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When did a LOT of the community switch to Flintlocks?

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Back in 1970, when I bought my first ML rifle, it was a .45 caplock, an Italian rifle that was nice...with a couple of problems. Then, as I recall, your choices were very limited and everyone was shooting cap guns As I recall, flint guns weren't even available. Nor were flints, for that matter.

Before that time, the over-the-log competition at .the GA mountain Fair in Hiawassi, GA, was strictly caplock guns. This was in 1956 or so which got me interested as a kid in BP shooting.

In the position of need, I traded my caplock half/stock for a 1958 Ford pickup and didn't regret it. Since then, I've bought a couple of cap guns and two FL rifles. I can't say the FL rifles perform better but they perform well enough and add an element to shooting which I find attractive.

And they're more popular in the semi-custom market than I anticipated. So when did this occur? When did the shift from caplock to FL occur?

I firmly believe a caplock is superior to a FL rifle in that they win a lot of competitions, but still I have three CL rifles over my 2 FL rifles. Expediency isn't always the answer. But my question remains; when did a LOT of the shooting community switch to FL rifles?
 
Flintlocks declined in popularity around WW2 and stayed that way until about the 1960's where,....thanks to Hollywood movies and the Hippies....or the counter culture movement. flintlocks began to become popular again...
But, I do not know of any time in the last 75 years where flintlocks outnumbered percussion guns....

As Necchi stated...the mid to late 1970's probably exhibits the peak moment.
 
I don't know about other areas, but when I bought my first flintlock rifle in Kentucky in 1973 flintlock shooting was common, had been pretty active for at least 10 years. One of my mentors was a member of Kentucky's Corps of Longriflemen, and they shot an annual match against other states' flintlock teams for bragging rights.
http://www.kyclr.com/history.php

Spence
 
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I think groups like the American Mountain Men and the association of primitive rifle men really pushed them too. John and Dave Baird made them popular and Dave Write also.
Local also effected it. Clubs used to be good sized and when one ol boy got one the pack had to follow. Got to say I shot a Bess in ”˜75 and was hooked.
 
I can't say when the rest of the community switched to flintlocks but I can say my first rifle which I bought in 1971 was a flintlock.

It was an Italian made .44 caliber "Kentuckian", imported by International Arms.

This full stock rifle was quite nice and was a true .44 caliber so it shot a .433 diameter patched roundball accurately.

It and I also were responsible for the demise of one Javalina.

It did not have a vent liner so the vent hole was simply drilled thru the barrel wall.

I think it was mainly due to this that as often as not it gave me the "Click--Poof--Whooooooosh-Boom!" delay some flintlock shooters still get.

It wasn't until the mid 1970's that my wife bought me a CVA "Hawken" caplock rifle.
 
Old fart here...I blame my rock lock obsession on Fess Parker and Walt Disney. It's hard for the younger generation to understand what an impact the Davy Crockett series had on us 50's kids! It was just plain neat! Then the rumors started circulating that 'Ole Betsy' was electrically fired because flintlocks just weren't in the least bit reliable...that couldn't be right. Took a few years to track down a flintlock Hopkins & Allen 'Minuteman' rifle but by golly it looked like Ole Betsy...at least to me. Not the best set up ever but worked enough to convince me what the capabilities were...besides, I was a junior version of the "King Of The Wild Frontier". This ad was from 1969, a decade after my Davy Days!
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Y-cAAOSwARZXjRu5/s-l1600.jpg
 
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Hi all

I am half aged that most of all of you, but I directly started with the rocks...an indian brown bess I used for reenactment during several years.

Now I have a Pedersoli one and a Traditions Shenandoah caplock converted to flintlock....but I must admit that despite I prefer the FL sensations, I use more my caplocks, just for ease of cleaning and economy BUT sometimes I need to smoke the FLs and the shooting session ends up being a ceremony :grin:
 
Gene,

I wanted a BP rifle while a young teenager and probably from Fess Parker and other characters, though I had begun reading 18th century fiction as early as 3rd grade. Yeah, I know that's unusual, but since I was born about 6 months after most of the kids in my school year, it was quite a while before I grew enough to fit in with the kids in my "Class."

At age 16 I got a job and earned enough money to buy a BP rifle, but Dad and Grandpa didn't know anything about them and we did not know anyone in the whole county who knew of them. So Dad did not allow me to buy one.

When I came home on boot camp leave, I bought a percussion TC Hawken in .50 caliber because no one had a .45 caliber in stock. It was remarkably accurate even the first time out, so I was stuck on the BP Bug.

I knew no one in California or on Okinawa who knew anything about BP guns, so I stumbled along making moccasins, a hunting pouch and knife sheath.

Finally I transferred to Quantico to begin my apprenticeship to become a NM Armorer and it was there I met my Flintlock Mentor and best friend in life. He was 10 years older than I and had been to the Primitive Range at Friendship many times when I first met him, as he was originally from Fort Wayne, IN. He took me to the Friendship Primitive Range the first time for the Spring Shoot of 1974.

I at first was reluctant to switch to Flintlock, though to do the time periods of history I was most interested in, I had to learn. My first Flint was a Brown Bess Carbine that I shot in matches mostly and a little reenacting. That was followed by a Charleville Kit assembled to be the best repro at the time for a War of 1812 Springfield Musket and also use for Rev War until that time. My Mentor also loaned me his hand built .45 cal. flintlock rifle he had won in a club drawing for a One Dollar Ticket, hence the name "Dollar Rifle" from there on out.

When I transferred back to Quantico in 1980, I "strayed from the flintlock fold" when I began doing WBTS reenacting for the next 8 years until I got transferred again.

When I got transferred back to Quantico in 1995, I did not have time to do much for a couple years as I was the Shop Chief, but I did work for the U.S. International Muzzle Loading Team for a few years, including the World Championships in Wedgnock, UK, twice.

When I retired from the Corps, I finally "came back home" to the 18th century and did a Private Soldier in the Major's Coy, 42nd RHR, The Black Watch with my Brown Bess as long as I could still reenact.

Gus
 
After thinking about the OP's question, I'm of the opinion ( worth what you paid to get it.. :grin: )
that a LOT of the community switched to flintlocks when good quality flint-LOCKS became commonly available.
Like many here, my first experience with a muzzleloader was the one I mail-ordered from Ron Shirk in the middle 1970's. T/C caplock, but "it was a sure enough 50 caliber Hawken".
[what did I know..??! :redface: ]
It's been a good rifle...still have it. T/C's flintlocks at that time weren't all that great.
That said, I now have a "New style" T/C flintlock with a Lyman frizzen on it, and it doesn't give up much (if anything) to my VERY nice Chambers lock.
The quality of the locks has made the biggest difference. That "Click-Whooosh-bang" phenomenon Zonie mentioned is a thing of the past for anyone who is paying attention and makes the decision to do some learning. :thumbsup:
 
It was Fess Parker's and Jimmy Dean's fault.
When I met Dean in the main walls offices in Huntsville before the rodeo I was already a fan and wanting a smoke pole and a tomahawk. All I had then was a single shot cap pistol that shot cork balls.
 
'morning,

I haven't really been shooting all that long - mid-90's. Dad was USMC, but really didn't teach my brother and I to shoot. It wasn't until well after I moved out that I became interested.

I'm guessing that it was late-90's before I started to dabble in black powder. First three were flinters - all Traditions. First a pistol, then a shorter barrel rifle, finally long rifle. I also blame Fess Parker and Disney, because even though I didn't have a mentor, or even know anyone who shot bp (let alone flintlock), there was never a question of flint vs cap.

It wasn't until about 10 years later that I got into caplocks, when a buddy got me involved in Civil War reenacting.

I take black powder to the range more than modern. When I do, my Sharps tends to be first choice, then my TVM long rifle.

Mike
 
When I switched from modern recurve bows to osage self bows in the 90s I decided to get rid of my cap guns and switch to a TC flintlock to be more primitive.

A friend gave me his flintlock rifle with a Roller lock and Bill Large barrel on his deathbed. One shot with his rifle and my TC stuff was gone, I became hooked on fine flintlocks. I have made three since; a Beck, a 12 ga Fowler and a squirrel rifle.
 
Gene L said:
But my question remains; when did a LOT of the shooting community switch to FL rifles?

Probably some regionalism at work, but my first exposure to muzzleloaders back in the 1950's was all flintlock. This was in small-town Southwest, but it continued later on the West Coast. Never owned one in that era, but did a fair bit of shooting with those of friends. All originals that had been in the owner families for generations and continued in use. I have to say the only caplocks I ever saw or shot were revolvers.

That persisted through the early 70's when I finally scratched together money to buy my own. In fact it was the first caplock rifle I ever saw first hand, a used TC 50 cal Hawken. Caught a whole lot of grief from my flinter friends, got a family and needed cash, and let it go after about 6 months. But to listen to those friends giving me grief, I was too wet behind the ears and foolish with my money to own a REAL muzzleloader.
 
My first was an H&A underhammer I bought in the mid 1960s. Two or three years later I bought an H&A .45 flintlock Minuteman. Since then I've had quite a few capguns stay with me a long time and some that basically passed through my hands. For a good while, now, I've settled on flinters for hunting and 95% of my shooting. Yes, I did thin out the deer herd with percussions and have done a repeat with flints. So I know flintlocks were holding their own by the 1960s.
 
My first muzzleloader was a CVA (Jukar) flintlock rifle kit I built around 1975. It had a soft frizzen and I couldn't get it to harden. I didn't know anyone else who was shooting muzzleloaders at the time. I even took it to work and had someone in the factory tool room try to coat it with a hardened material. I later put together a flint pistol from CVA. I switched the frizzens back and forth between the two to be able to shoot them. I then built a TC Hawken kit in percussion after my "good luck" with flints. I still have it and the to CVAs are long gone. I have a couple of flintlocks again and enjoy the challenge. Truth be told, I have more cap guns because they are available and I've been able to pick them up cheap.
 
Ogre said:
The shift probably occurred when they proved more reliable than matchlocks.

The way I heard the story was Dutch chicken thieves invented a gun that could shoot with out a glowing match that would be seen at nights. They called those thieves snapping Jacks since the snapped the chicken. Snapping Jack, Snaphaunce in Dutch. :surrender:
 
I started with caplock in the mid 1970's. I'd seen Jeremiah Johnson, and was into CW living history so had a Zouave in .58. I also had a TC Hawken and and later on a CVA caplock Kentucky. (I still have that one) I wasn't a big fan of Daniel Boone and none of my friends were into it either.

Flinters didn't really seem to be around much in my area, and I didn't fire one until I was in a TV mini-series, George Washington, as a "black powder" extra, while I was in college. Since I'd handled and fired black powder firearms, although only caplocks, I was hired since hardly any of the other extras had ever handled a firearm of any type. A guy named Larry Bradbury of the 64th Regiment of Foot trained us, as he was a consultant on the show. He knew his stuff (the "consultants" for the redcoats on Last of The Mohicans, did not - imho) Interesting to watch how they made a TV show..., not very accurate as to history.

I read about guys like Hacker Martin in Foxfire V, but that was way down South in Tennessee and Arkansas, not up where I lived.
:idunno:

So they never really "switched over" in my area. When I got into living history it was the AWI, and of course there were lots of folks and they were all using flint. So when I started being successful hunting, I pretty much stopped using my modern guns.

I think that once you get a good, reliable flinter, and learn it's quirks, you pretty much fall in love with them, and simply don't stop.

LD
 
When I started with muzzle loading matches, the most common gun was a caplock. My Father's cousins had a couple of original caplocks. Flintlocks just weren't common 50+ years ago.

When I started shooting matches two of twenty shooters used a flintlock. At that time, 35 years ago, I lived where a very capable gunsmith built flintlocks and caplocks. Bob Roller locks were considered about the best commercially available. These locks were then tuned to be even better. I didn't have the funds to buy one of Bill Decker's guns.

At our last club match, there were 4 of 22 shooters using a flintlock. I am one of them.

While more and more caplock shooters are upgrading the old and unreliable flintlock rifles to much higher quality versions than were available years ago, the majority of muzzle loading rifles are going to be cap lock.

The caplock is the result of development of a cheaper to make, more reliable lock for most shooters who choose not to practice the art of shooting a flintlock.

Basically it comes to the choice of technology to the practice of an art form. Flintlock shooters may not outnumber caplock shooters, but due to our passion for practicing the art, we just seem to be more visible.
 
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