used m/l's are so cheap. Clean it after you pull a charge, too. Stuff gets to clogging a flash hole. Light oil inside before storage, scrub the oil out next season before shooting.
Put a pencil eraser in the hammer cup with a dab of rubber cement and dry fire with nipple in place to work the grit and any creep out of the trigger. It never hurts to clean/degrease/relube a new lock mechanism after transport/storage in case any dirt or grit found its way there. Scrub out the barrel good, too, hot water, brush, patches, remove the flash hole screw and poke a plucked qtip in there to clean out anything that might remain in it before charging with powder, you never know what odd liquids or solids might be left in it after machining. (Some cutting fluid or oil residues left in the barrel will kill the first charge of powder you pour in, then you need a ball puller. Been there. Skip the educational experience.)
I am not wild about wooden ramrods.
Of interest, gleaned from fun years as a HE instructor: When forgetting to remove ramrod before firing, it will hit a 4'x4'backboard at 50yds without much affecting the bullet's POI. When it hits a deer, the ramrod does not do much damage to the animal although it often passes right through. Not much chance of the necessary follow-up shot at that point though. Never fire your muzzle loader at the deer that has surprised you with your pants below your knees while you are shitting. Just don't. But tell us if you do anyway, I might not spit my tea into the keyboard laughing.
Some people actually enjoy just shooting smokepoles regularly, not just for the extra week or so of deer season. Even inlines I suppose, but I prefer the traditionals. We used to call it "going fooming".
If you or your son catch the frontstuffer bug let me know and we can work out a very cheap source of projectiles. Young apprentice Skywalker here could use the practice casting nearly pure lead into fat heavy projectiles. I may already have the right mould/moulds depending, but they're easy enough to come up with if not. I also have .44 and .45 moulds to fill sabots and the correct sabots to hold them in both .50 & .54, but you can buy either in .50cal still. I have .535RB, .54Maxi, .58Minnie, .350, .360 moulds that I can think of without looking, and I have a big stash of already cast odds & ends in various calibers.
Hey Versi,
Thanks for all the great information! Awesome post. I have the same rifle in left hand and love it! They are both flintlock and yes, we do have a flintlock only season in PA that starts the day after Christmas. Both are also 50 caliber.
Round balls are fun to play and plink with but we'll be hunting with un patched 240 gr pa conicals by Hornady. They're accurate, easy to load and fairly cheap. I have four 20 rnd packs of TC sure fire 230 gr sabot end bullets that I bought really cheap at walmart (close out less than half price cheap) a couple years ago but I only shot a few. I really like the conicals and would hate to get hooked on the expensive stuff.
I've always shot black powder but a buddy of mine convinced me to try pyrodex so I got my first can today. It's fff and I'll see what happens. I also picked another box of round balls and conicals. Round balls are .490 and the cons are .512.
I don't own an inline, just smokem poles... I won't say I'll never buy an inline because I said that about black rifles (ar) and now own two... But, I really like the flintlocks and especially the more traditional wood stocked models. The Lyman's are a well built and great looking rifle. Can't wait to take the boy out shooting!!!
We have running deer shoots at our club coming up and I'm thinking of trying the flintlock. Should be a lot more fun than my 300 wsm!
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I picked up the rifle today and my son doesn't know it! HA! The next decent weekend day I told him we're going to take the flintlocks out for some shooting. He was mildly excited probably thinking of the piece of crap he shot last time. He has no idea... :-)
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Smokepoles are fun. Longest shot on a deer so far with a flintlock was between 110-120 yards. Could do better with a peep sights.
Now if we could get some time to shoot them...
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