Flintlock Fun

[Jay Oliver]

With a little improvement in the weather, I got out for some sporting clays yesterday. I had bought my dream muzzleloading shotgun last year and hadn't shot it yet. It's a John Manton 16 gauge Flintlock sxs. It was everything I had hoped it would be.

I shot it 20 times and it worked flawlessly. Not bad for a shotgun made in 1818. Looking forward to getting to know her a little better this year with both clays and a hunting trip.

[mobirdhunter]

Congratulations on acquiring that wonderful gun. I’ll be looking for photos of your first hunt with that beauty.

[6pt-Sika]

Wow I get smug with the usual tacticool vermin at my local club when I’m shooting a 135 year old hammer gun and they have a Benelli vegamatic or some such . But shooting a 206 year old gun would be very neat

[6pt-Sika]

I think it’d be quite intresting to take a couple quail a couple Partidge and a couple pheasants with the little gun ! Heck a couple mallards would be Intresting as well

[Chris Pope]

My hunting buddies and I have bird hunted with black powder shotguns quite a bit. However, these were modern reproduction caplocks, not the real thing. Always wanted to hunt with a flintlock and wondered- would that slight delay in ignition mess up my lead?
Congrats and I, too, would like to hear back with photos about your bird adventures, what load and shot volumes you use, how it patterns, etc. So envious! Thank you Jay.

[Woodcock survey]

An exquisite gun. The next time you shoot it please get a photo from the side of it firing.

[Chris Pope]

...and for goodness sake, don't forget to duck down quickly after shooting so you can look under the smoke cloud and see the the bird falls. If you can't see it then the bird's still flying behind the smoke...

[Steiner]

What a beutiful presentation.

[Jay Oliver]

I was using 2 1/2 drams of 2f Swiss and 7/8oz of shot. I do need to pattern it. There wasn't any perceptible delay in ignition and main charge. This is perhaps the quickest flintlock I have ever fired and was cutting edge back in the day. John and Joseph Manton had this perfected.

My timing was a bit off on crossing shots, but that was me not the gun. For some reason whenever I shoot black powder I always lead too much, and then realize, you can pretty much shot it like any other shotgun.

I am going to take it on a Preserve pheasant hunt in the next week or two. I would like to take her to shot clays one more time before that. I should pattern it and also try a 1oz load. I would love to take it grouse hunting in the fall too.

I have shot and hunted with original percussion guns too. It is a lot of fun. I didn't do it last year, but I remember there being a muzzleloading event at the Southern, but I didn't see it on the schedule for this year. the one year I did do it, I really enjoyed and learned a lot from the participants.

[Keith Sirmans]

Oh man that is so cool. I think everything I have would take a backseat to that