My weird hobbies.

So what did you do with your weekend? I dressed up in my pre-1840's garb and did a little black powder shooting. I got 4th place in the competition.(p.s. I cut my card also!, see photo below)

Amy jokes that if anyone breaks into the house that I'll have to ask them to wait while I take the 45 seconds or so it would take to load my black powder rifle.Amy even made it into the article! I'll let the Lawton Constitution pick it up from here:

Mountain Men
Sounds of black-powder rifles reverberate through Sterling

STERLING — You’ll hear them before you see them.
“Ka-pow!” The sound of a cap being struck and gunpowder ignited, sending an iron ball 30 feet into a target the size of a walnut. Actually, the target is a walnut placed on a golf tee and part of the novelty shooting competition during this weekend’s Beaver Creek Free-Trappers Rendezvous, east of Sterling.
Rendezvous were historically the meeting grounds for trappers to meet and trade their goods and purchase supplies in the first half of the 19th century. Trappers would meet to sell their pelts, stock up on supplies and fellowship and compete with each other.
“It was a good reason for a big, big party,” Steven Stricklan said.
Between the explosions of blackpowder rifles is the jocular sound of modern men and women slipping back into another time and, for some, becoming another person.
“Your camp name is what you go by,” said “Cookie,” of Durant. The trappers go by nicknames given by other campers. When he began attending rendezvous eight years ago, he made food in a concession area as a fundraiser. “Your name suits you,” he said.
“We try to be as authentic as we can,” “Iron Jaw No Bottoms” said. His name stems from an accident which damaged his jaw and an earlier rendezvous in which his buckskin pants ripped out so he donned a buckskin before carrying on his duties. He has been living the weekend mountain man life for around 30 years.
The campers at the rendezvous dress as authentically as possible in cloth, buckskin and canvas clothing and in tents of the same. The weaponry is accurate for the period.
Steve Willham, of Tecumseh, goes by the name of “Long Knife.” Holding the hatchet he had crafted to model the Hudson Bay Co. model popular amongst mountain men of the period, Willham said, “It took two tons of steel and a year of work.”
Stricklan described the early trappers as being selfsufficient. They were the embodiment of the best of the American spirit — going into unknown territory and adapting Native American skills and ideas into lives beholden only to themselves, he said.

Through the blackpowder smoke, judge Vance Apple keeps his eye on the target shot at by Steven Stricklan while “Two Feathers” prepares for his round in the novelty shooting competition Friday. Stricklan hit the golf tee attached to the target board but just missed the walnut, which was placed atop the tee and was the actual target. After a spirited debate, the judge’s ruling stood.


“Iron Jaw No Bottoms” holds the two pieces of a playing card he shot in half during a competition. He shot the card from 10 yards away while the card was on its edge from a turned position with his .45 caliber blackpowder rifle.“There’s a trick to it,” he said.


Amy Stewart, of Oklahoma City, gets some of the details of her encampment in place. Though often referred to as “mountain men,” the women in camp have as much involvement in rendezvous activities as anyone.

Steven Stricklan shows his loading block of shots for the blackpowder rifle he uses to compete in rendezvous contests. The projectiles are packed and when ready to load popped out of the block and down the barrel of the gun before packed into place using a ramrod. While Stricklan’s block is in the shape of a unicorn, he said some artifacts he’s seen were less ornate.