Louderback-Fiddleback Rendezvous ready to go

PENNSYLVANIA LONG RIFLE:
Bill Shaw, from Happy Valley, fires the Pennsylvania Long Rifle he built at a recent meeting of the Louderback-Fiddleback Black powder club. Club members met and cleaned up the area where their annual rendezvous will be held on April 11-13.

His hand brought the powder horn, on a sling, around from his back. He carefully moved it to a brass measuring tube. After cautiously tapping the black powder into the tube, he pours it into the muzzle of the flintlock rifle. He taps the butt of the rifle against the ground to help settle the powder.

A cloth patch covers the end of the barrel as he puts a round lead ball into the gun.

With his ramrod, he packs the ball down the long bore. It meets the powder charge and he makes sure it is snug. He opens the frizzen and pours a small amount of powder into the pan.

His thumb fully cocks the hammer as he seeks his target.

He finds what he wants and squeezes the trigger.

The flint strikes the frizzen, sparks fall into the priming powder. There is a flash — as the powder burns — and a loud explosion creates white smoke. A ringing sound tells him he has hit his target.

An excerpt from a Revolutionary War story? ...

... No. This is what will be repeated, many times over, during the weekend of April 12-13 in a canyon off of Hooker Creek Road between Anderson and Red Bluff.

Wade Bellinger believes there will be some 350 shooters and between 700 and 800 campers at the 30th annual Louderback-Fiddleback Rendezvous this year.

“Everything is ‘pre 1840’ in the ‘primitive camp’ at the rendezvous,“ said Wade Bellinger, 55, of Anderson.

“In a search to learn more about our country’s first century of existence, many people have looked into old books and journals to try and fit pieces together to get a better idea of the lifestyles of those times,“ continued Bellinger who has been a member of the Louderback-Fiddleback for 30 years.

Much of history is divided into periods of war or industrial changes. As this country struggled to form its own identity, known products and services were still coming from across the Atlantic – including guns.

A fascination developed for this time, and what information that was kept was handed down, from generation to generation, usually verbally.

There were Prussian Muskets used by the French Imperial Guards. Kentucky and Pennsylvania longrifles, used from 1775 to 1825, were particularly unique American firearms.

Traditional muzzle loading sporting firearms were works of art and their reproductions still strive for historically accuracy.

“Muzzle loading and black powder breech loading guns were developed from “schools“ or “styles“ and many of these developing groups help decipher history, said Bellinger, and people are still trying to find clues about these times.

And Wade Bellinger believes in passing on this information.

In fact, three generations of the Bellinger family will be at the annual rendezvous. Wade Bellinger, his son Jason, an Anderson Fire Captain and Jason’s son Trevor will be present.

The eldest Bellinger, who made Jason’s black powder rifle, said that his grandson Trevor is the same age as when Jason first got into the black powder shooting tradition. Trevor, 7, is now wearing the leather clothes that Jason wore when he first learned about the rendezvous.

Not only did Wade make Jason’s gun out of “Fiddleback Maple“ (the Maple commonly used in the making of the backs of violins or “fiddles“), but he has made three of his own rifles. Wade also has custom-made guns patterned after such notables as the 1835 Hawkins rifle. He said that when he made Jason’s gun the raw wood stock ran close to $250. A similar piece of wood, today, would run in the $2,500 range.

The senior Bellinger is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to black powder gun information. He said, “on the East Coast, everything was on the weapons of the Revolutionary and the French and Indian Wars. On the West Coast, the history is closer to the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade history.”

He talks about how people are doing research on the black powder era, and how “everyday folk“ lived. “Clothes were laced or hand stitched, and in our ‘primitive camp’ at the rendezvous, beeswax candles or lanterns fueled with expensive whale oil, will only be used,“ said Bellinger.

He and other members of Louderback-Fiddleback, include his brother Wayne, who is 60, and another friend Bill Shaw, 70, of Happy Valley, and other group members recently gathered at the Hooker Road site to police the area of trash and gear up (target shooting) for the upcoming rendezvous.

Shaw made his own Pennsylvania long rifle and the three men like to make wagers on their shooting abilities. Of course, they harass each other if one of them misses a target.

For more information about the Rendezvous, call Pat Malloy 244-1436 or Terry Scott at 275-6666.