WHY SHOOT REPRO GUNS

Just an idle thought. Why are so many folk on these forums shooting new repro guns? You lot "Americans" have in the past fought just about every other nation on your home ground. There must be literally thousands of original guns, beautiful things in perfect condition for sale, so why buy new and made abroad..? I am in the UK and have just obtained my first muzzle loader, having only ever shot the unmentionables. My ML was made in 1830 ish and is a work of art. Saw a guy at the clay ground last week with a brand new Italian copy and it was horrible! I would not dream of shooting one.
Just a thought.

DUNKS said:

Just an idle thought. Why are so many folk on these forums shooting new repro guns? You lot "Americans" have in the past fought just about every other nation on your home ground. There must be literally thousands of original guns, beautiful things in perfect condition for sale, so why buy new and made abroad..? I am in the UK and have just obtained my first muzzle loader, having only ever shot the unmentionables. My ML was made in 1830 ish and is a work of art. Saw a guy at the clay ground last week with a brand new Italian copy and it was horrible! I would not dream of shooting one.
Just a thought.

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No...there aren't "thousands of original guns, beautiful things in perfect condition" available, believe it or not. Any original guns in really good condition are basically historical artifacts, and they are extremely expensive. Guns in America are like tools, and they get used hard and get used up! You are lucky to have a gun from the 1830's to shoot, but many people in the United States would not shoot a gun that old for a variety of reasons.

If your logic is true then Europe must be full of M1 Garands left over from WW2.

Also, There are millions of shooters in the U.S., not thousands. The UK has a population around 65 million whereas the U.S. has a population of 330 million.
200 years ago the UK was the bigger country and the U.S. was small and growing.

Lastly, we use our guns. We wear them out.

DUNKS said:

Just an idle thought. Why are so many folk on these forums shooting new repro guns? You lot "Americans" have in the past fought just about every other nation on your home ground. There must be literally thousands of original guns, beautiful things in perfect condition for sale, so why buy new and made abroad..? I am in the UK and have just obtained my first muzzle loader, having only ever shot the unmentionables. My ML was made in 1830 ish and is a work of art. Saw a guy at the clay ground last week with a brand new Italian copy and it was horrible! I would not dream of shooting one.
Just a thought.

Click to expand...

Well I would say the answer is that we in the UK have more too choose from especially now has there is a flood of originals on the market we can also use bore sizes from 4 and smaller using a charge for what they were intended to do .But across the pond originals are not has many and most have had a hard life in that period , they charge their muzzle loaders on the heavy side where here for our 12 bore the top charge of powder would be 3 drms but more so 2.3/4 drms but there they would use 3. to 3.1/2 drms and has much has 2 ozs of shot. Another thing is the 10 bore is the largest size to use yes they use mostly repros which will take these heavy charges some thing that we here do not or should not do in our originals.
Feltwad

During the 18th and 19thh centuries wasn't Britain in a state of constant war, sometimes fighting multiple wars at once ?
With that much fighting, gun production must have been enormous. I'll bet there are still warehouses full of guns somewhere.

Hey Dunks! That is interesting. What type of firearms are still available? All smoothbore? Yeagers? If there are any real nice longrifles let me know. Perhaps we can get one shipped here!!

I guess if I had the money to only shoot original guns I might say that too. Sadly I do not...

DUNKS said:

Just an idle thought. Why are so many folk on these forums shooting new repro guns? You lot "Americans" have in the past fought just about every other nation on your home ground. There must be literally thousands of original guns, beautiful things in perfect condition for sale, so why buy new and made abroad..? I am in the UK and have just obtained my first muzzle loader, having only ever shot the unmentionables. My ML was made in 1830 ish and is a work of art. Saw a guy at the clay ground last week with a brand new Italian copy and it was horrible! I would not dream of shooting one.
Just a thought.

Click to expand...

Actually, when it comes to the War of Northern Aggression period, there are decent rifles out there, that are comparable in price with their Italian made repro counterparts, however they are not made with the modern steels we have now, and have been used, sometimes hard, over the intervening 150 years or so. Which makes the repros the safer more reliable alternative for those who want to shoot them regularly.

As far as other period muzzleloaders, and revolvers of that same period, prices are astronomical compared to the reproductions. Where you can/could buy a Remington 1858 Italian repro for about $300 an original of the same type would cost ten times that much. Same can be said for most period flintlocks.

I guess if you were wealthy perhaps, but even then they would be an investment that would depreciate greatly if damaged while shooting them. Would matter to some, maybe not to others.

Given the current political climate here, firearms of all types for sale are becoming scarcer and more expensive as well.

Feltwad said:

Well I would say the answer is that we in the UK have more too choose from especially now has there is a flood of originals on the market we can also use bore sizes from 4 and smaller using a charge for what they were intended to do .But across the pond originals are not has many and most have had a hard life in that period , they charge their muzzle loaders on the heavy side where here for our 12 bore the top charge of powder would be 3 drms but more so 2.3/4 drms but there they would use 3. to 3.1/2 drms and has much has 2 ozs of shot. Another thing is the 10 bore is the largest size to use yes they use mostly repros which will take these heavy charges some thing that we here do not or should not do in our originals.
Feltwad

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Why the flood of originals on the market now?

Maybe Feltwad means the guns from IMA and Atlanta cutlery, and the share of the Nepalese cache deposited in the UK, TN.

To the OP’s point I will say, if one wanted to shoot originals there are plenty out there for around the price of a better contemporary copy. Particularly ACW muskets, SxS, etc. I’ve never bought a copy of a P53, 1842, 1861, etc as nice shooters are readily available with a little looking as are original southern guns. We did have a huge scrap drive during WWI/II that scooped up possibly millions of our originals.

The last two I bought, a P53 and an 1842HF were both under a Grand and were perfect shooters with super solid bores and locks still vastly superior to anything available today.

Indeed Bob!
Even the P-H locks are not as nice as originals, by quite a margin.

I shoot reproductions for a completely different and strictly personal reason. Any mechanical device - from a wristwatch to a car - has a finite life. They wear out or break down or fail in some way. Eventually. When that happens the supply of said objects is reduced by one. If one of my modern-made smokepoles fails it's possible to replace it. But there are a finite number of origionals out there. If (make that when) something happens to one, well, they aren't making any more and the overall number of them has been made less. I have absolutely no quarrel with anyone who shoots an origional; I really do like seeing or hearing about them enjoying their firearms. It's just a choice I made for myself, not one that I would ever try to force on anyone else. To each his own. I really do believe that.

That is true BEP, and a solid, conscientious way of looking at it, but an original Military musket ‘almost’ will not break. Ever. Especially if you get Hoyt to line the worn out barrel or have him make a replacement shooter barrel so you can save a pristine original. Then again, I’m in the market for an original Model A truck, and every farm within 50 miles of me use Ford tractors from the 30’s for daily farm work. They’re all tools to me, and the older the better.

Though, like you say, if it’s even a mildly special gun, I wouldn’t shoot it.....much.

Nothing wrong with a good Pedroselli, Pietra, or Umberto.

Thanks to our 2nd ammendment and vast open spaces to use them, guns are/were owned by the masses, not the landed gentry. By and large they weren't show pieces but tools arms and used as such.

Mike Venturino wrote an article years ago about during the depression older lever action rifles were so cheap many were stripped and used as rebar for sidewalks in Montana.

Also, this country wasn't settled at the same time. The county I'm sitting in (north Texas) wasn't formed until 1880, so early settlers may have been armed with cartridge arms and muzzleloaders weren't as common.

Also my dad told me during WWII every weekend was a different drive or campaign, scrap, cloth, grease, etc. Many "antiques " were surrendered to defeat the Axis powers.

I'd love to own original black powder arms, but they're as scarce as hen's teeth.

I do think some other things fed into it.
mold guns were just old guns. Few people had any interest in old guns and many died in the metal drives in the first and second world wars.
since they were old guns many were stored under poor conditions. So bores are often in very bad shape, wood dried out and cracked ect. Then Americans were ‘thrifty’ many of the old guns were converted to cap lock. The drums were at time just brazed on and with years of neglect between last uses and modern times are not all that safe to shoot

Originals are nice, but in safe to shoot condition are far more costly than reproductions. Most of us in this game do not have unlimited amounts of money. So we shoot what we can afford to make or buy. Yes some of us do buy expensive guns but most shoot what they can make or buy.

Along with all the reasons original ML guns are scarce is one many do not know of - a LOT of rifles were sacrificed to make fences out of the barrels!

When my dad met my mom on a farm in north western Missouri he said the loft in the barn had about a dozen old long arms laying among the loose hay. He said there were a few "muskets" with ramrods but most were old lever actions.

Mom's mother told him they were obsolete caliber or had broken and there wasn't a local gunsmith so they just stored them there.

He found an 40-65 '86 Winchester with a broken stock and couldn't get ammo. He rawhide repaired it and found a substitute shell to shoot. Regrettably he left it in a rental house when he moved back to Texas.

He said they simply had no value in the early 50s.