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My interpretation of a long hunter knife. I made it out of an old gang saw blade and it has some pitting but I like the look of it and it's sharp enough to cut paper thin tomato slices. The blade is 11 inches long and 1 3/4 wide. The handle is elk antler and it's a handful but it feels good in the hand. The bolster is poured pewter. Mike116 made the sheath and it's a perfect fit.

As y'all well know I'm pretty much a novice when it comes to flintlocks. I've been doing a lot of reading and watching videos. Mostly trying to find out the do's and don'ts. I keep coming across people talking about polishing the pan. Some say it speeds up ignition. Others say it doesn't but it does make cleaning the pan easier. I figured what the hey, if it makes cleaning easier I'm all for it. I was somewhat worried the slick surface would make powder slide around and since I use very little powder in the pan it might be a bad idea but I did it anyway. I twisted the gun this way and that and the powder didn't migrate much. It just leveled out. In a hunting situation it might migrate further but I'm not up to that anymore. I must say it improved ignition speed. It's not as fast as a cap lock but it's close, dang close. I am well pleased with it. I'll clean it in a day or three and see how easy it is to clean. From what I've read just one swipe and it's clean. We shall see.

Kinda/sorta. I only got three shots off before it started raining out of the blue. Range was 25 yards. Load was 90 grains of Swiss 3F with a patched .530 round ball. Patch was part of an old T shirt cut at the muzzle and lubed with olive oil. First shot was wide to the left. There was a slight delay between priming charge and main charge I wasn't expecting so I may have pulled it off. I was more prepared for the next two. Red square is 5 1/2" high X 4 1/4" wide. Ace is 4 1/4" high X 3 3/8 wide. Holes at the bottom are 1 1/2" center to center.

Who'd a thunk?

I got started on it. It took so long because I had to make room for a small desk I could use for a bench and I'm lazy. I cut about 4 inches off the big end and started filing flats on the tip. It's 10 inches long measured across the inside curve. I don't have much solid horn to work with on the tip and it looks funny with flats because it's so short but I've still got to file another groove for the strap. I'm probably just going to round off the flats. The tip was already cut off when I got it. I wouldn't have cut it off that far back but it is what it is. The tape is on it to protect the polished part if the file slips. The big end is 3 inches inside diameter.

 



This is the part I cut off.

This is the stuff I got from mike116. Thanks Mike. The middle horn is my biggest powder horn.



I've got a lot to learn about horns. It's hard to tell how big a horn is in a pic. Cows around here don't have horns that big so I tend to think bigger is better. My big powder horn is about how big horns are here. I bought a horn from The Leather Guy and it's only a few inches bigger than my big horn so I figured it was good to go. This thing is massive compared to mine.



The two horns I got from Mike are big. The biggest one is just as big as the other one I bought, it's just shorter. The other one is a good bit smaller. This is it next to my powder horn. It's a more reasonable size.



This is the base of all three horns I just bought. Mike's are the two on the right.



I'm going to use the two biggest ones to practice on and hopefully the smallest one will turn out to be a usable horn.

This guy tries to blow up a Damascus shotgun barrel. I think you will be surprised.

Well y'all know my wife's Altima burned up the other day leaving me with no choice but to drive my old 98 Silverado with 260K on the clock. It runs and drives great but it has a lot of issues and I haven't trusted it to go very far for a long time. I always had my wife follow me if I had to drive it any distance. So I've been looking for another ride I could afford. Everything I looked at was either junk or had more miles on it than my truck. I figured I'd have to get by with it and save what I could for a few months to get something with less miles on it. Well a buddy that lives on the other side of Columbus about 50 miles from here sent me a text with pics of a 2004 Jeep Cherokee with 110K on it and a lot of new parts for 1,500.00. It looked good from the pics but I figured it would be too good to be true or would be gone before I could get somebody to take me up there. Lawrence said he would drive down here and pick me up and take me up there. He said it was on the Air Force base in Columbus and the only people that would see it were military personnel and people that worked on the base. I called the guy and told him I was coming but it would be a couple of hours. I got there and he met me outside the gate. It was everything he said it was. New alternator and battery, new brake lines and pads and rotors front and rear and a new transmission. I doubt the tranny is new or even rebuilt. If it was either I doubt he would have sold it at that price but it is very, very clean, doesn't leak and it shifts like it should. Everything works except for the AC and the left rear door won't open. It does have a little rust but it's nothing I can't live with. I can fix the door and he said he thought the AC was just low on Freon. Plus I asked him if he would take 1,300.00 for it and he did. This is the info sheet he had on it and the seats do work and it has 107K on the clock.