Re: MtMan-List: Cabelas Flintlock -- Historically Accurate?

[Jim Colburn <jc60714@navix.net>]

Washtahay-
some time back I wrote:
>   >Whoopee.  If the potential owner would pick up a part-time job and
>   >wait til he had worked 40 hours at minimum wage, he could have
>   >gotten a decent gun.
>   >LongWalker c. du B.

And at 11:17 AM 11/10/98 -0600, someone wrote:
>WELL NOW ARE WE TO BECOME THE ELITIST BASTARDS THAT DO NOT WANT NEW COMMERS
>TO JOIN? 
	Hmmm...if being an elitist bastard means not wanting to shoot next to
folks with guns with hammers that creep and fire from half- or full-cock
(seen at Cabelas) or guns with gas leaks at the breech (a CVA "Squirrel
Rifle" I bought for my then new bride) or nipples that blow out in to space
when fired (Lyman GPR, summer of '95, a couple T/Cs I have seen over the
years) then yes, I want to be considered an "elitist bastard".  Having been
born a bastard, I had a head start-some might consider it an unfair advantage.
	So come on all, be an elitist bastard with me!  You will be expected to
throw your shop open to folks who bought those less-than-satisfactory guns,
to help repair them, and to teach their new owners the rules of firearms
safety.  Your shop may well become the place new folks turn when they
realize the only way they can afford a good gun (by their standards) is to
build one, buying parts as they can afford them-this may mean your dining
room, like mine, will have 6 rifles in various stages of cunstruction
standing against the bookshelves.  It will mean teaching folks skills from
tracking that deer they hit but didn't put down to tanning the hide to how
to cook over an open fire.  It means being the same thing to the new guys
today as it meant to the folks who got me started were to me.  Frankly, I
figure its a debt I owe.

>its time a few wake up and realize that as you said,"pick up a
>parttime job at minimum wage..." In my real life I commute 2 hours each
>way,for a hell of a lot more than min.wage.
	That's nice.  I have one full time job an hour east of here and another
full time job an hour west of here.  So what?  If it meant the difference
between compromising or getting what I want, I will find a way.  If that
means I spend my day off every week working in a gas station for a couple
months, I do it.   I guess some folks value their TV time more than others. 

>Nothing but an original is
>truely authenic,but give the new commers a chance. 
	Back when I was getting started, I saw a guy wrap a CVA Kentucky around a
tree.  Turns out he had spent the whole summer trying to get the thing to
work.  I don't want the new guys of today to have to deal with that.  I'm
trying to give the new comers a chance to get started without the added
handicap of a defective rifle.  Sorry that seems unreasonable to you.  

> My first muzzleloader was a CVA(still have
>it,still shoots straight,and I  killed 9 deer with it)
	My last CVA is the "Squirrel Rifle" that turned my ex-wife off shooting.
Something about the way smoke came out from under the lockplate...
According to CVA, all I had to do was buy a new barrel-at a cost equal to
the cost of the gun-to fix a manufacturer's defect.  Seems easier to just
avoid the crap in the first place.

> So lets not give a
>newcommer a hard time because he cannot afford a custom gun(in time he will
>find a way to get one any way!)lets welcome him and help educate.
	You seem to have the mistaken notion that my dislike of poor quality guns
extends to their owners.  This is not the case.  But I am not going to lie
and tell someone their gun is authentic in appearance when it isn't, or say
it is safe when its not.  If someone is going to buy a sub-$300 production
rifle, at least let him buy one that won't injure him or someone else. 

LongWalker c. du B. and elitist bastard 
(I'd like to thank the Academy...I've always aspired to this award...I'll
do my best to live up to my understanding of what this means to me...I
never thought I'd receive this title so early in life...)