Where do you draw the line?

Bob McBride said:

“Sitting here in a bush like Jane Goodall and watching Anti-Thread-Counting Richards in their natural habitat I can’t help but notice that the differences between them and Richardicus Thread-Counticus himself are so small as to be non existent, giving me the distinct notion that they are indeed the same species of Primate….”, I write in my little diary before putting my binoculars back up to my eyes and continuing my observations.

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Well said!

Folks, just reading through this from page 1. I shoot "black powder", I would love to have a Ferguson Rifle, but I also like living indoors and keeping the peace with my wife of 45+ years. Many years ago, back when I was going through BCT/AIT at Ft. Polk, LA, the Drill Sergeants would say "Smoke 'em if you got 'em". So shoot 'em if you got 'em, somebody will get their nose bent because of something or other, but they can't stop you from having a good time!

My Turn.

To @French Colonial original question my answer is one should try to be as HC/PC as possible and reasonable to the time period in question, AND adhering to the rules (if any) set forth by the organizer/organizers. If you don't like the rules don't go. Since my era is the North American Fur Trade from the late 1700's to 1840, if an event is to portray that time period, then to the items @French Colonial listed I say absolutely not.

Having said that. If I was standing buck naked at an event I could never be truly HC/PC because the lenses in my eyes have been replaced. So there's that.

Some kind of compromise has to be made because as @tenngun has pointed out he'd charge a $100k to help one accomplish pure HC/PC and I agreed that's what it would cost, and still probably not possible. Just using black powder made EXACTLY as it was made back in the day would probably be impossible. The British got most of their poop nitrate from the toilets of India (because of its huge population vast amounts were readily available). Americans got a large portion of it from bat caves. Where does it come from today? (I don't honestly know)

So I recently attended a small Mountain Man Rendezvous up here. The usual drill, try and be as HC/PC as you can to the Mountain Man era, with primitive and tin tipi areas. Problem was half of my stuff I shipped down south thinking I was doing Rendezvous' there this year. But Trudeau thinks I might be related to Typhoid Mary so he wouldn't let me through Canada.

My cooking/coffee/food/water/camp stuff including my tent stakes are down south. The rest of the stuff up here.

I had to substitute giant nails for my tent stakes. Cooking/coffee/food/water/camp became Mountain House, Instant Coffee, Jet Boil, and plastic water jugs. All neatly hidden away in burlap sacks and used behind closed tent flaps. I was bummed and felt a bit guilty. Up until the Booshway's three adult grandsons showed up in blue jeans, sneakers and wife beaters (which soon came off) and stayed in camp. And until guys showed up at the firing line wearing modern sunglasses, and wearing modern clothes. And until the beer cans and whiskey bottles came out at night in the Booshway's camp. I felt sorry for the other ten camps or so that tried their very best to "do it right".

Will I go to the next one they put on next month? Yes, in part cause they are the only ones in the state. I've got my proper tent stakes so I'm happy about that, but I'll still be using Mountain House, Instant Coffee, Jet Boil, and plastic water jugs and this time I won't feel a bit guilty about it.

Outwardly I will be as HC/PC as I can be, knowing that a few others will as well, while most won't. And that's okay because it's their event and their rules. I'll still have a good time and that's why we are all in this, yes. And hopefully inspire others to put a little more effort into it next time- even though I know they won't. Lead by example and don't whine without offering up a solution, that's my philosophy.

Yup th hcpc crowd make it no go .
Ill build guns and craft you can larp away!
I shoot alone

All I can say is if you are going to sit on a log with snags, wearing buck skin pants, wear underwear. Any kind of underwear. Went to an gun expo a few years back where we saw a buckskinner with a rip in his pants - - you guessed it -- no underwear. At the time I was with a friend who would wear buckskins once in a while. He poked me and said do I look that bad. My response was, you would if you didn't wear underwear.

No self-respectable person with a HC/PC attitude would have a butt that white. It just isn't natural for a real mountain man.

I strive to be hysterically correct when I shoot.

LME,
It was precisely because England could no longer dump crims in the former. American colonies that the Australian settlement came to be.

Colonial Boy said:

LME,
It was precisely because England could no longer dump crims in the former. American colonies that the Australian settlement came to be.

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England lost the Revolutinary War and that is the reason no more convicts were being sent to the Americas. I agree that is the reason. I misinterpreted the last sentence of your post. The ,""spin off of 1776"" through me?

LME,
Without the Revolution, Australia as it exists today might never have happened, we owe a lot to our American cousins, not least the elegance of the Long rifles.

Redlemur60 said:

Yup th hcpc crowd make it no go .
Ill build guns and craft you can larp away!
I shoot alone

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Have fun with that

Coinneach said:

Hey, I've watched "The Mountain Men" and "Jeremiah Johnston" thousands of times so thats what it was like !

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Was it ? Just as historially accurate as Tom Mix then ;-)

oldwood said:

No modern stuff at all , except for brass pan primer. I try to keep it traditional flint lock. I use epoxie to fix broken wood , etc..

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I didn't realise that epoxy was available then ...... where is the reference to THAT please?

If a person is trying to their ability to be correct is fine to me. It's when the pc/hc police start badgering about it, that's where I draw the line. You can't get people to show interest in something their efforts are punished.
As far as I'm concerned when you drive your vehicle to an event you've already blurred the line.

TFoley said:

Twelve pages and 225 posts, some of them downright strange, TBH, especially those about the people who want to be 'identified' as a trumpet or fur-covered windmill or some such oddness.

As you've probably guessed by now, none of this shenanigins takes place over here in UK, at least, I've never found any. Sure, there are some serious reenactment groups who model their activities on the English Civil War and later conflicts and the styles of dress and weapons used at the time, but none of the antics that some of you have encountered.

Are we missing out here? Well, of course we are, mainly by not having your rich heritage of recent history to revive. You relive battles of your recent civil war, well, not far from where we live in one direction is the site of the Battle of Naseby, fought in the last English Civil war of the 1640's. And a little further away, the site of the battle where the last king to die in action fell, surrounded by treachery, at Bosworth Field in 1485 - seven years before Columbus sailed.

Both of these momentous events are reenacted, but without the rancour and nit-picking that seems to spoil so much of YOUR reenactment activities.

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AGREED! the problem comes from when some people are just determined to take control and bump up their self-esteem. I believe that we should accept the people who have the "wrong stuff" and eductate them , not just turn them away.
After all -- -- look at the age range of the "purists".

Mr. Flintlock said:

If the rules stated muzzleloaders only, you were in the wrong regardless if your gun was period correct. Would it have been okay if guys showed up with Henry's, Burnsides, or other CW cartridge gun? I think not.

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Did the rules state "muzzle-loaders only" ? Or did they say "period correct"? -- because capping breechloaders ARE "period correct" for the middle of the 19th century. Obviously METALLIC CARTRIDGE breechloaders -- even from that era -- would have been excluded. Whoever organises an "event" obviously has the right to make the rules that they want -- - but they should be clearly stated and not ambiguous.

Griz44Mag said:

Try reading my entire post. Don't give me your lame advice when I already stated that I rejected them, I "did not go" as you put it.
You tell me that if I don't like the rules to leave - I already stated that I did leave. You are talking just to hear your own hollow rattle.
Offended? No I was not offended. I never stated that I was offended did I. I was just not impressed with the snotty attitude, so I did leave.
Maybe instead of giving me your hateful advice that I did not need you should take a reading comprehension course ......

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Gosh! You have got yourself into what we used to call a "tizz". Life is hard enough, especially now, without added aggression, sir.

sturmkatze said:

Wow, this thread needs to be locked

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Why? Please give reasons for this censorial statement.

French Colonial said:

Just curious and to keep from hi jacking a different thread

How HC/PC are you comfortable with.

I have been known to leave my keys in the truck and use the door code in order to not have anything modern on my person at an event.

Are you ok with a plastic/delrin/fiberglass ramrod?
Ok with a plastic stock?
Ok with fiber optic sights?
Ok with a scope?
Ok with an in-line

Not for others just for yourself.

Maybe this should be a poll?

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I know the NMLRA has done polling on just this very subject. Traditional vs. modern.

Colonial Boy said:

LME,
Without the Revolution, Australia as it exists today might never have happened, we owe a lot to our American cousins, not least the elegance of the Long rifles.

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I have a great uncle that was gassed during the first world war and he went to Australia for his health. This is in case someone might think I have a criminal in my family. That is my story and I am sticking to it! LOL!