Last winter, my dad cut some nice walnut blocks off our farm and gave them to me to distribute to friends as I saw fit. I had a buddy of mine cut them into 2" thick boards so they could be used for either gun stocks or bow risers. I don't really need a new gun, or bow for that matter, but I hated seeing those boards just sitting in my garage catching dust. I knew my personal gunsmith, John Pruitt, was about out of walnut stock material so I thought about sending the boards to him and having him make me a squirrel rifle in the process. If I hunt squirrels with a firearm, it's usually with a scattergun so I wasn't terribly excited about the whole thing but a flintlock squirrel rifle was one thing I do lack in my arsenal. I pondered on the idea for a while until I received a nudge from an unexpected source which made me finally make a decision.
Last week, I had killed another squirrel with my longbow and as I was cleaning it I wondered if the editor of "Fur-Fish-Game" magazine would be interested in an article about hunting squirrels with a bow. After I finished up, and washed my hands, I sent the editor a quick email inquiring about his interest in the subject. He replied right away and said that they already had an early season article about squirrel hunting but were needing something for late season. Would I be interested in doing a black powder squirrel hunting piece? Of course I replied, yes, I would be happy to write something up about that particular subject. I have written a few articles before on that very thing and started mulling over how I could make it fresh when I realized that the best thing I could do was get a squirrel rifle made so I could do some comparisons and contrasts between the two firearms. So I decided to have John make me a 32 caliber Pruitt Special. I called up Ryan and Terry Jo at Muzzleloader Builders Supply and had them help me pick out the parts I needed. They are in the process of shipping those to John and he received the walnut boards from me today.
I'm all excited now and I know that as soon as John gets his parts, he will commence to making me a rifle. Hopefully, within the next 30 days, I'll have some pictures of my new shootin' iron to share with you.
Darren