Beginnings

[Captainkirk]

I remember those cans like yours Hawg. I believe you're right, I think Hodgdon bought out Dupont and then started calling their powder Goex. My Goex can on the right in my pic above is actually from around early 1970 and the first can, the Dupont, I think must have been sitting on a shelf in a gun store for a couple of years before I bought it.

BC, I believe the GOEX came from the old Gerhardt/Owens powder brand, if I'm not mistaken?

[Bishop Creek]

Thanks for sharing your story too, Captain, sounds like a similar path. Sam Fadala's books saved me, for, as you said, I didn't know anyone who shot black powder arms and there was no internet back then. After Wonder Wads came out I quit using Crisco and only use lubed wads to this day.

You may be right about Goex, I can't remember now. That was 50 years ago.

[Hawg]

I didn't have any books. I had to learn it all on my own. I do remember an article in I think Guns & Ammo from the time about shooting an original Hawken rifle. I didn't buy many gun magazines because they were all about semi autos and bolt actions, none of which interested me. I started out using wheel weights and man they were a booger to load. Then I got hold of 50 pounds of pure lead that came from joints in steam pipe when they tore down the old cotton compress. That made life a lot easier but I still had chain fires. I don't know how I figured it out but I figured out a drop of oil on top of the balls stopped them. I carried a small bottle with an eye dropper filled with 3 in 1 oil. Yeah cleaning was a booger but I just thought that was part of it.

[Marshal Will]

Those are some great photos, Cap. I don't have any of myself like them. I had the Gene Autry outfit, though. Great times.

[Zulch]

All Very nice indeed. BC and Cap👍👍 very nice pictures as well. Thank you for sharing them. I’m not sure if I ever had cowboy attire. I do seem to remember having some cap guns as a lil tike. I am a 1959er baby. Gunsmoke was what I watched with the family or so I’m told. lol I was nicknamed Chester. After I broke my leg I apparently drug the leg around in a “Chester” like fashion? Wore 3 casts out and one of them was literally beaten off with a hammer by yours truly. That’s what I was told. Good times. Thanks guys

[Marshal Will]

As a kid, the history of BP and its use always fascinated me. I read everything I could find on matchlock, flintlock and percussion pistols, rifles and revolvers. I checked out every book the library had on the subject and read every magazine I could find.

Not long after I got out of the Army and was making my own way, I went into a local gun shop where I was living and they had a new Italian made 1851 (don’t recall the make) with a brass two-cavity (conical and round ball) bullet mold. It fit my hand better than I'd ever imagined. The balance was superb. It was like holding a part of history. I went home, thought about it, then drove back the next day and bought it along with a powder flask, capper, tin of caps and a can of powder. I cast bullets in the shop behind my father’s garage by melting fishing weights, plumbing lead, body working lead and lead sheeting in a small dipper I found in my dad’s shop with a Burnz-O-Matic torch.

I shot it a lot, never knowing that Remington gun oil burns off and I never used any chamber lube so the last shot always took two hands to cock, one on the hammer and one on the cylinder make it turn. After 6 shots, I'd take the cylinder out and oil it up so it would turn freely again. I didn't care, it was great fun. The thing was quite accurate. It seemed that I could hit anything with it. I loved to fire it, take a step to the side so could see around the smoke and watch the ball go through the air to the target. When I got home, I took it all completely apart and cleaned it with warm soapy water in the kitchen sink and when all the parts were dry, carefully re-assembled it with plenty of oil to be ready for the next time out. I loved every minute of it.

With conical bullets it had a hard time hitting a barn from the inside so I stuck with round balls. With those, it was a tack-nailer. I’d cast up a bunch of round balls during the week then shoot them on the weekend. Nothing ever broke on it except for a hand spring so I replaced that with one made from one of my mother’s bobby pins. I heated it over a candle until it was just starting to glow red then dipped it in the toilet to temper it. That “spring” lasted for the rest of the time I had it.

Eventually I sold that pistol to finance something else but the love of the boom, smoke and smell of BP never went away. It was a number of years before I got into it again but eventually picked up another percussion revolver. I still have that first capper.

[Necessaryevil]

I must have been 6 years old in Primary School in Liverpool England. We were given a special "bring a toy to school day" and I decided to take my cowboy hat, belt and holster with a very blue toy revolver with faux ivory handles.

It fired rolls of caps made of paper. It would have been 1964 and the lefty snowflake teacher (yes we had lefty snowflakes in England way back then) took the revolver from me and placed it on top of the blackboard where it stayed for the rest of the day.

She gave me a lecture of how much of a bad person I was. What a bullying COW what a bitch she was when I look back on it.

So I think that experience kindled a very healthy indestructible interest in firearms in me, which I still have to this day.

Wind it forward to 1983 when I got my 1st shotgun licence and an over and under 12g for clays. I'm still utter rubbish at clay shooting.

1987 London Metropolitan Police firearms training.............."Goddammit Private Pyle we've found something you can do"......I was top student on the course with Model 10 Smith and Wesson .38sp.

Same year obtained my civilian firearms licence, had a CZ 75, a Taurus .357 mag and a Taurus .22 revolver.

1996 a Scottish lunatic took a licenced Beretta 92 and other pistols into a school and murdered teachers and children. This scumbag was on the Police radar, so much so prior to these murders a Detecive Sgt submitted a report to pull his licence and confiscate his guns. He was over ridden and ignored by a High ranking officer.

Tony.B.LIAR wanted to get elected and managed it selling gun confiscation to the voting sheep, it worked for him, he got to be the Prime Minister.

1997 Blair amended the Firearms act. He moved cartridge pistols and revolvers to Section 5, thus re-classifying them the same as a machine gun. Effectively banning them to the general public. Me included.

They confiscated my ParaOrd .38 super, my Glock 22 and all my other pistols. I got paid for them, eventually.

So I got to thinking. Blair didn't touch muzzle loaders, revolvers included. After a bit of research I went and bought a stainless steel Pietta 1858 target model with adjustable sights in .44.

WOW that thing could shoot. I had the trigger done by a local gunsmith and it was amazingly accurate. I only ever shot it with Pyrodex P as I just couldn't be bothered getting an Explosives Licence to buy and store Black Powder.

2008 I retired. I sold all my UK guns except a 20g semi auto that the guys bought me for a retirement present and moved to Spain. I brought the 20g and a 12 Remington 870 with me.

2009 Got my 1st Spanish gun LICENCES (different categories required) for pistols, rifles and shotguns. So now I can and do own any guns Americans can and some you guys can't...............well not easily anyway.

So for old times sake I bought a brand new Uberti .44 stainless 1858 replica. Shoots just as good as my Pietta did. Added an original Colt 1851 Navy and a Ruger NMA in stainless to the collection.

So here I am today with FAR TOO MANY GUNS............

[Miguel Loco]

Great Story NE! Hard to beat that one.....

I started in the late 80's when I met a group of shady characters that got together once a month for a black powder rifle shoot. I wanted to introduce my son to the world of guns.....so I bought him a 45 cal BP percussion rifle kit and I grabbed a used TC Rnegade 54. We put the kit together...it was rather cheap, but it shot well and we hung out with those wonderful people for a few years. We always managed to bring those old percussion pieces whenever we went shooting there after.

Fast forward to the early 2000's.....I bought a 58 Remmie, mostly because it was cheap and Cabela's delivered it right to my door with no paperwork BS. Found they are so much fun to shoot that no trip to the range was complete with bringing it with me. I added a 60 Army just because.

The TC Renegade got swapped for a 50 Hawken, and I kind of regret doing that, and there has only been 1 other firearm to ever leave my house after that. That was a Taurus PT911 that I could never develop a love for. Sold it and got a Ruger SR1911 and that transaction I couldn't be happier with.

So I'm definitely not in the "collector" category with percussion pistols.... I will have a 2nd Gen Dragoon one of these days when Gary is happy with the hammer knurling (yup, he's that picky) and a couple of other details to make it "correct".

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.....

[Clydesdale4x4]

...a used TC Rnegade 54. We put the kit together...i

I just was gifted one of those as a complete gun.

[Necessaryevil]

Great Story NE! Hard to beat that one.....

I started in the late 80's when I met a group of shady characters that got together once a month for a black powder rifle shoot. I wanted to introduce my son to the world of guns.....so I bought him a 45 cal BP percussion rifle kit and I grabbed a used TC Rnegade 54. We put the kit together...it was rather cheap, but it shot well and we hung out with those wonderful people for a few years. We always managed to bring those old percussion pieces whenever we went shooting there after.

Fast forward to the early 2000's.....I bought a 58 Remmie, mostly because it was cheap and Cabela's delivered it right to my door with no paperwork BS. Found they are so much fun to shoot that no trip to the range was complete with bringing it with me. I added a 60 Army just because.

The TC Renegade got swapped for a 50 Hawken, and I kind of regret doing that, and there has only been 1 other firearm to ever leave my house after that. That was a Taurus PT911 that I could never develop a love for. Sold it and got a Ruger SR1911 and that transaction I couldn't be happier with.

So I'm definitely not in the "collector" category with percussion pistols.... I will have a 2nd Gen Dragoon one of these days when Gary is happy with the hammer knurling (yup, he's that picky) and a couple of other details to make it "correct".

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.....

Muchisima gracias Miguel..............They're kind of addictive these thigs aren't they.

[Necessaryevil]

Great Story NE! Hard to beat that one.....

I started in the late 80's when I met a group of shady characters that got together once a month for a black powder rifle shoot. I wanted to introduce my son to the world of guns.....so I bought him a 45 cal BP percussion rifle kit and I grabbed a used TC Rnegade 54. We put the kit together...it was rather cheap, but it shot well and we hung out with those wonderful people for a few years. We always managed to bring those old percussion pieces whenever we went shooting there after.

Fast forward to the early 2000's.....I bought a 58 Remmie, mostly because it was cheap and Cabela's delivered it right to my door with no paperwork BS. Found they are so much fun to shoot that no trip to the range was complete with bringing it with me. I added a 60 Army just because.

The TC Renegade got swapped for a 50 Hawken, and I kind of regret doing that, and there has only been 1 other firearm to ever leave my house after that. That was a Taurus PT911 that I could never develop a love for. Sold it and got a Ruger SR1911 and that transaction I couldn't be happier with.

So I'm definitely not in the "collector" category with percussion pistols.... I will have a 2nd Gen Dragoon one of these days when Gary is happy with the hammer knurling (yup, he's that picky) and a couple of other details to make it "correct".

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.....

Muchisima gracias Miguel..............They're kind of addictive these things aren't they.

[Miguel Loco]

Yes NE ...they certainly can be. I've always found some pretty awesome people around these old firearms as well. That's make it pretty special for me....

[ShotgunDave]

Fantastic stories fellas!! Some of the best reading I've seen on the board. I love this kind of stuff!

My wife and I have been digging through old pictures, in an effort to get everything organized. I'll make my post once I find a picture or two I wanna share. So stay tuned...

[Marshal Will]

We wanna see the pics you DON'T want to share.

[Miguel Loco]

We wanna see the pics you DON'T want to share.

Me too!!!