Will March weather roll in like a lion and slowly sneak out like a lamb? After being cooped up like a flock of chickens waiting for the first green grass and colorful crocuses to spring forth, I am sure that all of those muzzleloading lions and lionesses of the NMLRA are ready to roll out and roar at future black powder club shoots, frolics and rendezvous.  Yes, March is the month for “getting ready” and your Muzzle Blasts magazine is here to help you.

Why not begin with the wisdom of the Bevel Brothers?   

“Bevel Down states that “Spring will be here before you know it, folks. In hopes that the 2021 shooting season is better than what we got in 2020, we want to talk about pre-season preparation this month. And Bevel Down replies with “Every year I would (and still do) get real excited about getting back outside to the range and then off to the first big shoot. It’s even more exciting this year because we pretty much blanked out the entire, miserable year of 2020. In years past I would look at my rifles there on the rack in the basement and see that they looked pretty much exactly like they did when I put them in there the previous November. And then I would pretty much just stay excited about the new season coming without doing much more than slipping the guns into their cases the day before we headed out.”  

And once they have your attention, you just know that you want to read more!

As I sitting here writing March’s Editor’s Report on January 31st, the view from my office window is amazing. Snow is rolling in and obscuring my ability at watching a family unit of whitetails scouring of whatever is left to eat out in the horse pasture. The weather gurus are calling for a snow bomb of a nor’easter to pump up the gift of a couple inches from the Midwest into one to two feet, with 25 to 35 mph winds driving it into drifts of two to four as we sit in the bullseye of Winter Storm Orlena.  

Oh, does it make me want to read a good story and we have one for you:”Reminiscences of an Old Woodsman” by John Curry.  He writes, “Holy Cow!  Where have all the years gone!?!  Seems like only yesterday I was a young buck, just beginning to learn about the N.M.L.R.A. and quickly joining up.  Happily romping around at the Friendship Nationals ‘til eleven or twelve midnight.  Learning with amazement of the many local people from my own hometown and everywhere around our great country who were into muzzle loading themselves!  Joining and helping to organize several muzzle loading clubs…  Reading every bit of muzzle loading literature I could get my grubby little hands on.  Dumb as a box of rocks but ready for anything and doing my level best to amass any and all related information…  What exciting times!

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined this alluring, black powder fascination I was just beginning to encounter, could rise to the eminent place in my life it currently occupies and has dominated for over five long decades now.  So many wonderful, irreplaceable, wilderness experiences, muzzle loading type events, historic ventures, amazing occurrences; the whole stacked up, one on top of another like a glittering pirate’s treasure chest full of gold and silver.  For a lad of unexceptional means with doubtless, an unexceptional intelligence quotient

I have (from my point of view at any rate), led a relatively exceptional life.”

Curry’s meanderings just make me dream of putting on my snowshoes and grabbing my Dixie Cub squirrel rifle. Into this swirl of weather I too would reminisce about taking a trek out to the Big Rocks historic area of my mountain! And I am sure that each of you has your favorite flashback inspired by John’s and your favorite trek.

If gunsmithing is found in your family tree, then take a look at the Glaze Family of Gunsmiths.  Jim Whisker takes us back through time when sons followed their father through a colonial and frontier art form of metal and wood.  He writes, “The great relief carved guns of western Virginia, an area now called the State of West Virginia, was almost exclusively made in greater Hampshire County. Parts of that huge county were eventually sub-divided into counties such as Grant and Pendleton. The very best of Hampshire County guns will compare favorably with the finest guns made anywhere and at any time in Virginia.

When we first saw the splendid and most unusual gun with which we have illustrated this article we knew that

it absolutely must be shown in Muzzle Blasts. There was a recent inquiry about another gun with an early version of the thumb trigger but the expert answering inquiries had no clue about such arms. Astute students of modern cartridge firearms know that Winchester, among others, once offered rifles with a thumb trigger instead of the more conventional gun discharged by the trigger finger. We have seen only two such muzzle-loading guns, one made by an otherwise obscure Pennsylvania gunsmith, and this one. Those who have never fired a gun with thumb trigger would be in for a tremendous surprise by its working.”

And finally, Fred Stutzenberger follows this with a how-to article on the “Pros and Cons of Convertibles.”  Many of us with antique flintlocks which were converted to percussion ignition often wondered how and why the old master gunsmiths accomplished this.  Fred sheds light, “Many old flintlock rifles were converted to percussion and continued to be used. (Alexander 60)  Flint-to-percussion conversions were practical, but often not aesthetically pleasing.

(Shumway77.)  Unfortunately, many fine old flint rifles were converted to percussion during the 1830s. The owners of those rifles could “have their cake and eat it too” if they had replaced the intact original lock with a new percussion lock and relegated the flint lock to the hunting bag in case they ran out of caps. Alas, it is apparent, whether through preference or economic necessity, that they never considered a convertible rifle to be more versatile than a converted one.”

Do you need more thoughtful information?  Then look inside the pages of Muzzle Blasts as you drink a warm beverage and just enjoy the weather, whether or not it was your choice of atmosphere.  Get your gun up . . . and shoot straight!  

Dave Ehrig