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.

 

[Ditt44]

I'm a TC guy, own far too many of them and always looking to collect more. You asked about Pedersoli. I have a Scout in .50 and it is absolutely a tack driver. No question about it. I like a carbine/shorter length gun, grew up shooting my dad's Remington 760 in .308 and can't stand a long barrel now.

My Scout was a kit gun and although I could and should have done a better job being my first kit, it does the job. The gun is light, right at 7 pounds I think. The lock is fast. The sights were not so great and my eyes are not either. I added a 'Bullseye' rear ramp and a fiber optic front sight in green. WORLDS of difference. I use a 'hold under' method and that gun will group ball on ball at 50 yards.

My load: 60 grains 3F loose black powder. I prefer Swiss but have used Goex just as well. 4F in the pan. I use a .490 round ball and .010 pre-lubed wonder patch. I could probably use a .015 patch but it's so accurate as-is that I have never tried to change. That load combo is more than enough for whitetail deer.

If your budget allows, you can always opt for the completed gun via Dixie Gun Works. The kit took me about two weeks as I did most all of it in sequence. Very little wood working necessary other than sanding and finish work. The brass polishing was the most work of the whole thing. I browned the barrel over several days. The stock finishing was most of a week, if I recall, between stains and top coats etc.

As for a TC, it's hard to go wrong. There are several fine models out there to suit everyone's preference. My favorite is the PA Hunter carbine in flintlock. It's a .50 and so pretty, light, and deadly accurate with a round ball. It's my favorite ML by far. My first was a flint Renegade in .50 which I have a .54 barrel for now. I have a Hawken/White Mountain-mash up of a heck of a carbine I built, a few Senecas in .36 and .45 and a .32 Cherokee.

Depending on what you want to hunt and shoot, flint/cap, and what you want to carry... heavy Hawken/Renegade or.... tell us more!! If you want a short, sturdy gun, the White Mountain is a great option and will shoot conicals very well and you can down-load the powder to 60 grains and shoot round balls accurately to 50+ yards as I do in my mash-up gun.