A "New" Muzzleloading SxS

[Jay Oliver]

A recent auction find, a Samuel Henry Staudenmayer percussion sxs 20 gauge with 32” barrels. Staudenmayer started out as an apprentice to John Manton(Joeseph Manton’s older brother). The date on this would be sometime from 1800 to early 1830s.

What attracted me to this was that it was either converted from flintlock to percussion or was a very early percussion gun. The width of the stock head around the locks makes me think this may have started out as a flintlock. The bores are in real nice l shape. This is useable as is in my opinion with square black powder loads.

If I can confirm it was originally a flintlock, I will have it converted back to a flintlock. I had a wonderful hunt last year at Markover in Connecticut with a percussion sxs in the morning and flintlock fowler in the afternoon. My dog didn’t mind the extra noise and I enjoyed the historical aspect of muzzleloader hunting. The percussion sxs is just like shooting a modern gun once you figure out a good load. The flintlock was a little more challenging, I was using a single shot fowler. The gun worked beautifully, but I kept rushing my first and only shot...

I will get this one back into the field this season…