Greetings, my name is Bryan Kent Brown and I am drafting this site to try and help spread the word and keep the skills / knowledge of historical gunsmithing and gun building alive. I am not a professional fulltime gunsmith, though I have been known to take on the odd project for folks. I describe myself as an ardent afficianado, as with only 20+ (and no I am not telling you + how many) of experience and practice in Living History and Period Gunsmithing. I don't think I know it well enough to call myself an expert. I have met a lot of self appointed experts. To many of them are talking through thier hat. I give you as one concrete example, the "expert" on the American Revolution who ernestly told me the reason the Crown Forces lost the battle of King's Mountain was because the smoothbores the Crown was using allowed the musket balls to roll out, due to the Crown Forces shooting down hill?!?! And some of these guys write books.

 

The best explanation I have ever heard on experts was from "Dirty" Bob Winters, one heck of a flintknapper and just a fine person to set and listen too. Now Bob has at least one PhD in history and was a muckty muck for the NJ State Dept of Archiology for 20 some odd years. He is a respected lecturer on neolothic technology, when asked if he was an expert on flintknapping, he tells folks that he has hundreds of hours studying, and researching, and hundreds of hours practicing the skills of neolithic techology. But he says he still has not achieved a level of knowledge beyond that of a 15 year old boy living at the time. A stunning concept if you think about it.

So please enjoy the information we are sharing here, the website is still growing and expanding. So come back soon and often, if you seen any problems or omissions please let me know.