In Flayderman's Guide to Antique American Firearms, NF writes that "Single shot collectors are a breed apart". We know that the breed is not just limited to collectors.  Indeed, collectors seem to be in the minority in this group.  If we were all not a part of that "breed", we would be on some other discussion group.  So my question is "why?"  What causes a guy to be a single shot enthusiast?  Is it something a psychologist would have a field day with?  What brought you to single shots?

I started my sons (now in their mid-30s) shooting Winder muskets when they were just big enough to hold one over a rolled up sleeping bag.  We took the Winders camping and shot thousands of .22 shorts at cans & clay pigeons galore.  But as soon as they were big enough, they asked for the repeaters.  Now one has gone the wannabe M-16 route and the other has a Winchester 63.  Single shot enthusiasm is not hereditary.

Waterman, I believe the reasons for getting interested in single shots, their acquisition, care and shooting, would be as numerous as the number of shooters on this board.  I, too started out young being interested in a (slightly altered) low-wall Winder musket that belonged to my grand uncle, but went on to a variety of pistols and repeating long guns...I collected High Standard target pistols, shot skeet and high power and even did a stint teaching small bore to Boy Scouts.  But the lure of single shots brought me back when I discovered schuetzen and was old and mature (no wise cracks here!  ) to enjoy the game and its "kinder, gentler" pace.  I frequently joke that I don't really like to shoot, I just enjoy playing with all of the gizmos and gimmicks that we use.    Anyway, don't worry about your sons, if they are meant for a higher form of consciousness, they will return to the joy of single shots when they grow out of the "faster is better" stage.  Many of us had to go through it.  BTW,  I inherited that old musket and it became the basis for my first really custom built single shot, my rimfire target rifle roughly in the configuration of a pistol grip sporter.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Regards,
Charlie the frog

Waterman, unlike the others I didn't start out with a single shot. My Dad gave me a bolt-action clip-fed J.C. Higgins 22 when I was 10 'cause he said it would be good practice for a CF big game rifle later on. Of course in both our minds that meant a good accurate bolt action in 270 or 30-06.

Like almost every young person, I thought that if some wuz good then more just HAD to be better. Of course that meant more shots per unit of time, so SS rifles were definitely low on my priority list when I was a chap. During gunsmithing school I began learning about them but only as a secondary interest.

But as I aged/matured I became interested in the older 19th century rifles to the virtual exclusion of all the newer ones. And the older single shots are almost always more accurate than any other older action system as well as frequently being much stronger so I naturally gravitated toward them. I still mess around with some of the older repeaters but the single shots definitely have more charisma IMO.

I personally believe that the young folks will become more interested in single shots as they grow older and lose that adolescent idea that more is always better. Especially if we old geezers are seen to actually be having FUN!!

I've found that shooting rimfire silhouette is one of the very best ways to show how much fun a person can have with a single shot rifle. If your boys ever try it I bet they'll like it too. Our club started out shooting things like clay birds and bowling pins but we found that the little steel silhouettes were a lot more fun for the spectators as well as the shooters.
Good luck, Joe

My route to single shots is a bit different.  I always hated having a single shot when I was a kid.  My dad had three guns:  A single shot 22, a single shot shotgun, and a full military 303 british that he fancied as a deer rifle.

In my teens I bought a winchester pump shotgun and a winchester hammerless .22 lever rifle.  Both were excellent, and were accurate and effective for hunting.  Then I bought as remington 788 .308 to hunt with.  I hunted game with it for 15 years.  Those three guns were superbly accurate, and it never occurred to me that there were inaccurate guns.

My real interest is, and has been since my mid 20's, amateur gunsmithing.  I started buying remington 12 pump 22's, and 1890/06 winchesters and worked on them extensively for about 10 years.  I also acquired quite a number of model 70 winchesters, which I loved the quality of.  While picking up parts guns at a show one day, I picked up a H&A 922 single shot rifle, similar to a stevens favorite.  It caught my fancy, and I worked on restoring it a bit when I was bored with other work.  (It is still unassembled in my parts bin, but all parts are mirror polished, just needs plated and maybe engraved).   

One day at a yard sale I picked up an original #1 sporter rolling block.  I loved the way it felt, looked and handled.  But it was too neat to convert from the .25 rimfire to a usable caliber.  I looked around and found an ad in gunlist from Elwood Epps in Canada for a .50 cal rolling block action.  I sent him $200 and he shipped it to me in a mailing tube. My plan was to make it a .38-55.  But it had a good barrel, so I built a hunting .50-70 out of it.  It occurred to me that my .308 model 788 had fired 30 shots and got 11 elk and 17 deer.  I was effectively hunting with a single shot with the weight of 3 extra bullets in a clip below the single effective round.

I started acquiring rolling blocks, high walls, and hopkins and allen, which are my first love.  I have since lost all interest in the other rifles, and have sold all but three centerfire rifles that take ammunition that can be bought commercially.  I exclusively use obsolete caliber single shots now, except for a .223 high wall browning and a .45-70 high wall browning, and I still have a .300 win mag stainless synthetic mod 70 that is like a shovel:  a useful but uninteresting tool to be used in the mud and rain.

The lure of single shots is their precision, history, and style.  Nothing else even comes close, unless it's english doubles and cape guns.  The antique lever repeaters have the style and history, but not the accuracy.  As the man said, the only interesting guns are the accurate guns.

dave

Why?

Heck, that's simple. The guy with the repeater is insecure and lacks confidence in his shooting ability. He needs to know he can keep blasting away until he hits something. 

The single shot guy knows he has to make his shot count. A job just isn't interesting unless it demands precision and skill. He has some sniper blood in him. He knows marksmanship rules. 

My father was also a golfer and knew all there was to know about pocket watches.  But he had some friends who were serious gun and airplane nuts.  When I got out of high school, two of Dad's friends asked me to join their rifle club.  They shot 4-position smallbore about 9 months a year and big bore in the summer.  They loaned me an old Winchester 52 speedlock with a brass pistol grip and a nice trigger and a 10 x Lyman Targetspot.  By the time the second season was over, I wasn't giving away many points prone and could keep them in the black offhand.  But we shot against another team from Freeport Illinois, and at age 18 I thought them real old guys. Some of them were probably over 60. They all had single shots, mostly fancy Stevens jobs that they kept in handmade wooden cases.  I was fascinated.  We always won the match with those old guys, but they seemed to have more fun.   

Then came the Navy and I was on a 5-inch gun crew for a year.  The WW2 era ones are really giant Borchardts and the 5-inch cases are just real big .38-55s.  They breech seat the projectiles, too.  At sea, I couldn't have any guns, but I had books.  I bought one called "Muzzle Flashes" by Ellis Lenz in a used book shop and was hooked in theory.   

After the Navy, I went to the state forestry college at Syracuse, NY and had a good friend who was also into SS rifles. In the mid to late 1960s, there were still a few old timers around who remembered schutzen rifles.  If you bought them red wine and listened to their stories you could learn a lot.  The GI Bill bought me a college degree, 4 single shots, a gang of bullet moulds and old loading tools, and a copy of Dr. Mann's book.  To my wife, guns are guns, but single shots are works of art.

As a kid in the 50's my dad started me hunting with a .22 roller and 3 .22's per outing. I learned the "one well placed shot" lesson and was hooked. 
I went through a  multi shot phase, but returned to my roots.
Best,
Mike
P.S. I still have the roller 50 years later.