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It's a .50 cal blackpowder muzzle loading pistol, with a 9 3/4" barrell. The assembly and shooting of this kit looks to have a fun factor of 10++, granted the recoil isn't like that of a small cannon!



http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_in ... ts_id=3450

JLaw

My brother built one similar to that. His conclusion was that black powder guns suck.

one eyed fatman wrote:My brother built one similar to that. His conclusion was that black powder guns suck.

Did he have bad luck with one, or just didn't like them?

JLaw

I have built one Kentucky pistol, and two Kentucky rifles (one flintlock, one percussion). I hunted and took deer with each of the rifles and enjoy black powder shooting.

The pistol, being primarily for display, I blued the barrel several times to get that deep rich blue, and there were 15 coats of hand rubbed Tung Oil finish on the stock. It was beautiful even if I do say so myself.

The pistol was stolen from my home in a burglary in 1984 and was never recovered (at least the police said they never got it back - this was New York State and I assume thy got it back and decided that I shouldn't have it.)

It was a neighbor across the street's son, we never officially caught him but we knew. He wound up in prison anyway, and back in again, and again. When he was in our house he did some stupid stuff and that was a big clue - he stole a mug full of change, but left cash money sitting in a desk drawer, borke into the gun cabinet and played with all of the military guns, but never touched the really valuable ones, and went out the back door as we came in the front.

Yes, BP is messy to clean up, and you can't shoot more than a few rounds before you need to clean the bore to allow you to load, but it's still a blast.

If he wants to throw it away, he could throw it my way.

Black powder revolvers can be a lot of fun to shoot. I have, and shoot about teo or three times a year a .36 cal Navy Colt replica I built from a kit. Suprisingly both the ballisitcs and recaoil are roughly similar to a .38 spec. Never tried anything bigger but I would think the recoil might be fairly heavy for what you are talking about, but rember the gun is probably pretty hefty too, so it should absorb a decent amount of the recoil. There is also a black powder substitute that can be used in these pistols (I think the name is pyrodex) that is much less corrosive and makes cleaning easier.

Have fun.

DB

JLaw wrote:

one eyed fatman wrote:My brother built one similar to that. His conclusion was that black powder guns suck.

Did he have bad luck with one, or just didn't like them?

JLaw

I don't know. He never really said why.

I basically started my shooting career with black powder weapons, although I shoot mostly modern guns today. I currently have a flintlock rifle in .54 caliber, and smoothbore musket in 12 ga. I also have a double rifle/shotgun in 16 ga. percussion. My pistol is a Hawkin replica with about a 10 inch barrel in .54 caliber, which should be similar shooting to the pistoll asked about by the original poster. I have fired this pistol with up to 90 grains of black powder, and the recoil does nopt even approach that of a modern pistol in one of the higher calibers; the recoil is more of a strong push than the sharp impact of a modern pistol. I agree with one of the previous posters that shooting BP can be a lot of fun, but it is more time consuming, both shooting and cleaning up afterwards.

Bob

I forgot to add that Dixie, although having a wide variety of BP guns and accessories, is fairly high priced if you can find the same thing from another source.

Bob

JLaw wrote:It's a .50 cal blackpowder muzzle loading pistol, with a 9 3/4" barrell. The assembly and shooting of this kit looks to have a fun factor of 10++, granted the recoil isn't like that of a small cannon!
JLaw

I too have shot quite a bit of black powder firearms in the past. My recommendation is to stay with a round ball and patch and moderate amounts of powder (either black powder or one of the newer substitutes). I would only load it "heavy" if I was going to hunt with it.
DD

I have one of the pistols that was asked about. Since you load and measure the powder evry time, you can adjust the power, and therefore the recoil as you wish. I have used loads as light as 20grs of FFF in mine and the thing was almost as gentle as a .22, and then have gone way over the manufacturers recommendations and had the thing kick worse than a 12ga pistol. I defintely dont recommend loading that heave as i honestly feel lucky to have walked away from that with all my bodyparts. You can keep shooting these guns all day long, you just might have to run a moist patch down the bore evry so often when the fouling gets to be too much. I usually use rubbing alcohol on a patch if at the range and it cleans out the bore very well every few shots, and accuracy is good too. I'd say see if you can get it cheaper as has already been mentioned, and go for it. I got mine new and already assembled about 6-7 years ago for about the same price as they're asking for that kit, so i guess they've gone up some in that time.