Cabela's Kentucky Flintlock Rifle with Starter Kit

The renowned Kentucky rifle was a direct descendant of early, expertly crafted German hunting weapons. It became one of the most common weapons used in the American colonies. Since it was lightweight and extremely accurate, it developed into the most popular American rifle of its day. A true classic, it was also one of the few rifles to rival the famed "Brown Bess rifle" in both function and popularity. This detailed, authentic reproduction of the Flintlock rifle sports a deep-blued, 1-in 48" twist rifled barrel, polished brass fittings and a fine, oil-finished walnut stock. It comes with a universal starter kit. The kit includes 25 round balls, nipple wrench, leather capper and powder flask. Right-hand only. .50 caliber. Overall length: 51". Weight: 7 lbs.

Average Customer Rating:

4.3 out of 5

3 of 3 (100%) customers would recommend this product to a friend.

Customer Reviews for Cabela's Kentucky Flintlock Rifle with Starter Kit

Overall Rating:

4 out of 5

Great but starter kit didn't come with everything, August 25, 2008
By Maynards from Portland, OR

"Great rifle, very pleased with the build quality. The starter kit could use some work. I had to order greased patches separately (it came with cleaning patches instead?!?) and there were no instructions on how to use the tools in the starter kit. In fact, there are no descriptions on what the tools actually were. Fine if you've done this before, but if you have, then why would you buy a starter kit?"

Would you recommend this product to a friend? Yes

Review 2 for Cabela's Kentucky Flintlock Rifle with Starter Kit

Overall Rating:

4 out of 5

Excellent Rifle, especially with 44 cal sabots, June 12, 2007
By DavisRS from Lords valley, PA

"This is a very nice Kentucky Rifle for the money, with a nice black blue and real European walnut stock. The full stock takes a real nice tung oil finish. The rifle has nice precision on the range with saboted 44 caliber bullets. I would recommend it provided that you are fairly handy with drilling and high speed hobby tools to get the lock time down to a fraction of a second.
It comes with a typical modern undersized touch hole that most be drilled out to 0.69" to 0.075" and then cone shaped to get the powder in the barrel close to the pan.
The pan is way too shallow and the touch hole is half way down instead being at the top of the pan. Grinding the pan down an additional 1/8" allows the flames to shoot up and be directed into the touch hole.
The spark was weak and my particular frizzen was soft, so I hardened the frizzen with a torch and charcoal. Caution, file the rough casting imperfections off the bottom of the frizzen, the pan cover to get a tight fit BEFORE hardening the frizzen. Your file won't be able to touch the imperfections afterwards and you will need to use a stone and a lot of time to grind the pan cover flat! I am loathe to use any type of power grinder on this critical rain cover for fear of making it other than perfectly flat.
By now the lock time was down to a fraction of a second.
I also inlaid a brass patch box, but that is not necessary. The stock IS WALNUT, be forewarned that that walnut is nearly as hard as oak to work with if you do decide to perform this work. Get a nice 11 or 12" "Possibles" bag with dual flaps and a lot of pockets to carry the extra stuff you need for a flinter vs a percussion lock
Next, the shooting! The front sight was too high and the rear sight too low to hit the paper at 50 yards, even after filing the front sight all the way down. Immediately replace the rear sight with with an adjustable 0.350" to 0.650" blade. Get one that is 2 3/4" long to extend the sight plane. Or you can use a rear receiver "peep" sight if allowed by your state's game laws (PA only allows the blade sights even though my grandfather's original 1860's "Kentucky Rifle" came standard with the rear peep).
Back to the range. I was using 250 grain 44 cal (0.429" nosler point/boat tail bullets I cast myself from my own design mold for optimum sectional density and lowest drag coefficient) in 44/50 cal sabots. I shot 5 rounds last night with 50 grains to 75 grains of powder and 4 were within 2 MOA vertically as you would expect with varying powder charges and the 5th went 3" left when I flinched on a "hang fire" instead of holding on target. This load with 100 grains of powder should be set at 2.39" high at 100 yards and yields a 166 yard "point blank" range for whitetail deer with a 140 yard zero.
Round balls have not shot as consistently, but the variation is strictly vertical to the bullseye, so I have to consider my patches to be inferior and allowing variable blowby around the 0.490" ball thus variable velocity with a given powder charge or I may need to move up to 0.495" lead balls."

Would you recommend this product to a friend? Yes

Review 3 for Cabela's Kentucky Flintlock Rifle with Starter Kit

Overall Rating:

5 out of 5

Kentucky Rifle, November 20, 2006
By desertjoe1 from Lake Havasu City, AZ

"Another winner for competition."

Would you recommend this product to a friend? Yes

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