Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Hallo!

Herr John, I will also send you a rifle-building VHS video to help you "visualize" things.

Curt

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Curt,

Welcome to my Christmas Card list!
:D

[Gary of CA]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Basic gun building skills may be learned at Conner Prairie Arms Making Workshop. Conner Prairie is a living history museum in Fishers, Indiana and is very close to Indianapolis. The workshop is in October.

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Basic gun building skills may be learned at Conner Prairie Arms Making Workshop. Conner Prairie is a living history museum in Fishers, Indiana and is very close to Indianapolis. The workshop is in October.

I am familiar with CP's class and have considered taking it. The caveat is that it would require me to take a full week off of work. It would be a great way to learn, but... I gotta get a kitchen pass from the missus for AND the 4-day-weekend events I want to attend this year.

Good thought, though!

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

I imagine Mr Wickett will be "once and done" with this bright
idea. For one thing (with his high standards), he will be fretting over
the project day and night for years, never quite satisfied with it.

This much is known, he is not shy about sinking funds into
a losing cause, so it might be a good time to invest in shares of
stock for S&S Firearms, Lodgewood Mfg, Whitacre Machine
Shop, Hoyt and Dunlap. I predict a fair amount of John's
discretionary income headed their way.

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Craig,

You know me pretty well!

This much is known, he is not shy about sinking funds into a losing cause ...

I prefer the term "labor of love" over "losing cause". :wink_smil

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Hallo!

Judging by the so very few "custom-builts" in the hands of the C/P/H/A Community, are they really the love-children or the bastard-children of the Authenticity Movement?

;) :) :)

Just a-funnin'... (But not on my Broken Record complaint of how our community perpetually strains at the gnats of uniform and gear and swallows the camels of firearms and edged weapons.)

Three Cheers and a Tiger for Herr John!!!

Curt

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Not to derail my own thread, but...

One of the chief arguments against using custom builds (other than cost) is "not wanting to abuse a $XXXX gun". What I have found after a decade of using a custom build at events is, as long as you take the time to clean it thoroughly at home, they take a lot of abuse without negative effect. Yes, my Enfield (known as "The Money Pit" to Herr Craig... yeah, and to me, too!) has a couple of dings in the stock, but nothing too serious.

Forms of abuse have included...
Being filled with water during a deluge at a LH event at Pitzer's Woods in '02.
Crashing in a stack of muskets at a picket post in '04 (the same stack that was the source of the famous "un-f**k this stack!!" line from Ivan Ingram).
Frozen and/or soaked at a series of Perryville events.

Most of the maintenance issues I see on muskets in the hobby seems to come more from neglect than abuse.

[Craig L Barry]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

We'll talk after you get into it a little bit. Hey, it's not rocket science. Except for Herr
Kammeraden most gun builders are not rocket scientists, so that part of the equation
works out well.

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Hallo!

Hey, wait a minute!

I am a rocket surgeon, not a rocket scientist! (My father was an NASA rocket scientist though for the moon shots.)

:) :)

Herr John, I could see the "cash outlay" argument, but I also have been in the 18th century where lads take their $1500-$6,000 longrifles into the rain, snow, and sun of the woods, the wilderness, mountains, rocks, clifs, rock shelters, and at times river bottoms.
I once used mine as a "bed" to elevate me above an inch of rising ground water during a KY Frog Strangler.

Curt

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

Curt,

Agreed. Wise men have said,
"They are built to be used."
"If you don't play with your toys, someone else will after you're dead."

If I didn't want to use it, I'd just buy a high-condition original! ;)

[jackpine]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

I think I'll be going the make your own route too. Nice project to fill the time when I'm not shooting.




Mark Podulke

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

By way of an update:
I have most of the parts in-hand. Still need lock guts and a few other bits.

Getting the workshop setup is next. I'll need to find a good vice (I mean a clamp that is fixed to my work bench, not a bad habit or failing in my character) and a few tools.

[Blair]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

John,

You have probably already said... but, some of us "old guys" need reminding every so often. Which model/type firearm have you decided on building?

[LibertyHallVols]

Re: Makin' Muskets: How to get started?

US M1861. I picked it because...
1) I like 'em
2) I don't have one
3) Seemed to be a good combination of usability at events and (relative) simplicity of assembly.
:-)