Jamestown matchlocks

[Shorty]

'Toured Jamestown yesterday.  You know, all the usual primative living demonstrations.  There was a guy demonstrating a matchlock.  He must have done it every ten minutes while we were there, and it always startled me.  
The thing the impressed me most, though, was that he never had a missfire!  
The weather was warm and muggy, but not raining.  

[filmokentucky]

Talk about coincidence! I just finished an article about matchlocks in the July issue of Guns magazine. I've been thinking about  building a match- lock for a while now. They saw a lot of use in my area during the early years of our country.
   I can't decide which type to make though. The early type with the lever style trigger or the later versions with a more modern style. It would be a real challenge to learn to use one properly. And it would be interesting to hunt with one. Decisions. Decisions.

[Ramrod]

From the few I have seen, it appears that that in the early 1600's the British were using the long lever style trigger and the Dutch were using the more modern short trigger with a guard. Biggest difference in shootability might be in the buttstock, though. The English guns have a fishtail sort of stock, which seems to be rather short lived, while the Dutch have the club-butt style that persisted into the flintlock era with the Hudson river fowlers and some New England muskets.

[LOG EYE]

HI Shorty: I have a friend at our blackpowder club who shoots a personnaly made matchlock  for our league shoots.  He has even shot
geese using swan shot he makes,deer .58 pbrdb, and other game.  He makes historically correct clothes and acrutaments all-in-all a neat person to know and talk to about 1700-1840 "stuff". Here is his e-mail
  itegorm@aol.com