- Joined
- Dec 7, 2016
- Messages
- 4,622
- Reaction score
- 7,054
Ma and I took a couple weeks to travel and ended up in San Antonio for a few days, the to Hot Springs, Arkansas, the Branson and finally back home here in Minnesota. Along the way we stopped for her quilting fix and I got to snoop out pawn and gun shops for used muzzle loaders. I've been wanting to find another side lock and only saw three, all of which were in pretty tough shape. Lots of Knights, T/C and Traditions guns, fairly low numbers of CVA, but what was most noticeable was the condition of many of these guns: unreal amounts of fouling in the breech and bolt areas, rust beyond belief and out of the fifty or so guns I looked at on this trip three actually had loads, or what could have been loads, in them.
On any BP gun I handle the first thing I do is pull the rod and lay it up against the barrel so I can get an idea of where the breech plug should end and then slide the rod down the pipe to see where it stops. No rod in place ON the gun will extend beyond the muzzle and when it goes down the barrel will not extend past the barrel's end and three rifles had obvious obstructions in the barrels yet not one word was ever said about that fact by the shop personnel. I can see how accidents can happen.
One White Mountain T/C had a broken/poorly repaired stock that was otherwise a clean gun and almost came home with us. Another find that was clean was an X150 Winchester bolt in-line that was in a pretty much immaculate condition but 50 caliber...had it been a .45 it would be in the safe right now.
In all I saw 7 Knight rifles, all plunger/#11 cap guns. Every single one of them was a nightmare in the clean department. Most of these had so much rusty crap in the barrels at the muzzle it looked like they had fuzzy socks stuffed in them. Two of these guns were what appeared to be loaded. All in all it was pretty discouraging to see the number of black powder guns out there that simply looked abused. I just don't understand how anyone could make an investment in a nice gun and let it go straight to pot like most of these had.
On any BP gun I handle the first thing I do is pull the rod and lay it up against the barrel so I can get an idea of where the breech plug should end and then slide the rod down the pipe to see where it stops. No rod in place ON the gun will extend beyond the muzzle and when it goes down the barrel will not extend past the barrel's end and three rifles had obvious obstructions in the barrels yet not one word was ever said about that fact by the shop personnel. I can see how accidents can happen.
One White Mountain T/C had a broken/poorly repaired stock that was otherwise a clean gun and almost came home with us. Another find that was clean was an X150 Winchester bolt in-line that was in a pretty much immaculate condition but 50 caliber...had it been a .45 it would be in the safe right now.
In all I saw 7 Knight rifles, all plunger/#11 cap guns. Every single one of them was a nightmare in the clean department. Most of these had so much rusty crap in the barrels at the muzzle it looked like they had fuzzy socks stuffed in them. Two of these guns were what appeared to be loaded. All in all it was pretty discouraging to see the number of black powder guns out there that simply looked abused. I just don't understand how anyone could make an investment in a nice gun and let it go straight to pot like most of these had.