Why so few high end "percs"?

[zimmerstutzen]

I don't think the historical perc guns were as fancy. For the repro market in the 1970's and 1980's percussion locks were far easier and cheaper to make.

In the 1960's we had the Civil War centennial, then in the 1970's several made for Tv movies about the fur trade and western expansion. (The McCahann clan in TV's How the west was won. The made for TV series "Centennial". Tv Westerns like Silverado, Desperado, the show about the Pony Express kids, a host of western movies, Jere. Johnson, The Mountain Men, etc. Even Dances with Wolves. There was a huge interest in the RMFT in media and shooting. I can't think of any Eastern colonial genre Movies until Last of the Mohicans in the early 1990's.

The pendulum swings one way and then another.

we are now in the 150th anniversary of the civil war and I am shocked that there is not more interest. Even back in 1981, there were one minute historical spots about the passage and adoption of the US Constitution.

 

[shortbow]

Wow guys, a lot of good, well reasoned, thoughtful and informed comments plus some really dandy rifle pics to boot.

I think I can also read between the lines to some extent here. The percussion board mostly discusses production, mostly Italian guns while the flintlock section is mostly the higher end custom stuff. From what you are all saying, I get that to make a flintlock rifle fire reliably you have to use a well made and well tuned (American) lock, while with the production percussions we mostly see on here you can get by with a lot less attention to detail and integrity of materials. This makes a lot of sense to me now.

Still, I'm not really sure why the current trend is so heavily weighted towards flint when talking custom guns. If we leave aside the golden age stuff and the Jaegers and English sporting guns and talk about a more apples to apples kinda thing, there's still a question in my mind why more guys go for a "poorboy" or "barn gun" flinter than for a percussion rifle of a similar quality and cost.

Maybe it has something to do with the increasing level of understanding that even when talking the RMFT era, guys are learning that the flint gun was more often encountered than the then-new percussion system?

Anyhow, it's all fun stuff to think about, sure beats reading the news.

 

[LaBonte]

Still, I'm not really sure why the current trend is so heavily weighted towards flint when talking custom guns.

Plainly and simply market demand. I've been at "this" for over 50 years now and fashions/fads come and go periodically.
During the late 1960's and early 1970's it was all about the Mountain Men espedially after the J Johnson came out, plus most of the old timers that were still around at that time shot percussion, whihc hey learned from their fathers.
Then in 1976 the Bi-Centennial arrived and the impetus changed more to the "colonial" era and thus the flint lock guns.

As for the percussion guns not being as fancy - well yes and no - the Bedford County guns for instance and even the Hawkn Bros could make fancy - there is at least on e J & S rifles mounted in silver with motehr of pearl inlays. On the other hand styles had also changed and thus plainer guns became more in vogue up to a point anyway.

 

[Jason Lewis]

i have both flinters and percussion guns. each has their place and both of them get used during the hunting season. i do mostly pheasants these days, weather plays a big factor in my choice for wing shooting case in point, my first day out this year it rained all day long. the original sxs percussion shotgun came out that day and performed beautifully as expected. i would not have taken the fowler out that day as the fast shots of wing shooting don't allow for the protective wet weather measures to us a flintlock. on dry days i am liable to use either flint or percussion in the pheasant fields.

for turkey hunting i use the flint fowler only. even if it rains the still hunting aspect of turkey hunting allows the lock to be covered untill the moment prior to the shot. just my two cents.

 

[Walks with fire]

I know that it would be very very rare for my flinter not to fire reguardless of the weather conditions if it was loaded in dry conditions. I can be soaked to the bone but the rifle is always dry for that first shot. It's impossible to reload in a heavy rain unless there is some way to get out of the weather.

I have never owned a percussion rifle so I can't say for sure but I have always believed that a flint rifle was more reliable.

By the way what is RMFT?

 

[pchwcf50110]

rocky mnt. fur trade

 

I know there have always been "custom gins", but when I think of flintlocks vs. percussion, I tend to think of them like this...

Flintlock Era = Hand made, custom detailing.
Percussion Era = Mass produced, factory made.

I know that's not true, but it's a perception.

 

[VEARL]

I have one flint lock rifle that was my first and last attempt at being a gun maker. :surrender:
I also have 3 percussion rifle that are production guns.
I have had misfires with both type. None of them was due to the rifles poor workmanship, but to my being careless at how well I prepared it for the shot.
Now don't get me wrong, but I do like to see custom guns with the fancy stocks. For me I have no place for them. I have working guns that are for a specific task and no more is expected from them. Venison taken by a cheap Italian made import or an expensive custom piece still taste the same to me.
Wouldn't it be boring if we all had the same style guns and they all looked alike?
I keep telling myself that I am very lucky to be the best looking guy in a room full of butt ugly men. :rotf:

 

[Spikebuck]

I have one flintlock which I got this year specifically for turkey/small game (20Ga smoothbore). I have numerous caplocks. The one thing that amazed me is that the flintlock ALWAYS fires. I'd heard so many horror stories I figured I'd have problems, but it fires as consistently as my caplocks and no whoosh-bang either.

I've been looking for Brant Selb ever since he had an absolutely beautiful 58 cal Hawken fullstock on Track's. I waited two days and that was too long, someone else got it (I was debating the $2000 price tag.) That gentleman makes superb Hawkens from what I saw on that one. I've searched for how to contact him, but have been unsuccessful...not sure I searched WB Selb, I'll try that.

 

[majg1234]

just got into this flint stuff about 18mos ago,love it !!!! still shoot my Percussions but not as much.I enjoy the look on the folks face @ the range and deer club when my flinters go"bang" with no other noises.I almost converted one to a flinter....he's asking a lot of questions :hmm: I've shot about 8 lbs of powder through the flinters now and I've had ONE misfire,my fault because I didn't ck the tightness of the flint on the 40cal S MTN rifle,Have yet to have a misfire hangfire or flash in the pan on any of the Hawkens or the carolina smooth bore

 

[Herb]

Here are some I made. Thomas Oldham Bedford, sterling silver inlays.

.50 caliber for a woman, custom to her fit.

Sacajawea silver dollar inlay.

.50 caliber, complete custom inlays.

Two .50 caplocks, the right handed one is a copy of a Johnston rifle, the left-handed one is based on a Fleeger rifle, for the husband of the gal whose rifle is above.

A .40 Vincent for a dentist- sterling silver tooth inlays.

My workhorse .54 Hawken, engraved lock and barrel.

But you are correct. I've built 40 some rifles, and most of them are flintlocks.

 

There's no doubt that today's builders can make a fancy percussion (or anything for that matter), but were percussions generally as fancy as flintlocks historically?

 

[shortbow]

Beautiful guns Herb.

As to fancy, I am about as ignorant as you can get about the Eastern doin's but sure looks like you can get as fancy as you want with percussions just fewer of them because the system came so late in the ML era.

But lest I leave the wrong impression, I wasn't originally asking about fancy vs plain so much as custom vs factory. A quick perusal of the percussion section here leaves the impression pretty quickly that most of the guns therein discussed are mostly Italian (and TC) production pieces whereas the flint rifles are almost all custom, hand-made guns, a few GPR's and the like notwithstanding.

 

[rdrash]

WOW. Very nice.
:hatsoff:

Trevor

 

[Dphar]

Hey Gents and Ladies, back many years ago when I got into this game, most of the guns I had, saw or heard about were percussion rifles with an emphasis on the RMFT.

I live out West, so that explains things to some extent, but nonetheless, I'm sure we've all noticed that over the last number of years the emphasis seems to have turned to 18th century flintlocks. This seems especially true of all the beautiful high end customs one sees on this and other sites, not to mention mags like MUZZLELOADER.

How come there are so relatively few nice custom percussion guns, either later longrifles or half-stocks? And when 'zactlty did this start?

I know a lot of the flint guys say you haven't really gotten into the ML game until you're running a nice custom flinter, but I personally don't agree. My custom Hawken is as nice a gun as any of their high style flinters, imho anyway.

I like flint locks, no doubt, but as my thing is the RMFT I don't feel unduly shortchanged carrying a percussion gun. I certainly admire the golden age Kentuckies and all their kin, but I just plain love my hand-built plains rifle.

So, again, how come there are seemingly so few custom percussion guns being built and used? Will the pendulum swing back one day?

In the late 60s the "Mountain Man" thing really took off. It resulted, for one thing, in a lot of mas produced rifles that the makers pretended were "Hawkens" or "mountain rifles". But people came to realize that there were other eras as well. Not to mention the flintlock hung on in the west into the 1850s, some considered it more trustworthy believe it or not.

Lots of people shoot percussion. But flintlocks are more interesting. And for the most part the flint guns have better decoration than the percussion era guns due to changes in fashion. They look better and are more interesting to make and better to look at for the most part.

I doubt it will ever swing back to what it was in 1972-75, I shot flint almost exclusively by then even in the west. Too many people in the was like playing earlier eras that require flint guns.
Dan

 

[Stony]

I think folks grew up watching Fess Parker as Boone or Crockett and what did he use? A flintlock! Lots of cowboy movies and TV shows too. Most of them carried a 1873 Colt or an 1892 Winchester, look at SASS sometime. Not many 1860 Colt style handguns although they would be legal and have their own special class. People tend to buy with their heart more than with their brain. When I had the chance, I bought a Porsche mainly because of childhood memories and a young man dreams. Not because I love driving a stick shift! :youcrazy:

 

[RedFeather]

I think it is purely marketing, at least in respect to new guns. Back in the 70's it seemed that most guns were either military muskets or some kind of mountain rifle where you didn't have a lot of bling. I think a few companies tried it but it was kind of half-hearted like the Traditions with the inlays. (Not that they don't look bad, mind you, just not custom.) Most of the "premium" factory guns seemed to have a tad better wood and engraved metal parts but not much in the way of stock decorations. I have seen quite a few original sporting guns, usually small caliber, with tasteful, simple inlays. Then there is that presentation gun given to President Grant but those are kind of exceptions. It takes a lot of thought and skill to reproduce sporters like this while the mountain guns are fairly easy insofar as plain parts are concerned. I, for one, would like to see someone come out with a nice .40 sporting gun, for example, but now you can hardly find a factory plains rifle. Such is the power of the market.

BTW, those beautiful percussion rifles, above, give you an idea of what a factory would have to try and set up for. Maybe it's better they didn't try?