Who enjoys shooting real antique firearms?

Absolutely. My 1869 production Trapdoor in .50-70 is the oldest one I shoot.

I have taken one of my .45-70 Trapdoors out to 1000 yards on steel buffalo silhouettes.

I do.

Only have a few at the moment, but always have some and enjoy them.

Had a 8mm kropatschek from 1886 . I couldn’t get it to shoot to well but it was fun. I love shooting black powder cartridge rifles. So much research and so much help to assemble ammunition. The 43 Mauser was easy. Now am all set with 6.5x53r Dutch. Ready to go and I like the light smokeless loads in this one. What a challenge!

I've got a 1914 K98...
... that got rebarreled to 30-06.

Does that count?

No Krags at the moment, but my Dad has a real nice example that we shoot occasionally. Sadly never owned a Trapdoor.

My 1918 .410 Enfield gets quite a lot of range time thanks to the relatively cheap ammo and the kids like shooting it.

My M1917 and 1918-vintage '03 do get shot, but honestly the WW2 era guns- A3, Garand, Carbines- see more action.

My oldest handgun is a '17 production Luger and its a blast!

I shoo my family heirloom muzzleloaders quite regularly. I have a .32 caliber built in 1842, and a .36caliber built in 1840. Both shoot very well but the sights are difficult for me to see. On both guns the front and rear sights are barely above the flat of the barrel. How my great great great grandfather shot these guns accurately I don't know cause I can't seem to get my cheek down low enough on the stock to see both sights properly.

Depends on what you call antique. I have a Winchester 61 made in 1936 and a Remington 121 made in 1938. Do they qualify?

been dabbling with a few Swiss vetterlis and a Snider enfield

I still shoot my Gras rifle produced between 1874 and 1880.

Shot my deer with a Marlin '93 in 38-55 that Granddad gave me many, many years ago. I am 78 and that 26" barrel with thin sights were a challenge!
It was fun and I'm glad I did it but I think I'll stick to my old '06 for hunting.

I shoot a few rifles and shotguns made around 1900

I own and use a number firearms made in the lathe 19th century and very early 20th. My 1878 mfr LC Smith hammer double 10 ga and 1903 mfr Marlin 1894 .25-20 are among my favorites. The Marlin I suppressed, made a can to fit the rifle

I took elk, mule deer, and antelope with a 45-70 trapdoor until I gave up hunting.
Got antelope with a Shiloh Sharps and lots of varmints too.

Antique arms, absolutely. No rifles I would call antiques yet, but I have cartridge revolvers back to the 1870s and I do shoot them. My current oldest in shooting condition is a late 1870s S&W 38 single action. I also have a Colt new line from the 1870s but it’s not shootable, and I need to do a lot of work to make it either shootable or more likely get it looking good and put it in clear resin to protect it.

I wont own something I cant shoot. That said I have shot the following meeting the US government definition of antique forearms:

1873 Trapdoor, 1861 Springfield Rifled musket, 1842 Springfield musket, Styer 1895 long rifle in the original 8x50,

As soon as I can 'Turn Off' the barrel and load properly I'll fire the flintlock pistol. I could load it from the muzzle but that just doesn't mean as much to me. I can't determine an actual manufacture date but the stopped operation in 1816. So that firearm is no less than 204 years old.

Add guns using the colloquial definition of antique (100 years old) and the list is huge. Most of my collection is at least 100 years old including a couple Krags. The list includes several turn of the century top break revolvers that mostly shoot black powder cartridges. A bunch of turn of the century "Art Deco" semi autos. The most interesting are the 100 year old plus semi autos. Winchester 1907 and 1910 as well as the Remington model 8.

MachIVshooter said:

I own and use a number firearms made in the lathe 19th century and very early 20th. My 1878 mfr LC Smith hammer double 10 ga and 1903 mfr Marlin 1894 .25-20 are among my favorites. The Marlin I suppressed, made a can to fit the rifle

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Nice, the can looks period.

I reload for and enjoy shooting my 131 year old Winchester '73 in .38-40.

MachIVshooter said:

I own and use a number firearms made in the lathe 19th century and very early 20th. My 1878 mfr LC Smith hammer double 10 ga and 1903 mfr Marlin 1894 .25-20 are among my favorites. The Marlin I suppressed, made a can to fit the rifle

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Wow!!!

And its funny how that Autocorrect worked out- "lathe 19th Century" indeed!

I appreciate the graceful lines and beautiful worksmanship of these "Ky" long rifles but only occasionally shoot a couple of them because cleaning is such a chore..

Offfhand said:

I appreciate the graceful lines and beautiful worksmanship of these "Ky" long rifles but only occasionally shoot a couple of them because cleaning is such a chore..View attachment 933233 View attachment 933234 View attachment 933235 View attachment 933236

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Offhand: If you ever want to unload one of those beautiful rifles, give me a shout cause I dearly love a fine Kentucky Rifle. They are all shooters.

Oh boy, here we go-

N-SSA competition with Civil War arms including artillery. Yup bunky, we shoot cannon with live ammo for score. Here's a link to illustrate some of what we do-


Note that in the opening shot looking down our National firing line, the line extends to position 73, meaning we can put 73 eight man teams on the firing line at once.

And another


No other shooting sport competition shoots as a team. All targets are breakable and shot against the clock. Scoring is based on targets broken/time elapsed/targets left. Now if the plague thing would just let up a bit, we'd get back to having fun.

stringnut said:

Depends on what you call antique. I have a Winchester 61 made in 1936 and a Remington 121 made in 1938. Do they qualify?

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According to the BATF, a cartridge firearm made before 1899 is an antique.

My 45-70 Trapdoor left Springfield in 1883. Previously I was blind as a bat and needed really thick lenses to see, and even with corrective lenses I could not see a target beyond about 25 yards very well. I had cataract surgery in late January and early February, and can now see 20/20 with my right eye, about 20/30 with my left. Can't wait for some cooler weather to see how well I can do with my old Trapdoor.






Found this terrific old Winchester Model 1894, chambered for 30WCF last year. Made in 1895. I have only had it to the range once, pre-cataract surgery. Can't wait to take it to the range again.






This 44-40 Winchester Model 1892 left the factory in 1897. For my first few years in CAS it was my Main Match rifle and came to every match with me.






This 38-40 Winchester Model 1873 left the factory in 1887. It has not been to the range a whole lot, I need to remedy that once the weather gets a little bit cooler. I only shoot this one with Black Powder.






I know this is the rifle section, but this pair of Smith and Wesson New Model Number Threes comes with me to a CAS match about once a year. The blued one shipped in 1896, the nickel plated one shipped in 1882 and was refinished at the factory in 1965. Both are chambered for 44 Russian and only get shot with Black Powder.






Difficult to date this Merwin Hulbert Pocket Army since all the records burned up many years ago. This open top model was produced sometime between 1881 and 1883. 44-40, it only gets fired with Black Power too.






A fairly recent acquisition is this Remington Model 1875. Probably left the factory sometime around 1875. Chambered for 44-40. This model often shot very badly because the chamber throats were way oversized for 44-40 bullets.






I was actually very happy that all the bullets went through the targets pointy end first and did not tumble and key hole the targets. Yup, just 15 feet, but I was happy they all stayed on the paper and none key holed.

My only pre-1900 rifles at present are a pair of Martini reworks in .44 Magnum and 30-57 and a refinished Steyr M95 Stutzen in 8x50. I've put about 200 handloads through the Steyr over the last two and a bit decades, and I just had the .44 'Marteenie' (bottom photo) at the range last week.



Chronologically, the next oldest rifle in my collection would be my P-14 Enfield.

I'll admit to being addicted to black powder smoke.

My competition 1842 Macon 69cal smoothbore and a 7 shot 25yd group.



My dad with his favorite gun- 1863 Sharps carbine, 54cal paper cartridge. With his squad in a specialty event, the targets at 25yd were 1/2in marbles and ping pong balls all hanging on strings, 5 of each. He got all 5 marbles and 4 of the ping pong balls with that gun while the other four guys on his squad struggled to hit that last ping pong ball.


A brace of 1863 Sharps flanking an Enfield Musketoon. The Enfield is one of my competition carbines and is 58cal. It's an honest to goodness 2moa gun with iron sights.


Annnnd we also shoot artillery in live fire competition. This gun is a full sized rifled howitzer designed for cavalry use in rough terrain. Bore dia is about 3in. At this particular match, we had our best showing yet and finished 4th out of 12 guns on the line. My position serving the gun is normally #1 or #2 but the muzzle blast is so obnoxious that nobody stays in the normal crew positions as the gun is fired.