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Jim Dandy

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  1. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I frankly could have done with more ship-fighting and piratey stuff and less CGI supernatural stuff. Here I was all wound up to see a pirates-versus-East India Trading Company Trafalgar -- mass carnage, a bunch of pirate lords drawn from history kicking various sorts of arse -- and I get two ships shooting each other up in a giant whirlpool. The pirate and EITC fleets never even engage each other. They could have used the same amount of computing power to give us the greatest naval battle ever put on celluloid. Meh. It was okay, but still.... Meh. I give it a 7. It'd be a 6 except for Johny Depp. The first movie will always be on my top ten list for sheer fun value, though. Drink up me hearties, yo ho...
  2. You might want to try here as well: http://hometown.aol.com/hangfire1755/index...eloaders_k.html Damn me if I can make up my mind between their Jack Sparrow pistol and the Muzzleloaders Supply Early Georgian... I like the dragoons, but I'm not certain I want to cart such a huge weapon around on my hip when I'm pig hunting in brush country.... Anyhow, they offer both brass and silver grotesque faces. Take your pick.
  3. Uhhh.... I don't want to come off as the slightest bit argumentative, seeing as how I'm the new kid on the block, but I don't see how anyone, anytime, anywhere could have used a matchlock for hunting. The critters you were after would smell the match, and your ignition time is iffy. Neither of those are considerations if you're in a battalion blasting away at another battalion, but they sure are if you're trying to get the drop on a passel of feral pigs on Hispaniola. I've hunted hogs (though not with black powder). You could never get close to them with a lit match. Never in perdition. The Spanish were stuck with matchlocks because His Catholic Majesty didn't want his colonies to be better armed than the home crowd. Which is one reason why a bunch of angry Carribbean longhunters were able shoot h*ll out of them, on land and sea. Also: Never seen a period representation of a boucanier with anything but a flinter. (gets off little soapbox, looks abashed) Re: the weapon you quote from the Sea Rover's Practice: 57" sounds exactly right for an old-time fusil boucanier, seeing as how the old French inch is about x1.08 longer than our English inch. 54 French inches equal 57" or 58" of ours. So that sounds like a regulation weapon. The bore, on the other hand, sounds English. Curiouser & curiouser... Perhaps it was Dutch? The Dutch used the same big bores as the English did, and favored the same paddlebutt stock and the same ultrasuperlong barrels the French did. I guess without a picture we can't know for sure. Closest thing I can think of in a ready-made weapon would be the Cookson fowler offered by the Middlesex Trading Co. I looked long & hard at it, but have resolved to build a 12-bore club-butt fowler instead. The buccaneer fusil is a beautiful thing, and I shall build one someday with parts from the Rifle Shoppe, but in the meantime -- as an English subject -- I feel no great need to pass myself off as a counterfeit Frenchman (grins, doffs hat).... and I want to go BP-hunting for the wily wildschwein sometime before 'someday'. (And then barbecue it, or at least a haunch of it, according to one of Labat's recipes. And then eat it. But that's a whole 'nother topic)
  4. I'll bet you anything it was a burglar alarm of some sort, and the priming pan simply busted off with the lock. Reason the hole is on the "top" is because it was mounted to the WALL. Might not even have been a trigger, just a brass wire (like the stuff that holds the barrel to the wood) attached to the guts of the lock. The way it works is easy to see -- mount that sucker to the doorframe and load it up. During business hours, put the hammer down and put the hammerstall on (which could just be a bit of greasy old rag). Every night you cock it, take the other end of the wire (which would have been made into a miniature noose, so it will tighten in the event of forced entry) and put it around the doorknob. Even a blank charge would serve the purpose.... wake up the neighborhood and burn h*ll out of the intruder into the bargain. (If it's a Baroque-era zipgun, how does our street person stop in the middle of fight or flight, produce a match or fuse, somehow light it -- using a candle in a nearby open window, maybe? -- and *then* torch off the gun? That just doesn't seem practical to me).
  5. Lovely, lovely. I believe you have sold yourself another pattern; I shall place my order this weekend. Now.... how about breeches?
  6. (delurks) I've been following this thread (and your web site, Kass) with the greatest of interest. My first love is black powder shooting (the earlier the better), and I've loved Baroque music since I was small. It was probably only a matter of time until I got into the clothing of the period. There is a d-mned annoying gap betwen the ECW and the F&I war, both with regards to firearms and to clothing. Your Age Of Piracy range fills this nicely. I was wondering, however, if and when you were planning on adding a Baroque-era waistcoat to go with the justacorps? (You know... the sort of thing a well-dressed buccaneer who had temporarily hit it rich might wear into town. I had it in mind to make two -- one fancy one, and one of the plainer sort to wear as a hunting vest.) How long were they? Did they have pockets? What did they *look* like? What goes underneath a 1670's-80's justacorps? And more to the point, where can I get the pattern for one? From you, I hope...? (slips back into the gloom)
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