Middlesex Double Barrel

[broknaero]

I'd like to say this post has probably been frustrating for some ol'timers, but has been very informational for more people than you know.

Thanks!


Mike,
Goodluck in your search. In your shoes I would try out the Lyman with a round ball barrel and pick up a spare or used barrel and have it bored out for small game as in Canada grouse are usually tree shot or ground swatted. Down here we can't get them to stay put so wingshooting is the way. :thumbsup:

I bird hunt with a caplock double. The prices have kept me from a flintlock double though I want one, the laws here don't restrict me like your laws do. This thread has made me want a flintlock fowler and has opened my eyes to several kits that sitting fox has, but I won't hijack your thread with that! ff

 

[mikeoosting]

I'd like to say this post has probably been frustrating for some ol'timers, but has been very informational for more people than you know.

It certainly has, and I thank everyone for putting up with how incredibly green I am to muzzleloading.

Thanks!

Goodluck in your search. In your shoes I would try out the Lyman with a round ball barrel and pick up a spare or used barrel and have it bored out for small game as in Canada grouse are usually tree shot or ground swatted. Down here we can't get them to stay put so wingshooting is the way.

My dad hunts the damned things with a .410 and never has any issues. This is a good point - also, I was looking at another Lyman gun, the Deerstalker. It weights slightly less and has a 24" barrel - short and perfect for fowling

This thread has made me want a flintlock fowler and has opened my eyes to several kits that sitting fox has, but I won't hijack your thread with that! ff

Hijack freely, this thread doesn't just belong to me :grin:

 

[wahkahchimaol.com]

Hi Michael!

Like you I began as a beginner. Five years down the road, I'm still relatively a beginner. There are some people on this forum who REALLY know their stuff.

In the past five years I've purchased several smoothbores, and I've found superb bargains right here on this forum, or over at Track Of The Wolf. If you can be patient, you can get some superb deals right here. Flintlocks are like .44 Magnum pistols. They look great in movies. The concept sounds wonderful. So everybody wants a fine expensive gun until they shoot them...and then they frequently sell them. So there are bargains all over the place.

My experience has been that my best decisions have been made after shooting other people's guns. I have found that fowlers have stock geometry which can be quite different from rifle geometry, and that some stocks punch me in the face while others don't. So asking to shoot other people's guns has been a very financially wise experience in my own education. Fusil du chasse's and Northwest trade guns and even club-butts are wonderful to experience and fit and carry so well that I doubt even a double gun could lure me away. But then I walk a lot.

I have found that buying a good inexpensive used gun after lots of research and then shooting several hundred rounds through it has provided more value than spewing dollars for a new gun which may arrive sometime next year.

I've learned a lot as well from firing the military muskets such as the Brown Bess. I still may not like them but I've learned from the experience. And they throw out a giant payload.

Good luck in your search. Like you, I have sometimes kicked the tiger in my search for knowledge and gotten some of the veterans fairly excited. But I learned from their genuinely insightful comments, and I'm getting better every day in the real world, where the shooting actually happens.

 

[BrownBear]

also, I was looking at another Lyman gun, the Deerstalker. It weights slightly less and has a 24" barrel - short and perfect for fowling

Of all the Lyman guns, the Deerstalker comes closest to having the right balance for becoming a fowler, in my book anyway. The squared-off butt and comb are close to right, and by the time you removed barrel steel in making it a smoothbore, it would be closer to right than any other Lyman.

One thing I'd do before dropping shekels is contact the barrel maker you want to do the work. Ask them how large the bore could be opened. I know TC only went to 56 cal smoothbore in their 15/16" barrels, and Green Mountain's 20 smoothbore had a 1" barrel. The Deerstalker is 15/16". That's not a criticism, because lot of folks are very happy with their scarce 56 cals (and luck to have them). But if you have your heart set on a 20, you may be ceilinged out before you get there with a Deerstalker.

 

[jdkerstetter]

I was looking at another Lyman gun, the Deerstalker. It weights slightly less and has a 24" barrel - short and perfect for fowling

I beg to differ, but short barrels on ML's are not great for fowling. In fact the contrary is true. While a compact barrel may be good in the deer woods or sitting for turkey, it sucks for wing shooting as the sight radius is too short...especially when the barrel is equipted with rifle sights. Opt for a longer barrel.

I might add that I own a short barreled Deerstalker and hunted it with it considerably in Virginia and Ohio. You really don't realize how short the sight radius is until you look down the barrel of one.

Consider this, when you have a 24" barreled auto-loading or pump shotgun you have about 8 inches of receiver before you start the barrel, so you actually have the same sight radius as a 30 or 32" over/under. The sight radius on the DS carbine was so short I put on a Lyman peep sight.

This gun, now retired as it isn't flintlock, was set up as a stalking or still-hunting gun only and I would never consider it for anything else....24" is just too short for a BP gun IMHO.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[wahkahchimaol.com]

Ahem....http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/pp-classifieds/showproduct.php/product/8145.

 

[BrownBear]

I beg to differ, but short barrels on ML's are not great for fowling. In fact the contrary is true.

That's a dandy paddle for your own canoe, but might not be the right paddle in someone else's canoe. In our woods and fields, shorter barrels work better for me on "fowlers." I like a little longer barrel for waterfowl, but I'm quicker with shorter guns when the conditions require that kind of shooting.

That's my paddle and it works best in my canoe. Ain't saying the next guy has to have a short barrel to be right in his own canoe.

 

[jdkerstetter]

Guess it depends on how you define "short" for a fowler.

Are you shooting a 24" fowler as the OP suggested? How about a 24" Deerstalker?

Most fowlers have 42" and longer barrels so to me, a short fowler might have around a 36" barrel length, give or take, with 32" being about the minimum.

I'm not trying to start any arguements. Anybody is free to use whatever they want but we've arleady determined the OP is inexperienced and I'm just trying give good advice.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[mikeoosting]

I beg to differ, but short barrels on ML's are not great for fowling. In fact the contrary is true. While a compact barrel may be good in the deer woods or sitting for turkey, it sucks for wing shooting as the sight radius is too short...especially when the barrel is equipted with rifle sights. Opt for a longer barrel.

I might add that I own a short barreled Deerstalker and hunted it with it considerably in Virginia and Ohio. You really don't realize how short the sight radius is until you look down the barrel of one.

Consider this, when you have a 24" barreled auto-loading or pump shotgun you have about 8 inches of receiver before you start the barrel, so you actually have the same sight radius as a 30 or 32" over/under. The sight radius on the DS carbine was so short I put on a Lyman peep sight.

This gun, now retired as it isn't flintlock, was set up as a stalking or still-hunting gun only and I would never consider it for anything else....24" is just too short for a BP gun IMHO.

Sorry, to clarify - a great GROUSE gun, not just a general fowling gun. I live right before where the Canadian Shield meets the predominantly deciduous forests of the great lakes basin - the Quinte area. Being temperate lowlands, the forests here can more aptly be described as thicket with interspersed deciduous trees along the shorelines and more coniferous trees in the interior. It's grouse heaven, however, it's would also be impossible to navigate with a gun whose barrel is 40" long if you intend to be swingin' it around after flushed grouse. You'd get it all tangled in some vines or something.

 

[jdkerstetter]

I hunted stuff like that in Virginia for deer and thus the short barreled rifle.

In this case it was young tree farms servicing the pulp mills....think hunting in corn without the nice neat rows. You could get turned around in the stuff and it was so tight if wasn't for gravity you couldn't tell up from down....I don't miss it. :shake:

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[mikeoosting]

Of all the Lyman guns, the Deerstalker comes closest to having the right balance for becoming a fowler, in my book anyway. The squared-off butt and comb are close to right, and by the time you removed barrel steel in making it a smoothbore, it would be closer to right than any other Lyman.

I noticed this too - unlike the trade rifle, with it's rifle-ish upper arm-fitted butt, the Deerstalker has a shotgun-y butt, straight and with a pad. Gee, I'm learning things :grin:

One thing I'd do before dropping shekels is contact the barrel maker you want to do the work. Ask them how large the bore could be opened. I know TC only went to 56 cal smoothbore in their 15/16" barrels, and Green Mountain's 20 smoothbore had a 1" barrel. The Deerstalker is 15/16". That's not a criticism, because lot of folks are very happy with their scarce 56 cals (and luck to have them). But if you have your heart set on a 20, you may be ceilinged out before you get there with a Deerstalker.

I don't necessarily have my heart set on a 20 gauge. I would go to a 24. I know they make 28 gauges but I would think someone would be able to do at least 24 gauge.

 

[Zoar]

Michael---you want to check out the other thread that is active right now here under smoothbores called "Got My First Gun" or something like that:


Here is a quote from that thread---

"I haven't weighed the gun so I cannot tell you an exact number. However, I can tell you that it is a lot lighter than the Benelli Nova I am used to carrying around during turkey season.

I bought all the pieces for the gun, minus the stock, from Stonewall Creek Outfitters for around $520 shipped to the door. My friend who built the gun, had a piece of wood for the stock and he charged me $150 to carve the stock and put the gun together.

I finally patterned it a bit this past weekend with good results. At 30 yards, I was easily peppering a turkey head target. I shot 80 grains FF, 1 OP card, 1/4" wad, 1 3/8 oz #6 shot and 1 OS card. Taking a fine bead, the gun shoots a little low so I need to file the front sight down some."

He also got that smoothie for SQUIRRELS!!!! (12 gauge can do it all)