the death of the commercial muzzleloader

[coloradoclyde]

Shaper and 6 ton press? what are they for?
Do you have a website yet. What models are you planning to build?????

They would be for cutting and shaping steel. Not really models, but kit guns.

I was thinking of a wood shaper
Good luck... we need more options in the ML market.

 

[nwtradegun]

Alvin York lived in the 1910 -18 era. they still used muzzleloader then and into the 30s inthat area. the appalacian mountains.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Don't some still use them today in Appalachia? :blah:

The use of muzzleloaders has never ended ......we still use them today.

 

[Richard Brinkman]

I knew a fellow that grew up in the Missouri Ozarks not far form the Arkansas line and he told me that his family had a 22 and a SXS shotgun but the ammo was so expensive that they were seldom used. He grew up using a 36 caliber muzzle loader and I remember him telling me that he could buy a pound of powder for $.25 and a box of caps for $.05 and lead was to be had for free. The only problem was that the nickel and quarter were hard to come by. Said that he killed a lot of squirrels and rabbits with that muzzle loader. Interestingly he told me the only time the shotgun was used was when a flock of ducks or geese were spotted on a pond or creek and then you would sneak up on the them and blast the whole flock. This was probably in the 1920 to 1930 time line.

RB

 

[BigBoreBLR]

It takes folks about 20 years to adopt something new.

MAny of you remember when cars went from carberated to fuel injected in the 1980's. Many clung to their used cars for a few more years, or preferred a particular make or model that still had the older technology in it.

Same goes for smokeless powder arms. Marlin and Winchester sold blackpowder cartridge rirles for well over 20 years after 1895.

I imagine the transition from muzzle to breech loading blackpowder arms was no different.

 

[Carteret Kid]

Is not the reason for keeping the gun over the fire place is to keep it dry?

 

[longcruise]

Maybe it would get too dry? Wood shrinkage could degrade it's value.

 

[doug60]

Just my thought on why keep the gun over the fireplace,something goes bump in the night and with no flashlight to grab,head to the glowing coals reach up and you are armed.

 

[Captjoel]

"Death of the commercial muzzleloader" I think of a famous quote made by a famous General. "Old muzzleloaders never die, they just make smoke and stink away". :blah: P.S. It wasn't Macarthur, it was MacBragg!

 

[Arcturus]

Something no one has mentioned yet is that 1870 would have been radically different than just a few years later. 1873 is the year most handguns firing metallic cartridges hit the market, as Smith & Wesson's patents, and therefore virtual monopoly on cartridge firing revolvers, ended. Even with regard to rifles, very few repeaters were available prior to 1873 as compared to later in the decade. My guess is muzzleloading long guns would have still been the most common available firearms in 1870, while just a few years later things would change quite a bit.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Even more interesting is the low production numbers of that time (especially smith & wesson)and the fact that so many gun manufacturers went broke during the later 1800s

 

[Tinker2]

So far all I really need is a shaper and a 6 ton press and then gun kits can be made

Matty

A metal shaper?

I wonder if you have any idea of what metal shaper can and can’t do.

There is not much a shaper can do that you can’t do with a file.
A 6 ton press is not much. A big bench vice can do a lot.

Make your prototype first, then talk to a machinist / gunsmith about machines and tooling.



William Alexander

 

[robert reed]

Maybe it would get too dry? Wood shrinkage could degrade it's value.

:rotf:

 

[robert reed]

Something no one has mentioned yet is that 1870 would have been radically different than just a few years later. 1873 is the year most handguns firing metallic cartridges hit the market, as Smith & Wesson's patents, and therefore virtual monopoly on cartridge firing revolvers, ended. Even with regard to rifles, very few repeaters were available prior to 1873 as compared to later in the decade. My guess is muzzleloading long guns would have still been the most common available firearms in 1870, while just a few years later things would change quite a bit.

Colt SAA were not sold to the general public until 1874. Demand was high, bringing $20. A $20 gold coin now brings $1200 and up. Not many farmers and cowboys would ever own one. Not to mention the cost of ammo and reloading equipment, as there where few places to even buy cartridges.

 

[galamb]

I think back then is probably not much different than today in terms of what is sitting behind the door at your average farm house.

In the late 1800's there were tons of Belgian made shotguns and rifles that were available "cheap" in the North American market. I personally own a 1870's falling block 38 cal breech loader - worth pretty much nothing today because there were thousands produced and sent over.

My uncle has a horse farm and there is a 870 Rem parked behind the door, loaded with 00 buck in case some vermin gets in/near the barn.

In 1870 there was probably a smooth bore musket (surplus by today's terminology) or a "cheap imported" percussion Belgian or English shotgun sitting behind the door in case "some vermin" came on the farm threatening the cows or horses or whatever.

Depending where the farm was most large/medium game was long hunted out so the gun was there for "pests", birds, squirrels etc

There was no need for a deer or bear rifle when the last ones had been hunted to near extinction 50 or more years before.

 

[coloradoclyde]

The Hudson bay company was still trading them to Indians up until 1912.

The Northwest gun is relatively scarce today but hundreds of thousands of them were made and sold on the frontier. They first appeared about the time of the Revolutionary War and remained in peak demand for a hundred years. In the 1880's they began to decline rapidly in popularity and by 1912 the Hudson's Bay Company office in London was asking the Northern posts to substitute something else if possible when requests for Northwest guns were received

Quote from;
INDIAN TRADE GUNS
by Charles E. Hanson, Jr

 

[RedFeather]

Considering the number of guns either made or imported for the war, only five years passed, I would not be surprised to see sporterized or bored out muskets, not to mention percussion revolvers. Percussion guns were used well into the metallic cartridge era. Guns weren't cheap, same as today. Consider that your grandpa's old Fox double 12 gauge wouldn't likely be tossed aside for a new Benelli autoloader. Same thing applies. If one only used their gun occasionally, such as a sod buster might, a percussion gun would have served very well.

 

[kentucky bucky]

I knew a man born in 1919 who only used ML shotguns that had been in his family for 50+ years, until he went into the service. His Dad and grandpaws also only hunted with ML rifles and shotguns. This was in West Virginia on a farm that produced nearly all they needed. These folks needed to be able to make most of everything they could themselves, so it would make sense that MLs would be used. Components would have been bought in bulk like other staples they couldn't produce themselves, and would be much cheaper than modern type ammo. Buying a new gun was out of the question as was having to buy ammo.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

In the 1903 Sears catalog they were selling surplus civil war Springfields. Muzzle loaders were made in rural America clean into the 1930s.

 

[satx78247]

As I've said elsewhere on this forum, my uncle Ollie Parker (1871-1966), who was a blacksmith & gunsmith in Delaware County, OK, was still routinely repairing ML of all sorts in the mid-1950s when I was a child, as well as making new ML rifles then. As best as I can remember, the most common rifles that he repaired for local customers were "surplus" Springfield & Enfield WBTS-era rifles.
(He built his last new ML rifle in 1959 & that rifle was displayed at the OK Statehood Centennial celebration in 2007.)

Btw, my uncle's "particular passion" was collecting combination guns, as he considered those rifle/shotguns to be the pinnacle of ML weapons.
(At the time of his death in November 1966, he owned more than 50 fine quality English & Irish Cape-guns.)

yours, satx