Kelvin Moss – Blackpowder shooter
“It is a very nice-looking gun, if you think of guns as being pretty,” says local black powder shooter Kelvin Moss about his dream gun, the 18th Century Jager Rifle.
“It has a lot of brass hardware on it, fish scale checkering on the rear grip, it is just a very nice rifle!”
Kelvin was 16 when he first started competitive shooting as a junior, but it wasn’t until 20 years ago that he discovered his true passion — muzzle-loading, black powder firearms.
“I was doing long-range target rifle with a modern .308, but it didn’t quite grab me,” said Kelvin.
“I walked away from shooting a bit, but then in 2000 when I started out in black powder I haven't looked back!”
It was an unlikely route that led Kelvin to black powder shooting. His father had joined the Lachlan Living History Group and, being short of members one day, Kelvin got roped in.
“It was by accident I found re-enacting. My Dad got into it because he knew a few people doing it and I happened to know one of the other actors in the group as well. I got invited into the group and then my partner and her two sons got into it as well. So, we did it as a family and had quite a lot of fun doing that,” said Kelvin.
“So, I started out as a reenactor first. That’s where I picked up my first muzzle-loader and then I was told you could shoot target with these things and it took off!”
As the name implies, muzzle-loading firearms are loaded from the front of the barrel; loose powder first, followed by a cloth patch and round lead ball or conical projectile, then rammed into place. Depending on the particular firearm, the powder is fired by a flintlock (literally a mechanism that strikes flint on steel to throw sparks on the gunpowder) or a percussion cap (not too dissimilar to a toy cap gun).
Today’s muzzle-loading shooters use a mix of modern recreations of old firearms as well as real antiques.
“We do everything from single-shot, muzzle-loading pistols to cap and ball revolvers, and traditional rifles in flint or cap lock, smooth-bore muskets using round ball or turning that musket into a shotgun by using pellets and shoot clays. We can also shoot military class, where all the guns have to be a copy or an original of a military issue firearm,” said Kelvin, whose collection continues grow.
“I've bought more and more guns as I've gone along. For some people they might say too many, but I have a reasonable collection for an early collector or a late collector however you want to put it,” he said.
“My most favourite? It would be an Enfield 58 calibre muskatoon, it is a cavalry gun, a short carbine. I've won quite few championships with it — I actually won five on the trot back in 2012, 2013. It has been my go-to gun, but I love picking up all of them.”
So just what is it about muzzle-loaders that gets people so obsessed.
“The smell, the noise — it is a different noise, it is a different feel of the explosion in the air, the way the gun pushes back in your shoulder,” said Kelvin.
“The comradery as well. You meet up with very interesting characters and you just have a ball at shoots you go away to. We are a very small fraternity of shooters, sometimes we call ourselves the lepers of the shooting world, but it is how it is — and we like it!”