We do that up here in New York as well, although black powder is more generically a "muzzleloader" season; you don't have to actually use black powder, you can load up with smokeless if you like. The state discourages doing both; it's either/or unless you pay for the super ultra special license that costs a lot of money.

>Ah, of course. And the manufacturers have cannily realized that
>there's a ready (and probably larger than the vintage-repros one)
>market of people who are inclined to ignore the spirit of that rule
>entirely and kit themselves out with hyper-advanced equipment that has
>laser sights

Interestingly, it is completely and utterly illegal to hunt here in NYS with a laser sight of any kind. Your scope can be as advanced as you like in all other ways, but it can't project a beam or light of any sort.

Really, making antique or obsolete technology using modern methods isn't particularly odd or weird. I mean, yeah, a modern muzzleloader seems stupid... but I would humbly submit that when you hear about the people making really badass swords using all the modern metallurgical tricks afforded to them, your reaction is not "that's silly, the sword is an antiquated, obsolete weapon" but rather "cooooooooool." :)

> Amazingly, it didn't occur to me for years how
>monumentally stupid that was; even more amazingly, my house was never
>broken into by someone looking to score some free guns. Mind you,
>most of my collection is junk* and at least one of the pieces in it
>would probably kill you if you tried to shoot someone with it, but
>still, that was pretty dumb.

Well, it's not like you're alone here.. People are still doing this. Literally half the pictures on my brothers wall (by which I mean facebook) are him posing with his gun cabinet. And the pictures on his hunting buddies walls. And the ones on that friend of his who never hunts but is way, way to eager to let us know how heavily armed he is at all times.

So far none of them have been ripped off for their guns, although frankly at times I've wished it would happen; one or two of them are the sort of people who will quickly and huffily correct you if you refer to a firearm as a gun or a cartridge as a bullet.

-Merc
Keep Rat

On another page of that same site, I had a copy of my résumé. With my address at the top.

Just... yeah.

As for terminological correction, I can see where the bullet-v.-cartridge thing could be important in some contexts, but I've never given a shit about the firearm/gun thing. That's plainly someone who drank way too much of the Kool-Aid, either in the actual Marine Corps or (statistically more likely) jerking off to Full Metal Jacket.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

The only time I've cared about it was when I was still handloading, and the register biscuit didn't understand when I wanted BULLETS not CARTRIDGES, and it took me ten extra minutes to get out of the shop.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

I sort of miss handloading - I did it for a while in high school - but on the other hand I sort of don't. It was fun and all, but it's really something that should only be undertaken in one's garage, and, well, I haven't got a garage any more. Well, it doesn't have to be a garage, I suppose. Any reasonably comfortable outbuilding would do. A reloading bench isn't the kind of thing to set up in the house, I don't think. Supplies are a bit volatile.

I never managed to get 9mm Para ammunition that would actually work, but by the time I moved out and the gear went back to my grandfather (who I presume still has it), I had .44 Special pretty much nailed.

That reminds me, though, that I should try a thing I read about the other day and build some paper cartridges for my 1851 Navy this summer, just to see if I can get it to work. That'd go a long way toward getting the old thing some more mileage. I can only stand by the back of the car packing the chambers with Crisco so many times before I start seriously wondering what the hell I am doing with my life. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Is this actually safe? My great-grandfather was deeply adamant that if someone were going to get into handloading and at-home gunsmithing (which he was, but not as a hobby; the man was born in rural upstate in 1904, where that sort of thing was less a fun hobby and more an actual necessary skill) it should be in a dedicated space and especially shouldn't be anywhere that could potentially fill with volatile fumes and other curious kinds of moisture and gases, as many garages are wont to do.

In fact, he was pretty firmly against mixed-use spaces as a whole, always for nebulously-defined safety reasons. His carpentry space was rigorously segregated from his metalworking space which was segregated from his extremely well-ventilated painting space (he was a carpenter by trade, had a big converted barn) and his gun shack was a different building entirely.

In fairness, the man may have simply been an excessively cautious type. I didn't know him as well as I wish I had, especially since my grandmother waited until he was dead to drop such interesting chestnuts as "Oh, yes, daddy ran booze across from Canada through all of prohibition. That's where the money for the house he bought me when I got married came from, you know" and "He tried indoor work for awhile, but quit the hotel job after that young man was shot in the lobby" on us. It would have been nice to know he was that awesome when we could still properly appreciate him.

... I may have digressed.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Well, I wouldn't store the gunpowder right next to the stove, or be decanting it while someone else is over at the workbench using an angle grinder or doing a spot of oxyacetylene welding, but with the exercise of ordinary prudence I shouldn't think it would be that big a problem. I don't see the issue as being with mixed-use workspaces so much as shared workspaces. If I'm the only one in the garage, it doesn't make any difference if the other end of the bench I'm working on is set up for cabinetry, because I'm not over there building a cabinet right now, y'know? :)

If I had a garage and were setting up a reloading bench in it nowadays, I'd probably get hold of one of those THE SHIT INSIDE HERE IS FLAMMABLE, YO cabinets to keep the powder and primers in, but that's mainly because I'd have an excuse to get one of those then. Back in the day we just kept the Hercules Blue Dot on the high shelf next to the Aero-Kroil and whatnot.

>... I may have digressed.

Perhaps, but interestingly.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

I'm pretty sure it's just a name thing (I may even have the actual name wrong an just call them 'black powder' rifles in my head.)

>>Ah, of course. And the manufacturers have cannily realized that
>>there's a ready (and probably larger than the vintage-repros one)
>>market of people who are inclined to ignore the spirit of that rule
>>entirely and kit themselves out with hyper-advanced equipment that has
>>laser sights
>
>Interestingly, it is completely and utterly illegal to hunt here in
>NYS with a laser sight of any kind. Your scope can be as advanced as
>you like in all other ways, but it can't project a beam or light of
>any sort.

..you know, I've never thought to look in any state I've hunted in? I've made my position wrt laser sights clear elsewhere on this board, so it's never been relevant to my interests.

>Really, making antique or obsolete technology using modern methods
>isn't particularly odd or weird.

Or making a trebuchet out of modern steel that throws pumpkins. Or heck, even taking a 'classic' car, but fitting modern safety equipment into it. People like taking something that has cachet (and probably because of the myth space that both the revolution and civil war take up, muzzleloaded weapons have a lot of cache with those of us from the United States.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I do recall that, when my dad worked at the Bangor airport, they would frequently end up with moose on the runway. I was always looking forward to the day that someone would end up requiring the disposal of a couple hundred pounds of moosemeat....

-Merc
Keep Rat

Looks like they're both about the same price, actually. Repros are going for ~450usd on GI, and modern rifles are going for ~425 modulo optics.

--
-Pasha
"Don't change the subject"
"Too slow, already did."

Pa's got a basic, no-frills one. It was cheaper than a traditional one (you're right.) and cheaper than a reproduction (15 years ago). His only concessions to modern design (besides materials) were rifling and modern adjustable sights.

I'm not much of a gun guy, nearly unique among the males in my family. I technically inherited a number of very nice rifles that I promptly turned over to my brother, but aside from that my experience with them is purely intellectual. That said, I appreciate a well-turned-out firearm, and what that guy did to that Colt was just... I mean... what the balls? Why? If you're going to mangle a .44 like that, isn't the common way to do it to turn it into some extended-barrel, custom-walnut-gripped, be-scoped monstrosity that resembles the Lovecraftian offspring of a rifle and a pistol? You know, like a proper, self-respecting gun nut?

The scariest part for me is that that yahoo probably got a custom-tooled leather shoulder holster for the thing and walks around with it concealed, secretly hoping somebody messes with him.

-Merc
Keep Rat

I've often wondered if the average Japanese viewer was mightily confused by the famous sword-versus-pistol scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

"Wait-what? The guy's dead? From only one bullet? And he didn't even try to dodge!"