The Joy of Muzzle Loading

[fanaudical]

I always enjoy projects and have seen various muzzle loading rifle kits available; been thinking about building one. Any recommendations?

[GH85Carrera]

I recently watched a series on Amazon Prime called American Guns. It started at the beginning of the Europeans coming to the continent. From the old blunderbuss. The British "Brown Bess" was a standard for a very long time. It was fascinating how so many Americans had Eureka moments, and invented a new way of doing things. The many new patents and new gun companies.

How the Colt company went to the Worlds fair in Europe, brought 5 working guns. Took all of them completely apart, mixed up the parts in bags and had 5 different people assemble a gun from those mixed up parts and made 5 working guns.

It goes along to the modern era. Interesting series.

[John Rogers]

If you decide you wish to put one together, you have to decide if it will be a flintlock or a percussion ignition type. There are dozens of makers of both type of kits so the internet is your friend. For a flint lock the top of the line is Jim Kibler and his stocks are so well made almost NO wood work is required. If you are wanting to do some wood work such trimming the lock opening or barrel channel the Pecatonica Rive is who I use. They supplied the parts for the Schuetzen rifle in the picture above and it took me 3 months to finish it, percussion type. Thompson Center make good low priced kits and that is how I started.

[fanaudical]

Thanks, John! I already have one percussion rifle and was thinking of another in the same caliber. I will look at your suggestions.

[Jeff Higgins]

Yes, there is no shortage of rifle kits on the market today. Quality varies tremendously from manufacturer to manufacturer. Level of completion varies just as much, but these are two different things. Some of the cheapest, lowest quality kits arrive the most finished, requiring the least amount of work. Some of the best kits arrive the least finished, requiring a good deal of skilled work to complete. And vis versa - some of the cheapest quality kits are so bad they take a real "craftsman" to build even a halfway acceptable rifle, where some of the best quality kits require no more than finishing the stock and assembling to parts.

The "big box" manufacturers tend to supply the lower quality kits. The two notable exceptions, in my opinion, are Thompson Center and Lyman. Their stuff is not, however, in any way meant to be any kind of historically correct representation, with the exception of the Lyman Great Plains Rifle. If that is important to you, you will have to look elsewhere.

One of my favorites for quality, historically correct rifles is Track of the Wolf. Top quality stuff all the way. Many of their kits offer a selection of both barrels and locks from at least a couple of manufacturers, so you can tailor the kit to your desires. These are, however, for the most part "craftsman" kits, and will require a good deal of inletting on the stock, a drill press to drill up many of the screw holes (although they do offer them drilled and tapped as an extra cost option), and will require you to brown or blue the metal work. For those who enjoy getting that deep into it, though, they are a pleasure to work with.

Dixie Gun Works and October Country are another couple of suppliers you might want to check out. Both offer an extensive line-up of quality kits. Not as "hard core" as Track of the Wolf, but good stuff anyways.

[fanaudical]

Great info - thanks!