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Flintlock rifles, muskets, and pistols


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Nah, I'm waaaaaaaay too much of a rookie to want to deal with a kit or with drilling my own touch hole. The Cherry's price seems very good, I've seen the Queen Anne selling for considerably more on other sites. Interesting info on the shipping from Canada, I didn't realize the pistol was not drilled through.

-Claire "Poison Quill" Warren

Pyrate Mum of Tales of the Seven Seas

www.talesofthesevenseas.com

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Aye Lass,

Might ye put up th' linkta this "Cherry's" place? I've nay heard o' them, an' th' price ye gots there fer th' pistol... very nice...

Truly,

D. Lasseter

Captain, The Lucy

Propria Virtute Audax --- In Hoc Signo Vinces

LasseterSignatureNew.gif

Ni Feidir An Dubh A Chur Ina Bhan Air

"If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me." Deuteronomy 32:41

Envy and its evil twin - It crept in bed with slander - Idiots they gave advice - But Sloth it gave no answer - Anger kills the human soul - With butter tales of Lust - While Pavlov's Dogs keep chewin' - On the legs they never trust... The Seven Deadly Sins

http://www.colonialnavy.org

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Back to ye Capt. Rob Carroll and Deacon Frye...

The "Blunderbeast" that I have is one I built myself, and is kinda pricey just for the parts. I have built them for others, and have another one in the works, but again, the price scares most people away.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but inexpensive and top quality simply do not exist together in the firearms world. Usually an inexpensive gun won't fall apart, it will just be frustratingly unreliable, and usually looks (putting it kindly) "inexpensive". If you want to stay on the inexpensive end of things, you would be well advised to stick to percussion cap pieces, as they require a LOT less finesse in assembly to be reasonably reliable.

>>>>>> Cascabel

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By the way, Shipmates.....

That price of $210 for the Pedersoli Queen Anne is most EXCELLENT !!!

It is one of the few production pieces that I actually feel comfortable recommending to people looking for a less expensive piece. Every one of them I have ever handled has been reliable and well made. Not custom quality by any means, but very good for a ready to use weapon, and reasonably "period" for what we do. Most of what comes from Pedersoli can be trusted to be worth having. My inside sources tell me that there is a price increase coming on Pedersoli products, so NOW is the time to jump on one of these.

Beware of some of the stuff being imported from India. The quality is HIGHLY variable.... 'Nuff said !!!!!

>>>>>>Cascabel

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The Pedersoli Queen Anne is right in the mid 1600's to early 1700's time frame. That particular style is by NO means the only popular styling of the times, and actually to be STRICTLY authentic would be a screw barrel type weapon. That is the reason for it not having a full length stock.

On a screw barrel type pistol, the barrel actually unscrews from the breech for loading. That bit of information is actually irrelevant for our puposes, as the piece has the correct look, and we are usually firing blank loads anyhow.

The screw barrel pistols went out of fashion except for small pocket pistols before the mid 1700's The cannon barrel styling of the Queen Anne is typical of the large screw barrel pistols of the era. Those pistols that loaded from the muzzle generally did not have cannon barrel styling and had full length stocks and ramrods.

>>>>>Cascabel

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I'd never heard of Cherry's either, but I checked out the site and their merchandise and prices do look good.

One problem I have is that I'm a southpaw. Most flintlocks are built for righthanders and are usable for a leftie, but not as preferable. Does anyone know of a good source for left-handed flintlocks?

Rob, think of a percussion piece as a modern cartridge gun with the bullet, powder and primer all kept separate, and with no case to hold them together; whereas a flintlock has separate bullet and powder, but uses live fire - sparks generated by a built-in flint and steel set - to ignite the powder.

:ph34r:

Capt. William

"The fight's not over while there's a shot in the locker!"

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Thanks much for all the info on the Queen Anne. I may not wait until my B-day if there is a price hike on the horizon!

Here's another question.... fired or admired?

One of these days I'd like to shell out some bucks and invest in an antique flintlock. I'm kinda partial to the screw-off cannon barrel ones and some of the "pocket pistols" I've been looking at. Does anyone recommend sources or have advice\experience on buying antique pieces?

I'll probably spend the next year or two "window shopping" and doing my homework before actually making a purchase like that.

If any of you have functional antique flintlocks, how do you feel about them being fired after having them inspected for stability by a gunsmith? I get the feeling that there are some pretty strong opinions about this- some people do it after a thorough inspection, others feel they should not be fired, just admired.

-Claire "Poison Quill" Warren

Pyrate Mum of Tales of the Seven Seas

www.talesofthesevenseas.com

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Aye Lass,

As fer puttin' down coin fer an authentic piece, look fer estate auctions, 'ere be one;

http://www.cottoneauctions.com/

This be an auction house.... lotsa goode stuff...

As fer firin' said antique... NEVER... only iffn' it be th' only thing ta defend yerself with in a dire situation... I've known of some pieces that were inspected an' said to be safe blow up in th' owners face... put one feller inna 'ospital fer 3 months.... twas a brown bess, ca 1770s.... just with powder n' waddin' ta boot...

Truly,

D. Lasseter

Captain, The Lucy

Propria Virtute Audax --- In Hoc Signo Vinces

LasseterSignatureNew.gif

Ni Feidir An Dubh A Chur Ina Bhan Air

"If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me." Deuteronomy 32:41

Envy and its evil twin - It crept in bed with slander - Idiots they gave advice - But Sloth it gave no answer - Anger kills the human soul - With butter tales of Lust - While Pavlov's Dogs keep chewin' - On the legs they never trust... The Seven Deadly Sins

http://www.colonialnavy.org

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Thanks Dorian. I was thinking along the lines of admiring rather than firing anyway, but I'm glad to hear your story about even inspected guns having backfired. I hope the guy who had the brown bess accident recovered well enough. I'll stick to firing the Queen Anne and keep my face intact.

-Claire "Poison Quill" Warren

Pyrate Mum of Tales of the Seven Seas

www.talesofthesevenseas.com

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Aye Lass,

The Ladd wot had th' Brown Bess go up in 'is face, 'e went on ta reenact fer nigh on 30 years more... Th' accident actually reenforced 'is luv o' reenactin'....

Admire , aye much better, least ways wi' a fire arm... now a sword, I'd be wearin' tha' proudly! hopefully ta ne'er be used, just shown n' admired by all... I'll 'appily beat th' snot outta a repro tho... :ph34r:

Aye Royaliste,

Hmmm... aye, belts dunna hold up a'ter such a long tyme... buckles on the other 'and, put 'em on new leather!

Truly,

D. Lasseter

Captain, The Lucy

Propria Virtute Audax --- In Hoc Signo Vinces

LasseterSignatureNew.gif

Ni Feidir An Dubh A Chur Ina Bhan Air

"If I whet my glittering sword, and mine hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me." Deuteronomy 32:41

Envy and its evil twin - It crept in bed with slander - Idiots they gave advice - But Sloth it gave no answer - Anger kills the human soul - With butter tales of Lust - While Pavlov's Dogs keep chewin' - On the legs they never trust... The Seven Deadly Sins

http://www.colonialnavy.org

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Back to ye Capt. Rob Carroll and Deacon Frye...

The "Blunderbeast" that I have is one I built myself, and is kinda pricey just for the parts. I have built them for others, and have another one in the works, but again, the price scares most people away.

>>>>>> Cascabel

Thanks Cascabel. I'm quite impressed. Nice work.

Were the parts from The Rifle Shoppe?

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Also, Claire, even forgetting about safety - which you should never do - do you want to take the risk of damaging and devaluing an authentic antique weapon by shooting it?

Best to stick with reproductions, fir actual shootin'.

Capt. William

:ph34r:

"The fight's not over while there's a shot in the locker!"

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Nope!! Absolutely not :)

That's the same reason why I don't wear my 3000 year old Egyptian ring, even though it's stable. An accident happening to an artifact changes it's history. I love to see wear and signs of use on artifacts and antiques that is contemporary to their time, but not from modern day accidents. Too risky to have something so old on my hands. I agree with you completely and feel the same way about firing an antique flintlock. The idea was intriguing and I wanted to get some feed-back as to how other people felt about it, since there seem to be two schools of opinion about it. I'm with you on this one.

I do take the risk of wearing my tankard, thats the one exception I've made as that has the potential to be knocked against something.

I do have a couple of ancient Roman artifacts that are heavy bronze strung on necklaces, but they are about as safe as it gets around my neck. One is a lion's head that was used to hold the leather shoulder strap of an armored chest plate, the other a small dolphin whose use is unknown.

-Claire "Poison Quill" Warren

Pyrate Mum of Tales of the Seven Seas

www.talesofthesevenseas.com

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Warrem Moore, in his Weapons of the American Revolution ... and accoutrements (which includes earlier examples) describes and pictures quite a number "Queen Anne" pistols.

Among them are a few that lack the "turn off" feature. However, these have provision for a ramrod.

Moore states (IIRC), that these were called "night pistols", as they were intended to deal with unwelcome nocturnal visitors; and that they were meant to be loaded with shot rather than ball.

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Back to ye Capt. Rob Carroll and Deacon Frye...

  The "Blunderbeast" that I have is one I built myself, and is kinda pricey just for the parts.  I have built them for others, and have another one in the works, but again, the price scares most people away. 

>>>>>> Cascabel

Thanks Cascabel. I'm quite impressed. Nice work.

Were the parts from The Rifle Shoppe?

Aye, Deacon Frye.....

Most of the parts came from The Rifle Shoppe. They have very nice stuff, but are frustrating to deal with.

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As far as firing original antiques goes, I have done it quite a bit myself. It depends a WHOLE lot on who is doing the inspection prior to firing, and just how knowlegeable that individual is. Most folks that work on modern guns and a LOT that work on muzzle loaders don't really know what to look for when inspecting an antique with the intent of it being safe to fire. A quick once-over by the event safety officer WITHOUT complete dis-assembly including breechplug removal or x-ray of the breech area is NOT sufficient for a safety inspection on an antique.

I have also seen way too many incidents of overloading and improper loading procedure even today to always put the blame on the weapon itself being at fault. The only thing that saves a lot of people from a serious accident is that most of the time they are using guns with very thick barrels of modern steel. Most of the earlier period pieces did not have the thick walled octagonal barrels seen on the average re-production. Early period thin wall barrels even if made out of modern steel would not stand the kind of overloads that some people use. There seems to be a dangerous lack of information out there on what constitutes a proper blank load. The correct load is not "That wasn't loud enough, I'll add more powder ".

I am not advocating loads so light as to just go "FOOP", but there is definitely a correct live load and a correct blank load for each weapon. Besides being dangerous, overloading is wasteful of powder. There is literally TONS of mis-information out there, some of which is dangerous, and some of which is not. I've been dealing with flintlocks for well over 30 years, and have seen a lot of old wives tales, and just plain bad information passed around as the gospel truth.

>>>>>Cascabel

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Captain Rob:

No, modern guns are CARTRIDGE. They utilize a bullet, smokeless powder, and explosive primer, all incorporated into a brass case, to hold it all together.

Persussion guns are an earlier style (1830's - 70's), which utlize a separate bullet, black powder, and an explosive percussion cap in lieu of a primer.

They are all loaded into/onto the weapon separately, just like the separate pieces of a flintlock; UNlike a modern cartrige gun, where all the pieces are put together into a single pieces called a cartridge (the thing that people who don't know much about guns refer to as a "bullet"; but the bullet is merely the solid projectile that leaves the weapon, heading for the target).

Percussion guns use a percussion cap, seated on the gun's nipple. They operate by creating a small explosion to set off the powder inside the gun that fires the bullet; unlike the flintlock, which uses sparks to produce the same reaction.

Cartridge guns have a kind of percussion cap called a primer, but built into the cartridge.

:ph34r::ph34r::huh:

Capt. William

"The fight's not over while there's a shot in the locker!"

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