• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades
  • Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

Who are the top 5 muzzleloading builders in the U.S.?

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

freeloader

36 Cal.
Joined
May 30, 2009
Messages
55
Reaction score
0
I have heard from one guy and another that this guy or that guy is one of the top five muzzleloading firearms builders in the country. I have heard Jack Brooks mentioned and Jud Brennan etc. is their really such a thing. I know it would be purely subjective at best, but I am curious. What do you guys say?
 
I'd have a hard time stopping at five. There are some really good gunmakers out there these days.
 
If people would list there top five please keep it to the living and working. There are a few I can think of that are not with us any more. Mike even though I dont own one of your guns I would put you on the list. I think hands down you have the english fowler market cornered.
 
My list of favorites change from time to time. Currently for me these guys really ring my bell: Eric Kettengurg, Allen Martin, The House Bros. Mark Silver. There are many others, but these five come to my mind almost immediately.
 
Yeah, in what regard? Rifles, pistols, shot guns, competition space guns, from scratch guns?

There's barely a handfull that bang out all the parts themselves, including lock and barrel.

As for guys who take parts made by others and create incredible works of art, there are dozens.

I have shot with traditional, load from the pouch types and, some advante guard load at the bench, anything that loads from the muzzle competition shooters. While I know this is a traditional muzzleloader sight, I have seen muzzleloaders, built like something out of Buck Rodger's night mares. Free floating barrels, taper turned on lathes, metal flake green thumbhole stocks, Incredibly expensive reciever sights, electric triggers. Hooked butt plates and palm rests. False muzzles. Do you mean the best for traditional looks, the best for accuracy, thats a wide open question. The best for recreating a particular maker's style?

There was a fellow named Ron Griffie and a few of his cronies, outside of Annapolis MD, who made some exceptionally non-traditional Buck Rodger's type muzzleloaders that were super accurate.
 
I don't generally pay attention to anything that isn't traditional, so I wouldn't know who's making that kind of stuff. My above listed builders really have the "touch" and are able to make a gun look like it should, in my opinion.
 
Mike Brooks said:
I don't generally pay attention to anything that isn't traditional, so I wouldn't know who's making that kind of stuff. My above listed builders really have the "touch" and are able to make a gun look like it should, in my opinion.

I've got to agree! Especially Eric Kettenburg & Allen Martin... but I'm partial to the guns of my immediate locale (Christian's Spring & Northampton Co.) and those guys specialize in them. Mark Whelan is another IMHO.
 
Well thanks to you all, Like I said, it would be a subjective subject, but I have heard the term tossed around more than once. I can now tell by your answers, that there is no list.Just alot of smoke and bull.
 
Well, I don't know many personally, but one guy who I've mentioned a time or two is Steve Davis in Centerville, TN.

I think he makes everything but the lock and barrel, and I've handled a few of his. Phenomenal is I can say.
 
zimmerstutzen said:
There was a fellow named Ron Griffie and a few of his cronies, outside of Annapolis MD, who made some exceptionally non-traditional Buck Rodger's type muzzleloaders that were super accurate.


You mean like this......

IMG_0035.jpg


IMG_0030.jpg



I miss my cronies
 
that there is no list.Just alot of smoke and bull.
Not smoke and bull. There is an elite bunch of gunmakers that are on top of the game today. There work is simply above and beyond what all the rest are doing.
 
Some folks build to replicate a particular maker, some to copy a particular geographical style, some make really nice guns that aren't really recreation of any actual style or maker. Some have over the top embellishment, like a roccoco chamber in an Italian palace, with gold and silver and scroll work carried to the ridiculous.

I prefer the plain everyday use style of guns, from the late 1700's in central PA. more of an early poor boy of sorts. a Schimmel, as the dutch called them. Some guys are great at patch boxes and carving. two things not found on the guns I like.
 
freeloader said:
I have heard from one guy and another that this guy or that guy is one of the top five muzzleloading firearms builders in the country. I have heard Jack Brooks mentioned and Jud Brennan etc. is their really such a thing. I know it would be purely subjective at best, but I am curious. What do you guys say?
I'd add Jack and Jud to the top tier of builders....just not my top five is all. Many others would put them in their top five and rightly so.
 
I've seen some strange side slappers, but I think that it the strangest.

Who made it?


I'm pretty sure it was Ron that had made the metal flake green thumbhole stock target rifle. He also showed up one day with a flame orange gun. It was another fellow that had the gun with the auto spark plug screwed into the barrel and the extension cord to the car to power the gun.
 
Personally, I feel that a popular maker in one region, may not be popular in another area of the country, simply because not everybody has heard or are familiar with that certain person. As with anything, some of the best craftsman are generally unknown nationally, but the known are individuals who we judge or hear from other people's opinions through associations, guilds and other media source's and publications.

So this opens another can of worms, as to who is best or who is best know?

It,again my own opinion, but I feel that few that regularly handcrafts all components from scratch, including lock, stock and barrel must be recongized as the most ambitious and knowledgible, but not especially the best!

Rick
 
Back
Top