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15 Comments

  1. Great reading! It is surely time that this blog gets exposed to this set of valuable tools. I have both percussion and flint. (You can make your own percussion caps ! ) But flints are my first choice. These weapons are not under powered. But u have to practice with them and the stuff to load, shoot and maintain them.
    Watch some UTube black powder shooting. You will see near sustainable weapon system that is right now pretty free of guvmint sniffing round it and red tape procuring it.
    Dixie Gun Works, Gun Broker black powder section, Cabelas, can get u started.
    Shooting the rifles and pistols is fun but operating the double barrel shotgun is celestial.
    May the good Lord stand beside u as you trek down this historic path and:
    “Shoot like a Patriot!”

  2. Good reading. I have enjoyed in earlier years shooting a percussion smoke pole during our muzzle loading season. Now these days I take my very accurate Encore. I however will continue to count on my LWRC’s if and when the shtf.

  3. I love percussion and flintlocks. I just don’t believe loaded ammo will run out, if we shoot up our 10k of 223 I’m sure we will be dead by then. If not we would be scavenging and finding ammo along the way. There will be less people so there will be more ammo and gasoline to be had.

  4. While I do have a couple of muzzle loaders and I have successfully hunted big game with a muzzle loader, I disagree with the author about its prepping usefulness.
    Ammo is very cheap in the USA. If you are on this website then you are likely a prepper already. Ammo can be stockpiled. Most cartridges can be reloaded with home-made black powder if required. It is just as easy to cast rifle bullets as it is to cast muzzle loader bullets or balls (yes I have cast both). Primers cannot be made but are very small and many thousands can be stored for decades.
    As soon as cartridge guns were made everyone that could afford one switched over to them. This was for a reason- -they are WAY better.

    1. I look at it this way. There is a place for bowhunting when stealth and a concern for being discovered by others are important. The use of muzzleloading black powder firearms, however, is something that my great grandchildren will have to concern themselves with. Frankly, if those who come after me use the ammunition wisely, that last estimate may be conservative. This is especially so when reloading is factored in.

      Who knows how many people have been killed by flintlocks? Who knows how many animals have been killed by flintlocks? Yet, unless all other options are exhausted, I believe that it would be a cardinal mistake to expend financial resources now on a technology that might be useful to people several generations after a total Mad Max meltdown has occurred.

      Take that same few hundred dollars that might be spent on that Kentucky Long Rifle and add a couple thousand center fire cartridges to the arsenal, instead of investing in a novelty. If you are concerned about “sustainability” in your lifetime to the extent that you are planning on using flintlocks, then you clearly have not stored enough ammunition.

      “A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition” –Rudyard Kipling

  5. While not optimum for today, the muzzle loading weapons of the Civil War, with paper cartridges, minnie ball, and caps, were a very effective long range weapon. One source lists the Springfield at 3 aimed shots per minute effective out to about 300 yards. I have heard of 5 or so a minute if less aiming and a shorter distance. Have and use “smoke poles” and the major problems are not reloading or accuracy, it is the smoke of firing gives away your position and the powder fouls the bore and the rifle must be kept clean and empty as much as possible in order to limit corrosion. The black powder will absorb moisture and cause all sorts of problems, but when dried out it will fire. I have had much better luck with a horn powder holder than a fancy brass one that I left powder in and corroded into a total mess.

  6. I just so happen to have been making a fulltime living building muzzleloaders since ’96. Check out PBS’s ” A Craftsman’s Legacy” season 1 episode 8. That’s me. Also have a gun in Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot”. I have built nearly 400 of them now, all by hand. I have shot competition at the national level since ’80 with ML’s. Tied a national record in ’86. Never shot a pheasant or a deer with anything other than black powder.
    All that being said. I’ll be depending on my cartridge guns when the Schumer hits the fan.

  7. Saw a youtube video, something like “protection for felons”. Guy went to jail , did his time , but can never own a gun legally. A black powder pistol was part of his home defense plan.

    Might actually distract your would be assailants with huge clouds of smoke.

    Is he really shooting a black powder pistol at us ? 🙂

  9. The modern cartridge guns may be better, but the self-satisfaction of hitting your target with a muzzleloader is a joy unto itself. So is the knowledge and skill of hitting what you are aiming at with a primitive bow and fletched wooden arrows. And if you like competition with either platform, join an historical recreation group. The members will teach you just about any survival skill you want to learn and master, from weaponry, both use and manufacture, to fire-starting to cooking over that fire to learning how to forage for something to cook, now that you know how. Check for local chapters of the NMLRA and the SCA, the former for Muzzleloading, from The Colonial era to the Civil War, the latter for Medieval history. I’ve participated in both, and have learned much and made great friends through both.

  10. ” ” ” You can not legally own a black powder muzzleloader if you are a felon.” ” ”

    Most felons just buy a real gun off the street.

    Found it comical this guy was packing a black powder pistol.

    Seems my attempt at humor has escaped fellow dear readers.

  11. i’m not “bragging ” with this comment. That’s not the point…the point is enjoying learning to use and putting to work a firearm from the past. It’s just a lot of fun! I am a traditional archer. I use longbows, recurve bows and osage self bows to hunt deer and wild turkey. I have killed 110 whitetails, 2 bull elk and 1 bull moose as well as several turkeys with traditional bows over 30 plus years. I have no interest in hunting with a modern cartridge rifle. It is just not fair chase. It’s shooting , not hunting. However, a few years ago I was given a Thompson/Center Renegade 50 cal mz. I put a tang peep sight on it and I enjoy the heck out of it. If by 2 weeks from season close if I haven’t taken 3 or 4 whitetails, then that old mz comes out…it’s a blast to carry and shoot, particularly from a set of shooting sticks made from rivercane. I know this is a prepper/survival site, but still…

  12. Jima,

    I haven’t had any experience hunting…yet…but agree with you about the muzzleloader – mine is also a T/C Renegade 50 cal, a caplock and my husband has a T/C Renegade .50 in flintlock – and we both shoot primitive-style bows – I use both recurve and longbow, he sticks to his longbow. He is a fletcher, so I have no worries about staying supplied with arrows. He is also a reloader, so keeping supplied with round ball is covered, too. When I was going to Rendezvous, my friends in the group used to give me boxes of roundball as birthday and Christmas gifts. They came in handy since I hadn’t met my husband yet. I used to give them home-canned jams and chutneys.

    History is a great teacher of survival skills. Maybe that is why I am embracing the prepping mindset so easily.

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