Pedersoli

[Chris in TN]

My personal recommendation, since you obviously are not hung up on pure tradition, would be to find a used T/C Hawken or Renegade in .50 or .54 caliber. They are available in flint or percussion ignition for under $500 on GunBroker or other online sites and probably for less locally if you shop around. The T/Cs were high quality with Green Mtn barrels, good adjustable sights, and hooked breach for ease of cleaning. Weight is around 8 lbs. The percussion rifles can use Pyrodex or any of the other black powder substitutes and will shoot conicals or roundballs. I can't speak to the T/C flintlocks, the one I had years ago was percussion and that is what I would recommend. A .54 T/C with a conical will hammer an elk at the distance you can make an ethical shot with iron sights and either conical or patched roundball will work fine for deer.

Good hunting.

I have a couple of T/C Hawkens and have had several others - Hawkens in .45 and 50 and 54 caliber and Renegade in .50 and another Renegade rebored to 20 gauge smoothbore, and a Seneca in .45.

One of my Hawkens now wears a Green Mountain 1-28 'long range hunter' barrel, or whatever they called it when GM was selling them a decade or so ago. The other has the factory 1-48" barrel made by who-knows-who. The factory barrel shoots pretty decently inside of the ranges at which *I* am capable of reliably hitting stuff with open sights.

The actual history of T/C 'historic' guns, is as interesting to me, as the actual 1800's era guns themselves. Yes, I'm the guy that'll grab his T/C Hawken in the wintertime while rewatching Jeremiah Johnson for the 436th time.

Every winter I try to get one or more of them out and shoot them, for fun.

 

[43.6N]

I shoot traditional ML rifles and smoothbores. Flintlocks all and patched roundball only in my rifles. These are high quality custom pieces. Others in the same game often start with a Pedersoli rifle and soon learn that they don't have the same reliability as a quality gun. It isn't that they don't shoot well because they do accuracy wise, but it takes a high quality lock to have reliable ignition on a flint gun, and that is missing on a Pedersoli. From my perspective, I don't like Pedersoli guns, but that's me.

Roundball rifling is typically 1 in 66. Thompson Center Hawkins and Renegades were 1 in 48", a compromise twist to allow use of roundball or conicals. A 1 in 24 is going to be purely a conical slug gun. Nothing wrong with that but it might not be much fun to shoot.

A double rifle is going to be heavy to tote. They were made for African dangerous game at close distances. With an African native to carry it for the hunter on safari, the hunters didn't care so much about the weight.
Traditionally they had only one rear sight and they were "regulated," meaning the barrels were aligned such that they both had the same POI at a specific single distance.

My personal recommendation, since you obviously are not hung up on pure tradition, would be to find a used T/C Hawken or Renegade in .50 or .54 caliber. They are available in flint or percussion ignition for under $500 on GunBroker or other online sites and probably for less locally if you shop around. The T/Cs were high quality with Green Mtn barrels, good adjustable sights, and hooked breach for ease of cleaning. Weight is around 8 lbs. The percussion rifles can use Pyrodex or any of the other black powder substitutes and will shoot conicals or roundballs. I can't speak to the T/C flintlocks, the one I had years ago was percussion and that is what I would recommend. A .54 T/C with a conical will hammer an elk at the distance you can make an ethical shot with iron sights and either conical or patched roundball will work fine for

Man thank you so much for this post. I am beyond grateful for you and everyone else sharing so freely with me.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Man thank you so much for this post. I am beyond grateful for you and everyone else sharing so freely with me.

I’ll add that my brother’s percussion Pedersoli .45-caliber is a fine looking and accurate muzzleloader. I wouldn’t worry about reliability. It’s got nice buckhorn sights and is pleasant to carry and shoot.

It’s not as nice as the .50-caliber custom rifle my dad picked up somewhere (made by the same guy who made Hawkeye’s rifle for Last of the Mohicans). But few things are…

Also, the TC Renegade, as mentioned, is a fine starter option. We have one of those around here somewhere that we got cheap at a flea market.

If that double rifle was legal in Virginia, I would have bought one thirty years ago.

 

[RockAndSage]

I’ll add that my brother’s percussion Pedersoli .45-caliber is a fine looking and accurate muzzleloader. I wouldn’t worry about reliability. It’s got nice buckhorn sights and is pleasant to carry and shoot.

Given we're talking a percussion gun, I'd agree with Q's point here on the Pedersoli. @EdP 's post was solid though, and if you were interested in a flinter I'd suggest asking him for contact info on whomever is making his custom guns. A well made, custom flintlock can often be some of the most beautiful artistry you'd ever come across in a gun, and properly made a flinter's lock-time will be almost indistinguishable from a percussion gun's, but only if they're set up right for reliability. His points about weight, and paying close attention to the twist-rate for bullet selection/limitation, were especially good.

Only thing I'd add would be, if you're looking for a good traditional muzzleloader and decide to pass on the Pedersoli for any reason, look at the Lyman Great Plains guns in addition to the T/Cs. They're about as good of a production percussion gun as you can find. Personal preference is .54cal - it makes a legit difference over .50 with patched roundball on anything you hit. Different bullets though, and there's less of a practical difference in caliber.

 

[EdP]

I don't have any experience with the Lyman's R&S mentions above but their reputation is solid.