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Flintlock
BIJON
Member Posts: 32 ✭✭
Hi,
Anyone know where to pick up a Flintlock by Maslin ( Spanish )for a reasonable price!!
C.R,Schultz
Anyone know where to pick up a Flintlock by Maslin ( Spanish )for a reasonable price!!
C.R,Schultz
Comments
Congratulations on your superbly good taste. There is no rifle more effective or appropriate for hunting than a flintlock.
Okay.... Maybe that's a bit of an overstatement. Hopefully everyone will have read to this point, and realized I was joking, before they aim a flame my way.
Seriously, I do all my deer hunting with a .50 caliber flintlock. I obviously am partial to the type. I've also handled, shot, and read extensively on many different makes and models -- unfortunately reading is all I've been able to do, so far, in regard to the Cabela's Blue Ridge, which is made by Pedersoli in Italy. All I've read would indicate it's a fine gun. A few points to bear in mind:
Flinters are extremely finicky about their flints. They like them sharp, they like them as big as the geometry of the lock will allow you to use, and you will find that they like them to be a certain shape -- and quite often two "identical" rifles will have completely different ideas as to what that shape ought to be. The ideally-sized flint for any lock will be as wide as the face of the frizzen, and its sharp edge will not-quite-touch the frizzen face when the lock is at half-cock with the frizzen closed. The Blue Ridge, if I recall correctly, takes either a 3/4" or 7/8" flint. It has a relatively large lock, for a production gun, and this is good -- all other factors being equal, larger locks use larger flints and tend to throw larger showers of sparks. Not to say smaller locks aren't reliable; that's not true; but the larger mechanisms give you a little extra insurance.
I tend to think, just based on pictures of the rifle, that the butt profile of the Blue Ridge gun would take some getting used to for a shooter of modern rifles, or even a shooter of, say, a T/C Hawken. The Blue Ridge has a pronounced drop in the butt that will have an entirely different feel to it, when you shoulder and aim the rifle, than any modern design. The greater drop in the butt will also contribute to a greater degree of perceived recoil, though on a gun of the Blue Ridge's length and weight recoil won't be overly severe. Again, due to stock design, it will just feel -- different. The 39" barrel of this model, also, will reduce muzzle blast to a significant degree, and muzzle blast has a definite relation to the recoil perceived by the shooter.
If deer hunting is your primary purpose for buying this rifle, get either a .50 or a .54. The .45, which is the minimum caliber allowed by many states for muzzleloading deer hunting, is fine for most of the whitetails most of us will ever see, a tad light for the average mule deer, and really not enough for a big mulie or an elk. This is my own humble opinion and is offered with the understanding that shot placement and keeping your shots within responsibly effective range is at least as important as the caliber used. I'd sooner hunt elk with a .45, knowing I could centerpunch its heart and lungs, than go out with a bigger rifle I couldn't shoot with reliable accuracy. Of course any good hunter practices, practices, practices with his guns, so the question of accuracy in the moment of truth won't arise, right?
The Cabela's rifle certainly qualifies as "a fairly good flintlock" and is, actually, one of the better-quality production guns now on the market. I like its looks, and so, obviously, do you, or I doubt you'd have settled on this particular model. Whether its quality and looks are matched by how it fits you is something you can't know and I can't tell you -- you have to get your hands on one and shoot it.