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By Dave Ehrig

Promises.  That is what each issue of Muzzle Blasts magazine delivers to each member of the NMLRA as we search and provide the best of the muzzle loading culture.  We promise you articles and information that will help you be a better shooter; a better builder; a better muzzleloading hunter; and information that will widen your horizons.

For the past three years as the editor of this magazine;

I have cast a wide net to bring in the best of member’s experiences; trekker highlights; association news; experienced and talented writers, artists, and photographers; contact information from muzzleloading schools; new artisans from the HCH and CLA; member and business partners; and up to date information from charter clubs across North America.  In time, this corona Covid-19 will be a memory and the NMLRA will once again take its prominence as the voice of all people who love the muzzle loading culture; in all of its beautiful myriad of forms and disciplines.

In this issue of Muzzle Blasts we have an amazing line-up of articles full of how-to and where to information. We begin with Fred Stutzenberger’s sequel to Part I on building pistols. Fred writes, “Most pistol builders will start with a pre-shaped barrel with a conventional breech plug already installed. Before you touch tool to wood or metal, take a look at what has gone before. American rifle smiths of the 18th and 19th centuries didn’t make as many pistols as rifles, perhaps only one pistol for every 250 rifles. However, the two types of firearms shared many functional and aesthetic features in common: the position of the barrel in the stock, the spatial relationship of the lock to the barrel, the trigger to the lock and the guard to the trigger. Those are physical, functional necessities. Then consider some aesthetics: the shape of the lock panel surrounding the lock, the shape of the fore-end flowing forward along the barrel and the grace of curvature from barrel tang to butt cap. . .”

This is followed by another installment by Bob Woodfill on “Hawken Rifles;” this time he focuses on the Gemmer-Made S. Hawken Rifle. Bob states: “The lock, breech, double-set triggers and trigger guard are all similar to the Jim Bridger Hawken (Woodfill, 2016). These standardized components are the final products of the trials, testing, and refinement of the Hawken rifle since the early-1830s, and they didn’t change from the 1850s, when Sam Hawken had perfected them, throughout the Watt-Gemmer period of ownership into the 1860s.” 

The flaming foliage of fall country is a small-game hunter’s dream.  There are cooler temperatures, aromatic leaf litter, and that enticing smell of sulfur after the smoothbore completes its destiny. Ross Wingate takes us on a fall hunt in Oregon to smoke some grouse. Ross writes, “The September sun was just peeking over the distant horizon when my hunt began, somewhere ahead, I hoped to rendezvous with some of South Eastern Oregon’s blue grouse. These large birds are named for the blue-gray color of the adult’s plumage. Juvenile grouse will have brown mottling indicating their youth. I’ll take either; they’re all great on the dinner table! Every year I set aside a few days to hunt primitive, to pursue game in the mountains in primitive dress with a flintlock smoothbore in hand just feels right. I feel comfortable and prepared for a morning’s adventure.”

Speaking of trekkers, John Curry revisits “The Lost Brigade.” John writes, “Seems as though every single thing on God’ green earth possesses a subtle, inescapable, somewhat droll sense of humor.  Even the basic, rudimentary forces of nature herself have a way of laughing/poking fun at you when you least imagine or expect it...  And if a lad (or in this case, several lads) be smart, they’ll learn to laugh right along with Ma Nature and/or everybody else.”

But wait . . . there’s more gracing the 84 pages of October.  Another installment of the always-enlightening installment of the Bevel Brothers; the informative

“School’s On” listing of places to learn the “how to;” an amazing where-to Charter Club in Florida; Sarah Rittger’s research of member’s antique findings; an awesome layout of the Contemporary Longrifle Association’s 2020 Live Auction photographed by David Wright and documented by Heinz Ahlers.

Yes, the pages are packed with information and great photography that is sure to light your October Country’s campfire!

So keep yer nose to the wind and powder dry!

Dave Ehrig