In the book The Fighting Tomahawk, Volume II, McLemore shares details, thoughts, and informed speculation on the tomahawk of the American frontier of the 18th and 19th centuries and the explorers, settlers, long hunters, traders, and Indians who used it. He has mined original historical sources from the colonial era to develop more in-depth insight and instruction in such essential areas as cutting, chopping, using the back spike, frontier "rough and tumble" fighting, throwing the hawk, and training with and without a partner. As always, the centerpiece of McLemore's latest book is the hundreds of precise illustrations depicting step-by-step details on wielding the hawk in training and combat. Anyone who uses a tomahawk today, armed professionals, martial artists, historical reenactors, and stage combatants will gain valuable insights into this hallmark weapon of the traditional American blade arts.
You can look inside this book at Amazon.com for a preview, where some but not all pages can be read. The Illinois Ranger recommends this book for serious students of the tomahawk.
Mar 2, 2013
Jan 21, 2013
Fur Trade Axes and Tomahawks
CLICK HERE FOR LINK to an outstanding website concerning trade axes and tomahawks. There's a wealth of information and pictures here with many examples of different types of period axes and tomahawks, including information about identifying and dating them, plus spotting fakes.
Brown Bess Beats Rifle Shooters
The Illinois Ranger has been away from this blog since last March, but he's back now and will be adding more information and making updates as the Winter wears on. Here's a braggadocios story from him:
In a paper target shoot last fall at the Mascouten Bay Longrifles grounds, using his Brown Bess the Illinois Ranger demonstrated the superiority of a large caliber smoothbore musket over rifles at close range. The Illinois Ranger was loading with buck and ball, everyone else was shooting rifles at targets only about 15 yards away. That's kind of close range for rifles, but great for smoothbores. First target for the day was a red paper about 3 inches square, one per target. Some of the rifle shooters missed it more than once. ha. The Illinois Ranger put two red papers about a foot apart on his target, and hit them both first shot. He also put some mysterious small caliber holes in a few of the rifle shooter's targets with the spread of his buckshot, but it took a while for the rifle shooters to figure that out. :-)
Then the Illinois Ranger switched to bird shot for targets even closer and hit a bunch of standing feathers in one shot, and blew away 3 or 4 swinging balls in one shot – whereas some of the rifle shooters couldn't hit any of those targets at all. ha.
Next the Illinois Ranger blasted away all the golf balls (about 8 of them on an elevated board) in one shot, whereas the best rifle shooters could only hit one at a time. He felt sorry for the rifle shooters and spared their pop-up turkey target, it was wood and one shot from his deadly Brown Bess (loaded with buckshot) would have totally destroyed that target too. :-)
In a paper target shoot last fall at the Mascouten Bay Longrifles grounds, using his Brown Bess the Illinois Ranger demonstrated the superiority of a large caliber smoothbore musket over rifles at close range. The Illinois Ranger was loading with buck and ball, everyone else was shooting rifles at targets only about 15 yards away. That's kind of close range for rifles, but great for smoothbores. First target for the day was a red paper about 3 inches square, one per target. Some of the rifle shooters missed it more than once. ha. The Illinois Ranger put two red papers about a foot apart on his target, and hit them both first shot. He also put some mysterious small caliber holes in a few of the rifle shooter's targets with the spread of his buckshot, but it took a while for the rifle shooters to figure that out. :-)
Then the Illinois Ranger switched to bird shot for targets even closer and hit a bunch of standing feathers in one shot, and blew away 3 or 4 swinging balls in one shot – whereas some of the rifle shooters couldn't hit any of those targets at all. ha.
Next the Illinois Ranger blasted away all the golf balls (about 8 of them on an elevated board) in one shot, whereas the best rifle shooters could only hit one at a time. He felt sorry for the rifle shooters and spared their pop-up turkey target, it was wood and one shot from his deadly Brown Bess (loaded with buckshot) would have totally destroyed that target too. :-)
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