This week we're talking with Ian Pratt, contemporary artisan, about the Art of the Longrifle. This is a pretty wide subject we're talking about this week, but Ian brings some interesting insights to the conversation. This episode isn't so much about the technical nature of Ian's work, it's more about the influences and thought processes he goes through to create contemporary art using a flintlock muzzleloader as the canvas.

It may get a little funky for you, we go back in time pretty far, but this is definitely one of my favorite conversations from the show. Thank you again, Ian, for coming onto the show to chat with me.

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Ethan: We've been talking quite a bit this summer as you've been building guns and I've been looking at old guns and just I've had a ton of questions about things, and you know one of the things that kind of got us talking again was the the dickert long rifle that I got a chance to look at at the Rock Island Auction Company and- and you shared some really neat insights with me as to why their sites were so different compared to what we have now kind of talking about how those guns were built and how they were used every day and that kind of launched us into then meeting up again at the CLA show, and this continued conversation about the art of the long rifle and really kind of the muzzle loader in general, but particularly from an early Flintlock. I think, and that's what I wanted to kind of dive into and- and you did as well here in kind of a more formal conversation.

Ian: Yeah well first off. I just want to say some of those videos you've been doing when you've been going out a visiting them at Rock Island, they've been great introduction for so some people who maybe aren't familiar with kind of some of the details that you you're explaining. So thanks for doing that.

Ethan: Thank you. It was neat. I mean I'm in no way a professional. You know, there's a lot of people out there. That know a lot more about those builders and their techniques, but I'm glad it comes across, especially to somebody like you , as a kind of an introduction, perhaps for somebody, that's new and and doesn't necessarily know the terminology of the history, because that's kind of what I was going for is kind of give a worldwide overview of some muzzle loaders that have been built over history and get people introduced to some different things.

Ian: Sure sure. Well, that's great. There seem to be more and more people all the time getting interested in these guns, and you know among the people, most of them that I talk to are people who want to build guns, and so a lot of them straight well seems odd to me, but a lot of them aren't necessarily as interested, at least in the beginning, as interested in learning the old guys. As I was. and it's more about learning in the mechanic, they want to go shoot. They like the idea of owning building a flintlock rifle they want to. They want to understand. They want to learn how to build one more than anything else, and you know they recognized that it came from somewhere, these things didn't just happen this year, but you know the interest, isn't there in the beginning it with with most of them, and I'm not sure why.

Ethan: I’m making a note of that because that's an interesting question to start asking it of people that are kind of getting into get into getting into muzzle loaders and trying to see how they get here.

Ian: Well, a lot of them that have spoken with more stately that are have questions about gun, building how to get into it or trying it already and specific questions they've gotten into it for different reasons. A lot of the students are used to or accustomed to a homesteading, self reliance that kind of thing and the flint lock mechanism itself kind of appeals to that kind of gun appeals to their style of living.

Follow Ian on instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ipratt360/