flint lock

[robert]

I think owning a flintlock rifle would be great for shtf situation because you can make your own black powder and cast lead from sinkers and castnet weights and with a flintlock theres no need for primers. could atleast hunt for food.what is your opinion.

[O.S.O.K.]

Depends on where you are. One shot per minute isn't a fast enough rate of fire for personal protection/defense.

Also, in reality, you still need powder - and to make that, you need sulpher, potasium nitrate and charcoal. The sulpher is the hardest to get...

A good recurve bow and the knowledge of how to make arrows would probably be more practical in this particular area. Rate of fire is a lot faster too.

But, storing up some .22LR ammo and having a few different robust .22 rifles would be a better plan. You can easily have 10 or 20K put up without much expense.

[Flinter]

Yes and no. Depends on your interpretation of SHTF.

If SHTF means that my little plane just crashed in the wilds of Maine, I have every confidence that I could use a flintlock rifle to feed myself until I walked out.

If your idea of SHTF means that zombies will be hunting me....I'll take an AK tyvm.

Powder isn't as easy to produce as you would imagine. At least not with consistant results from batch to batch.

Lead is pretty easy to find. The plumbing of one old building would keep you going for a lifetime....never mind the roofing. In a true "wilderness" enviroment...you aren't going to find it.

Flints....easy to find, easy to knap. Depending on your area, of course.

I would encourage anyone with an interest in flintlocks to pursue it. I would, however, make one suggestion. Don't try to do it on the cheap.

There are various levels of quality in flintlocks just as there are in any other product. If you go the cheap route (Traditions, CVA, etc) then you are probably setting yourself up for failure. They do put out some good rifles. They put out a lot of crap too.

A properly tuned flintlock will fire so fast that you never notice the delay.

A poorly tuned flintlock takes what seems to be 10 seconds to go off.

I have always had a love for flintlocks. There are 3 in my safe right now and a little 25 caliber at the gunshop that I've been fighting the urge to buy for about a month now.

[Flinter]

A good recurve bow and the knowledge of how to make arrows would probably be more practical in this particular area. Rate of fire is a lot faster too.

The last time bows met muzzleloaders on the field of battle....the indians lost.:bigsmilebounce:

[O.S.O.K.]

The last time bows met muzzleloaders on the field of battle....the indians lost.:bigsmilebounce:

Not at first. The faster rate of fire gave the indians the advantage when the numbers of combatants were the same - when the Paterson 5 shot cap and ball came along, that changed...

I see the flintlock the same way you do though - in a wilderness situation where you have a good supply of powder and ball, it's fine. But if you can have it with it's supply, a good .357 Mag levergun or even a survival .22LR would be much better.

Flintlocks are a fun hobby and very ejoyable to shoot and hunt with.

[Schuetzenman]

The last time bows met muzzleloaders on the field of battle....the indians lost.:bigsmilebounce:

Not really. The muzzle loader had range on its side but you get one shot. In the time you take to reload the Bow Shooter will launch another 4 or 5 arrows your way. Frontiersmen often carried a brace of pistols, (short range), long knife and a tomahawk. Once your 3 shots are done you best be really up close and personal on the Bow operator to use that knife and hawk.

On powder you don't just dump the appropriate percentages of potassium nitrate, sulfur and charcoal together in a bowl, stir it up and declare you have black powder. Real black powder is compounded with lots of pressure while wet to prevent detonation for many hours. Then it's compressed into a cake and dried and finally broken up and screened to separate the granule sizes. Lastly it's tumbled in graphite to help prevent moisture absorption. If it's not granulated it has a very slow fuse like burn rate and will yield very low speeds on the projectile.

Powder making is very hazardous. DuPont created the first full scale powder mill for Black Powder production along the Brandywine river in Delaware. It launched the DuPont chemical company that survives until today. However, even though they knew exactly how to go about making it they blew up frequently. The powder manufacturing buildings were made with 3 thick walls and were open on one side toward the river so that when they blew up they were designed to focus the blast out into the river where they got the water from and power to do the compounding. This didn't always work and if one mill blew sometimes they all blew up in a chain reaction down the bank of the river. Many widows were made from DuPont black powder manufacturing.

Which is why I must put in the caveat "Don't try this at Home"!

[swampdragon]

SHTF+Flintlocks+Rain=Not a good day.

[Flinter]

I have read many diaries of the most famous of the pre 1800 Indian fighters and have rarely found reference to a pistol. Definitely not enough references to say they outnumbered rifles 2 to 1.

The Indians were beating the white man in the beginning for one very simple reason...tactics. Europeans were not used to warfare on this continent....huge virgin forests and hit and run tactics.

That changed quickly as the new generations entered the frontier. The accepted ratio's in the day were that one Virginian was the equal of 5 Indians and one militia was the equal of 3.

Virginians (who were actually from anywhere from PA to the Carolina's) were brought up in warfare and adapted to it well. They perfected it. They excelled at it. I remember a diary entry I read of a 15 year old boy who was lamenting the fact that a friend, who was a year older, had already killed 6 Indians. He last comment was " I need to get busy".

What chance do you have when that attitude is prevalent?

Bows are great for short range work. They are also faster...no doubt. Of course, you are only going to carry so many arrows. How fast do you want to expend them?

As soon as Indian warriors could get firearms....they wanted them. They wanted them for a reason. They were more efficient at killing. You can take an arrow and live. Hell, you can take a few arrows if nothing critical is hit. If you take a musket ball though, there is a very good chance that part of your body is coming off. Either by the ball itself or the surgeon when he finds you.

As to the speed of muzzleloaders....few men walked the wilderness alone. I remember an account of the Harmons when they were attacked. There were 3 of them and they formed a triangle. 2 fired and one stayed loaded. If an Indian rushed while the other 2 were loading the third would take the shot. Old man Harmon took two arrows but didn't die until AFTER the fight was over.

Wow...sorry for the long winded response.

I've been inside all winter and haven't had a chance to talk colonial history...

[Flinter]

SHTF+Flintlocks+Rain=Not a good day.

Very common journal entry during the flintlock era;

"Rain. Camp all day."

[O.S.O.K.]

Maybe it has a lot to do with the type of Indians... read up on the settling of Texas and you get another story. Apaches were some bad-ass sons o bitches.

[HDR]

Powder isn't as easy to produce as you would imagine. At least not with consistant results from batch to batch.

Which is why explorers carried black powder not the makings. ;)

IF shtf outlasts the ammunition stash things will get interesting.

[robert]

In the end when ammo runs out I,d still like one just for the slim chance that I could make or find powder just another item I wouldnt mind having.

[Schuetzenman]

In the end when ammo runs out I,d still like one just for the slim chance that I could make or find powder just another item I wouldnt mind having.

For the money in a really good flintlock rifle IMO you'd be better served to buy 2, 5000 round cases of .22 LR ammo. Then I'd suggest getting a couple of .22 LR rifles and handguns and some suppressors for same. Lack of noise will probably be the best way to survive SHTF depending on what type it is. Big booms will draw attention from a long way off. Subsonic ammo is very quiet, super sonic standard velocity .22 LR is about half as noisey as it normally is when suppresed.