Early sporting shooting is a fascinating subject, especially during the first half of the 19th century. New designs & inventions made the sporting gun & rifle a powerful tool in the right hands, whether shooting big game abroard or wildfowl on our foreshores.
To bring a flying bird down with a flintlock using black powder was considered quite a skill, also, to use & look after your flintlock would have been far more skillful & enjoyable than the breachloader we know today. Keeping powder dry was an art in itself, choosing correct flints was important, as was making wads correctly, all far more enjoyable than simply picking up a cartridge and pushing it in the breach.
It seems that some flintlock shooters converted to cartridges (breachloaders) very readily, others thought the using of modern firearms took the skill & necessary preparation away from a shooting day. But of course, the more convenient breachloader & cartridges with faster firing powder, brought more game to the pot. Unfortunately, modern firearms also made mass pheasant shooting a possibility, but that's not what we are concerned with here.
See the links above for interesting shooting articles.
To bring a flying bird down with a flintlock using black powder was considered quite a skill, also, to use & look after your flintlock would have been far more skillful & enjoyable than the breachloader we know today. Keeping powder dry was an art in itself, choosing correct flints was important, as was making wads correctly, all far more enjoyable than simply picking up a cartridge and pushing it in the breach.
It seems that some flintlock shooters converted to cartridges (breachloaders) very readily, others thought the using of modern firearms took the skill & necessary preparation away from a shooting day. But of course, the more convenient breachloader & cartridges with faster firing powder, brought more game to the pot. Unfortunately, modern firearms also made mass pheasant shooting a possibility, but that's not what we are concerned with here.
See the links above for interesting shooting articles.
Preserving rural bygones
