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Booshway
Picture of roundball
posted Hide Post
Seems reasonable to me...I do the same exact thing today.
If I go shoot 40-50 shots at the range from a fixed range table, I have a collection of powder charges, patches, and balls in front of me.
When I go hunting, and know I only need a couple backup shots, I carry a few pre-measured charges & a loading block with a few PRBs in a vest pocket along with a starter & a couple ramrod accessories.

The idea isn't rocket science and they were clever enough to figure that stuff out...particularly since the general concept had long been established with the 'cartridge box' as mentioned above.


Flintlock Rifles & Smoothbores
Hunt Like The Settlers
 
Posts: 1867 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: 28 January 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Free Trapper
Picture of Montour
posted Hide Post
If we are going to use the human nature route, then we all need to be using Martini Henry or Trapdoor springfields for 1750's era events since the idea of a breechloader, and a fixed cartridge were not foreign concepts to people of the period, and they had all the resources needed........

Come to think of it, werent they using Trapdoors in Northwest Passage? Good enough documentation for me Big Grin
 
Posts: 150 | Location: Right where Im standing | Registered: 07 September 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of roundball
posted Hide Post
And rockets too...because the Chinese had fireworks in the 1400s or something...LOL


Flintlock Rifles & Smoothbores
Hunt Like The Settlers
 
Posts: 1867 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: 28 January 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
posted Hide Post
Mike - As usual, a well reasoned response to a question that, clearly, can raise the ire of a nun! The thing about this subject, and others of similar nature, that bothers me is the inbuilt notion that our ancestors were some sort of dumb brutes who could not come up with a new idea - simply absurd!! As I noted, Mark, Ted and I discussed this in detail and when Ted noted the inspiration of the drilled block in a cartridge box that made total sense....

Remember, the absence of proof is not proof of absence! Something to remember.

trg1 - There you go again, with the old, tired attitude that, basically, says.."if you don't agree with me you are not part of this hobby"
(by the way HOBBY is spelled with TWO b's)...
Great attitude that is sure to turn off folk who are genuine in their interest but not yet "approved" by your standards.

Ok, rage on Lads!!! :-)

Col Boone
 
Posts: 728 | Location: Volcano, Hawaii | Registered: 22 September 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of roundball
posted Hide Post
Agree on all points.

Two photos of the way I enjoy this hobby would just as easily been done by the settlers:
(they'd probably use a ball bag instead of a teflon coated muffin tin)

PHOTO 1 FOR THE RANGE




PHOTO 2 FOR THE HUNT



Flintlock Rifles & Smoothbores
Hunt Like The Settlers
 
Posts: 1867 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: 28 January 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Free Trapper
posted Hide Post
Mike nails it as usual.
 
Posts: 180 | Location: Harrisburg, Pa | Registered: 26 October 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
posted Hide Post
Mike, that was a well reasoned post. When I go hunting, deer, let's say, I often take my shooting bag. But normally I do not take a powder horn, measure or even a flask. I do take around four pre-measured charges, a few balls and lubed patches. I know I won't be shooting more than once or twice so there's no need for more.

In the squirrel woods I will have a horn and measure to go with a hand-full of balls and lubed patches. More shot are to be expected in this situation. Loading blocks, IMO, are just something else to lug around.


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3559 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Free Trapper
Picture of Montour
posted Hide Post
Boone,

Calling Buckskinning and reenacting the same hobby is painting with a wide brush. While they are similar in nature, each has its own ways of doing things that is unique to itself.

Its kinda like say working at a soup kitchen or building houses for Habitat for Humanity, both are philantrhopic activities, but in only one can you participate wearing holy jeans and a tank top.......

Im not trying to say that one or the other of these remotly related hobbies is better than the other, just that they are different, and everyone needs to understand that otherwise you do end up with butthurtedness
 
Posts: 150 | Location: Right where Im standing | Registered: 07 September 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Montour - Exactly! When I began to get interested in this some years back (5) I looked at both of those sides of the hobby. The "buckskinning" approach simply did not appeal, while the early period, in addition to being related to my ancestry, had/has a feeling about it that I especially am drawn to.

Of course, by taking the route that is perhaps more stringent in it's standards, it becomes more difficult, but the end result - as I see it - is more pleasing because of overcoming those problems.

I guess the part that disturbs me is the "holier than thou" attitude of some...simply not productive, and certainly a sure path to turning off those who are just beginning their interest. We all talk of "who will carry on", well, if we discourage instead of encourage the answer may well be "no one"...

How sad.

Col Boone
 
Posts: 728 | Location: Volcano, Hawaii | Registered: 22 September 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Couldn't agree more. Encourage and help those who want to participate. Being a mentor and helping is so much more rewarding than casting stones. Just my opinion.

BC


"Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad."
Thomas Paine
 
Posts: 649 | Location: Oregon | Registered: 27 June 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Thank's for beating me to the punch,Col Boone! Tgr1 need's spell check! And I agree that this current trend of the holier than thou is doing NOTHING to continue our sport/game/hobby/lifestyle.

Although I must admit that most of the "expert's" are here in cyber space and I dont think I've ever seen one out in the feild who had the "Gut's" to stand behind his unfailable belief's. I only do maybe 2 juried event's here in Michigan,the rest of my time it's Trekkin' or Redezvousing. A LOT of it. At those juried event's I would delibratly wear a loading block,I dont use 'em,just to see where it would take me. Not 1 expert EVER said 1 thing about the block,NOT 1!

So it seem's to me that all this is a tempest in a teapot. Put your primitive gear on and get out there and do thing's and ENJOY doing them!!!
 
Posts: 137 | Location: Former Yooper,Now in the GLORIOUS PICTURESQUE THUMB OF MICHIGAN | Registered: 02 November 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of roundball
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by pathfinder:
Thank's for beating me to the punch,Col Boone! Tgr1 need's spell check! And I agree that this current trend of the holier than thou is doing NOTHING to continue our sport/game/hobby/lifestyle.
Fortunately, it seems limited to the same handful of individuals that frequent several Forums and their reputation follows them. What always puzzles me is that they don't get the fact that they destroy their own credibility.
Not only do they do a dis-service to others for the future of the hobby, but life is too short to waste time on those kinds of 'attitudes' in the present as well...fortunately most forums have an 'ignore feature'.


Flintlock Rifles & Smoothbores
Hunt Like The Settlers
 
Posts: 1867 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: 28 January 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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Pathfinder - Yep - parading your opinions as trg1 has done will do more to turn off potential participants than most anything I can imagine. Had I encountered folk of that ilk I never would have progressed as far as I have been able to.

In my case, having determined that the event at Martins Station was where I wanted to head, I posted a question on another chat group and immediately received several very helpful messages, two of them from guys who have become grand and close friends. The open sharing, welcome extended, and suggestions presented were what I needed to launch myself 5000 miles to I knew not what. That experience "set" my resolve in this and it has grown immensely since - perhaps too much so!

Thus, the outreach from a couple of folks was all it took to push me over the edge, create yet another committed reenactor, and push me to further improve and refine my presentation.

Similarly, a response such as some we have seen here (and so often elsewhere as well) would have had just the opposite effect.

Bears thinking about.

Col Boone
 
Posts: 728 | Location: Volcano, Hawaii | Registered: 22 September 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
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Rb is correct. The individuals who chase off new members and make the rest miserable on another forum seem determined to do the same here. A shame.


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3559 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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My only point was to expalain how the re-enactment community views this particular item and the standard that the community uses to determine ya or nay, it is pretty wide spread on this item, I think they may have been used but without sufficient evidence the "rules" of the game take precedent, sorry all you long time history students do not agree with the way the game is played but it is a matter of choice whether you go by the established norms or not, I do not see why any of you care as most claim no interest in the PC/Hc aspect anyway. For the record I did not parade an opinion, I shared what is the accepted standard of the re-enacment community, which anyone that is part of that entity would know. I most certainly do not think that our ancestors were the dumb brutes. Five years in the game and an expert one becomes, this forum has went the way of many, reality and verifiable evidence exchanged for that which is more convienient, easier and less work to achieve, congratulations for setting the hobbbbbby back a couple of decades, all hail the latest graduating class of the First Continental Clown College.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: trg1,
 
Posts: 272 | Registered: 12 June 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
Picture of Pare-
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I honestly didn't think this topic would take a different turn. Kinda' sorry I posted it. That's meant without any sarcasm, gang.

What we say behind the keyboard is kinda' hard to judge without seeing a persons actions. I've taken things wrong in the past due to the way a post read, but after reading it over a few times to make sure the person meant no wrong, I found that it wasn't written as harshly as I thought it was. Glad I was wrong, too. I hope that's the case here, too.

Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this subject.

Pare-
 
Posts: 104 | Location: Little River, I.T. | Registered: 06 February 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Dick
posted Hide Post
Listen, we're all just b-s-ing on this matter, anyway, as none of us knows the correct answer. Let's lighten up and not take things personally.

Dick


"Est Deus in Nobis"
 
Posts: 2902 | Location: Helena, Montana | Registered: 10 December 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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trg said "the accepted standard of the re-enacment community, which anyone that is part of that entity would know"

Incredible statement that could be torn apart many ways. But, I don't want to write a volume here. "accepted standard"? Whose standars? Who wrote the rules? Who is autorized to determine 'acceptance"? "community"? Whose community are you talking about? We are an incredibly diverse group with many points of view and varying degrees of involvement. "anyone know"? Who sets the rules for who becomes an authoratative "anyone"?
Bull butter.
As to the hunting issue. Even though wearing modern hunting clothes, blaze orange included. When I am muzzle loading hunting I carry a powder horn. I do it because I want to. Even at my advanced age I am a hopeless romantic. The horn gives me a sense of connection with the history we try to emulate.
BTW, the horn is a small 'day horn' that was made for me by a friend who was a genuine war hero. Having it with me also gives me a connection with him as he is now deceased.
Questions? Comments?
 
Posts: 1487 | Location: Mountain Home, Arkansas | Registered: 08 October 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of andy*
posted Hide Post
Folks,
For the record I do not use a loading block.Nor do I think that people did in the 18th century. Maybe in the late 19th century,but the "jury" is still out for me.
Now for those who do, who am I to tell you what is right or wrong?
Is what you are doing or using safe and working for you? Then so be it.
We need to remember when we talk about what was used or done "back then", that we are often using a 21st century argument/mindset for a 18th or 19th problem. No matter what we learn or read or how many events we go to, we are still a 21st century person,trying to experience life in a earlier time.
Also what is often used today and accepted, based on someones opinion can end up as tomorrows fact. So be careful with how you present yourself and your gear.
Andy


Follow me I am the Infantry
 
Posts: 668 | Location: Everson, Washington | Registered: 27 June 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
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One of the things that bothers me about loading blocks (needlessly, I would imagine) is the chance of grit, etc, getting attached to the patches. Another thing is simply having another tool to keep up with whether in the bag or around the neck. Third, is my conviction that MLs are a one-shot-deal. Speed loading with a flintlock is an oxymoron, IMHO, and for me would be just a slighter faster "slow". I fumble a lot when I'm excited so MUST rake it slow. For those who use them I think they are neat.

Really, all of us "play" at history to one degree or another. In my case the firing technology, horns, shoulder bags, etc, satisfy my requirements for a 18th-19th century hunt.


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3559 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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