Your first ML rifle

My first BP rifle was a 1st year CVA Mountain Rifle kit, .50 percussion that was a Christmas present back in '75. I hunted with it while in high school and still have it.

My first was a Cabela's branded percussion in 2000...not their "Hawken" but a half-stock "traditional" style they had listed for less than a year before it was no longer offered. About the 5th or 6th shot I went to put the cap on for the next shot and the nipple and threads were gone! :shocked2: Lucky it didn't hit me in the head when it came out.

Took it back and they got me another one which I inspected before walking out of the store. Could hardly remove the nipple and the threads on the drum were a mess from cross-threading. Obviously the Spanish Mfg had a problem. :nono: I handed it back to them and bought a TC unmentionable, which I used for two years.

I really wanted a "traditional" muzzleloader, so after two years of using the unmentionable I purchased a .54 Pedersoli Frontier in percussion. So I guess that's my first traditional muzzleloader I actually used. Great rifle.

a .32 pedersoli frontier ,flintlock...been hooked ever since. use to imagine myself as daniel boone trekking through the woods after small game . :hatsoff:

It was a .50 cal. TC White Mountain Carbine. At the time I didn't think it really fit the image of a traditional muzzleloader but took the recommendation of a friend and bought it. My only complaint is that it isn't very accurate with round ball but it sure is nice to carry, especially when hunting a cedar swamp. I have always liked the single trigger and large guard. I have used it with conicals to take a few deer but have only recently gotten serious about ML's. It's close to 30 years old.

I randomly was given an old T/C kit after talking with a club member at a match.

I had always wanted to try muzzle loading, didn't know anything about it.
Finished the kit, made a horn because it sort of needed one, got really hooked.
Picked up a Renegade .54 along the way and a Beretta double 12 ga.
Currently building a 1/2 stock flint 20 ga. fowler....

I said I was hooked right?

hanshi said:

Back in the mid 1960s I ordered a .45 Heritage model underhammer from H&A. About 1969 I again ordered a rifle from them; a .45 flintlock "Minuteman". That rifle was reliable, heavy and looked pretty good; don't know why I finally let it go years later.

But I still have the underhammer. It has taken bobcats, deer and squirrels. It is right up there with the most accurate muzzleloading rifles I've ever fired. The flat tg/spring is dead so it's now just a wall hanger.

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You can get a tg/spring from gunparts.com and revive that classic. I have one in .36 Very accurate. It's mostly barrel. A great idea for a ML rifle.

T/C Seneca in .36 cal. back in 1976.

First long gun was a CVA Kentucky rifle that I built from a kit. I had already built a couple pistol kits and had several cap and ball revolvers (what can I say? just really love handguns). Was happy with the way the kit came out and later got my first deer with a muzzle loader using it, still have it and take it out now and then. It's a good shooting rifle. Oh yeah, got that gun back in the 70's.

Cap & Ball, Flint & percussion all happened around 1968-69. Dad brought home an 1861 Navy & it was not only my job to disassemble, clean & reassemble it, I began my casting career with roundballs for it. Simultaneously, Dad was working evenings & weekends building a .40 cal caplock rifle that I have today. At the very same time, an old gent brought out several original flintlocks from a family collection - each time I saw him, he had several more rifles to shoot. I learned on flintlocks, and by the time Dad's caplock rifle was finished, all I had to know was how to load the capper & apply caps.

My very own first rifle was a Gallagher breechloader around 1977 & I cast mini balls for it. Over the years I had opportunity to fire others' cap & flint rifles, and eventually got a junk rifle from a guy at a gunshop. It had lock, trigger, stock and barrel from a variety of different parts guns and was awkward & clumsy, but fun to shoot. I had plans to someday strip & refinish the maple halfstock and brown the lock & barrel, but a guy at my range was begging me to sell it to him. It had an older 36+" (Douglas?) barrel that was what he really wanted so I sold it to him for around 5X what I paid for it. He cut the barrel down and used the cutoff to build a really nice flintlock pistol. The rifle looked more balanced with the shorter barrel. He said it was his favorite & most accurate rifle & he'd never part with it.

I've gone on to accumulate other cap & flint rifles, GPR & others, and my newest is a .54 cal flint Trade Rifle I'm tuning up to replace my older 100 yard Grapefruit Slayer.

My first was a used TC Renegade. .50 cal and I paid $125. I think that was somewhere around 1983. Lots of fun guns since then! Greg

Mine was a percussion CVA St. Louis 50 cal Hawken, bought in 1988 or 1989.

Critter Getter said:

My first was a used TC Renegade. .50 cal and I paid $125. I think that was somewhere around 1983. Lots of fun guns since then! Greg

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I paid $200 for a like new Renegade in November of 2017. I love shooting the rifle.

I just bought an overpriced NIB 1:66 Round Ball barrel on Ebay. Got to get those groups under 5" at 100 yards.

Mine is the only one I have and is also the first non rimfire rifle I ever shot... Which was about 20 years ago now... Its a traditions fox river 50 that my dad gave me cause for some reason I was scared of other guns... He had it since the 80s im fairly sure the gun is older than me

Used T/C Hawken 50 cal. flintlock. Still have it and it shoots great. Bought it about 20 years ago.
Don

Mine is a .50 TC Hawken sitting about 6 feet from me now. I have killed lots of game with it including about 30 deer, several turkeys many squirrels and ground hogs.

Unfortunately we have to use shotguns or bows for turkey and I don't have a BP shotgun... Wish I could use a rifle for turkey

The older I get, the more I like black powder rifles and have become less interested in black rifles.

I have been shooting for 50 years and there is nothing that gives you a feeling like shooting a black powder rifle or a 1903 Springfield.

A guy I worked with, this would be in the middle Sixty`s, was talking about the Gun Kit He bought and had a heck of a time putting it together and for $20.00 He would sell the damn thing ! It turned out to be a CVA Kentucky Cap Gun with the two piece stock. Gave Him the $20 for it and patched up the Butchered stock as best I could and went on to win a bunch of stuff with that thing !! Had a 10 Lb, Trigger pull and really bad sights but, man that thing was really accurate....

CapPopper said:

Unfortunately we have to use shotguns or bows for turkey and I don't have a BP shotgun... Wish I could use a rifle for turkey

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I have the same issue, that is why I'm going with a 20 ga fowler, load it with shot for turkey, patch and ball for deer.

My first muzzle loader I bought at a local gunshow some 20 plus years ago, after having borrowed a 54 cal. T\C from my brother for deer hunting.

The rifle I found for myself was a 56 caliber smooth bore T\C Renegade that looked brand new and had a very nicely figured curly walnut stock. It also came with a .55 cal. T\C round ball mold.

It was a great first rifle and I learned a lot from it, being able to shoot both ball and shot.
Must admit I wish I still had it but did sell it to another fellow who was just starting out on his B\P journey.