Your first ML rifle

Yeah I got a little cast iron ‘lodge’brand pot, about a pint and a half sized. Came with trivet feet that I dermaled off, can sit flat now.
I cast when the Mrs is out

My first was from a mid 70's T/C Hawken 50 kit about 6 years ago. Kit was given to me by a club member, it was given to him years ago with the message "give this to someone that will finish it"
Kit was missing some screws and any type of instructions, so learned a lot and took my time.
Picked up a Renegade .54, it was unfired and too cheap to pass up and a Beretta 12ga. for turkey hunting, in CT we have to use a shotgun.
Would love to have a 20ga. fowler and a more historically correct rifle, but not in my budget.
I love my kit gun, it shoots great, and confirmed my addiction to black powder.

1st was a used 50cal T/C Hawken

I bought a .50 Lyman Great Plains Rifle in '85. I was in college and I Think I paid 250$ for it. I killed at least 15 deer with that gun. Wore the lock out on the inside and had to make new parts.I carved a 10 pointer chasing a doe on the stock. Put a peep on it. Still have it.

Like so many my first was a TC Hawken 50 that a friend had built from a kit, that was about 79. CVA Kentucky kit was my first build I was young and impatient so it came out terrible! Got into CW re-enactments so the next was a Enfield 3 band. Still have that original TC just finished rebuilding it.
I think I’m up to 10 ML or so, mostly flintlocks now. I’ll always keep that TC

In 1977, at age 29, I bought a $5 Sportsman's Club gun raffle ticket. 3 Guns; Remington 700 BDL, scoped and hard case; a 30-30 Winchester Mod 94, scoped w/ soft case; a TC Hawken rifle and soft case. Winner got 1st choice, # above got the choice of two that were left and the # below got what was left. I got the # below and the TC was left. When I went to the dealer who sponsered the guns, I noticed a couple kit muzzleloaders. I asked questions he answered and gave some instruction and we struck a deal I asked for. I got a kit for an Armsport Hawken .54 cal kit. He also gave me a finishing kit, a shooters kit, Two boxes of .530 balls, 1 can Goex FFg, 1 of FFFFg, a priming tube, a book for learning as a starter. I got hooked fast. By building it, I learned about how they work and how to make adjustments etc. Best choice and gun I ever won.

1974 while serving in the Coast Guard here in Maine I bought a .58 cal Zoli Zouave at the Kittery Trading Post.
Nit Wit

In1979, I bought a CVA Kentucky rifle kit from a friend. He never started it. It became a dark cherry stained shooting machine. I named it "Ms.Brown" after a wonderful elderly women I knew. I still have it. It was a lot of fun. It is very accurate. And I made a lot of smoke and many good times with it.

This one, no kidding, I´m not that old:


A Marroccan snaphaunce mucala that was decorating a corner of a room till I took charge, cleaned the not very smooth , repaired its mechanism, replaced fastenig rings and ramrod and now fires .62 cal PRBs.
The barrel seems to be a really old one, octogonal at first inches and silver inlaid, rounded till muzzle.
The marroccan name "mucala" is a word derived form spanish "miguelete" or "miquelet" which barrels were in common use to built these weapons.
This one may perfectly be one of them.
The total lengh is 5 ft and 3".
Hope you like it as I do

I walked into a small mom and pop general store in Liberty Indiana in the late 70's and bought a T/C Hawken kit rifle in 50 caliber. I have a bunch of the Thomson Center stuff but this first rifle is what I carried this season. It has killed a bunch of deer with standard 370 grain maxi balls. It is all I have ever shot out of it. I am planning on retiring this rifle and carrying one of the smaller lighter shorter barreled carbines I am building. I am also itching to buy a flintlock and give that a whirl. Here is the old girl I named Bess.

View attachment 3486

No real interesting story with mine. My firearm loves seem to be regressing to more and more primitive tastes. Decided I wanted to build rifles from scratch so I had to buy one first to see how they worked. Picked up a cheapo FIE .45 longrifle off GunBroker and love it. Gonna build a new stock from scratch for it and shorten it up for my grandson's first rifle. He's only 5 so I have a couple more years to finish it, lol. I have since bought 3 more to use as parts in custom builds for myself. Next will be a flintlock or three, lol.

0tilio said:

This one, no kidding, I´m not that old:
View attachment 3481 View attachment 3482

A Marroccan snaphaunce mucala that was decorating a corner of a room till I took charge, cleaned the not very smooth

bore​

, repaired its mechanism, replaced fastenig rings and ramrod and now fires .62 cal PRBs.
The barrel seems to be a really old one, octogonal at first inches and silver inlaid, rounded till muzzle.
The marroccan name "mucala" is a word derived form spanish "miguelete" or "miquelet" which barrels were in common use to built these weapons.
This one may perfectly be one of them.
The total lengh is 5 ft and 3".
Hope you like it as I do

Click to expand...

Sorry for replying myself but yesterday , after reading a post from Rickystl in Photos forum a thread on Moroccan Snaphaunce https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/moroccan-snaphaunce.112585/ I took a caliper and measured ball and bore. It is a .60 cal. , not a .62 one.
Too much time went by since the days of this repair.

Heelerau said:

My first muzzle loader is a 3rd model contract Pat 1853, South Australian marked. Was found in the station store room, cleaned up and given to my mother. She used it to keep me happy when sick in bed, she would pop it on the bed and I would play with it. I was not allow to cock it so as to not damage the cone. I was frequently ill as a small child. I first got to shoot it at the age of 13. I still have it and it shoots minnies ver well. Gordon sepia copy by Gordon Hazel, on Flickr

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Here is a shot of me aged about 13 with my first muzzle loader kill, a poor old galah ! I am wiser now and do not molest them, we have one as a pet, she has not seen this picture !!

In '76 I set a work bench up in the sunny room of our apartment and started my first rifle. It got put on hold and I didn't finish it until '89 in my now basement workshop. Jerry Marsh precarve, Russ Hamm lock, 45 cal Douglas barrel, 44" by 1:66 twist. Straight out of Buchele's book and blueprint. It turned out real nice and I have built several since. Might be one more left in me. I shoot regular.

Eric Krewson said:

It was Ron Shirks that would sell last years model TC Renegade for $90 on an inventory reduction sale at the end of the year.

One of these guns was my first M/L in around 1974.

I bought a variety of TC guns over the years, some were accurate, some were not, we didn't know about working up a load so it was hit or miss.

On my last new TC gun I pulled the lock and found the lock inlet consisted of hot melt glue placed around the inlet to hold the lock in place.

I swore off TC guns after the hot melt deal but ended up making a Renegade from random parts and building a 30 year old TC Hawken kit my father had.

And dang if I didn't buy a new unfired TC Grayhawk at a flea market the other day for $95. I didn't need the gun but couldn't pass up the deal.

TC guns seem to creep back into my life.

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My first muzzleloader and only one , for now is a TC Omega 50 cal. that is very accurate. I understand that it is a modern inline as opposed to the older pieces some of you are talking about. I recently had to send it in for a broken trigger mechanism and was very happy with service I received, the gunsmith found a bugle in the barrel. They tried to say that it had a double load fired through it, but I am the only one to fire it and have my ramrod marked for different loads and bullets/sabots. They replaced it with a Stainless Barrel as they didn't have the Omega black barrel in stock

My first was a CVA Mountain Rifle kit in the early 70's. Two buddies had T/C Hawken kit rifles and I would have started with one if the LGS had not ran out. Did have the CVA which I bought. First shootin' match after 'proofing' is shown in my Avatar. Their shots are at 6:00, mine's in the crotch.
Went downhill from there to a custom flinter then to Trade Guns.
Cheers,
R

My first rifle was a Lyman Plains Rifle assembled in my apartment living room and front porch in 1977. My wife made me run the sweeper every night after working on it. This was way before the Great Plains Rifle.

0tilio said:

This one, no kidding, I´m not that old:
View attachment 3481 View attachment 3482

A Marroccan snaphaunce mucala that was decorating a corner of a room till I took charge, cleaned the not very smooth

bore​

, repaired its mechanism, replaced fastenig rings and ramrod and now fires .62 cal PRBs.
The barrel seems to be a really old one, octogonal at first inches and silver inlaid, rounded till muzzle.
The marroccan name "mucala" is a word derived form spanish "miguelete" or "miquelet" which barrels were in common use to built these weapons.
This one may perfectly be one of them.
The total lengh is 5 ft and 3".
Hope you like it as I do

Click to expand...

That would be stylin at the tradegun match!

My first is this Hopkins & Allen Heritage Model .45 that was gifted to me at the age of 13 in 1981. My dad had bought it in 1970.



It's been ages since I shot it. I need to rectify that.

1971 I traded a single shot cartridge rifle for a navy arms Zouave buffalo hunter. Still got it, it loves lead and powder, It is accurate and has harvested white tail. It is just a little over kill with a 575 Minnie ball.