About our included accessories. We include accessories with our muskets whenever possible. I think this make life easier on new reenactors who are scrambling to try and get all of their gear together in time for their first event. I see it all the time; someone has got their clothes, their musket, their cartridge box and their tricorn and are now ready to take the field with their new militia unit, right? Wrong! It's the little stuff that people forget at first. To take the field at pretty much any organized reenactment, you will need a flashguard and hammerstall. Without them, you are relegated to picket duty. It's a fact of life. That's why we include them for free, so you won't have to go searching sutler row for a flashguard 15 minutes before the mandatory inspection. All muskets do not come with all accessories, only the ones that apply to that particular musket. For instance, percussion and matchlock guns have no frizzens to put a hammerstall on, and you don't mount flashguards to them, so we don't include them. Fowlers don't have sling swivels or bayonet lugs, so they don't get bayonets or slings. Here is a run down of the accessories that we include for free with our muskets, when applicable: Owner's Manual Bayonet Sling Hammerstall Flashguard Flashguard A flashguard is a little brass thing that mounts on your frizzen screw. In theory it keeps the flames and sparks in your pan from burning the guy next to you when firing in ranks. I hate them. They ruin the look of a lock and make it hard to pick the vent. Mostly they deflect the flash back into your own face. Nonetheless, they are required by pretty much all reenacting groups "because their insurance says so". That's not exactly true, as I have never seen an insurance policy where specific gun accessories were required, but it is traditional and curtious to the guy next to you. The flashguard we provide have a tab on top of the mounting lug to keep it from working it's way loose over the course of the day. This is especially helpful on brass pan guns like the 1777 French musket and the 1816 US musket because if you tighten up the frizzen screw to the point that it hold the flashguard, it will bend the brass pan and cause it to bind the frizzen. The little tab holds it in place and allows you to only tighten the frizzen screw down to a reasonable amount of tension. You have to install the flashguard yourself. Click here to read a tutorial on how to install a flashguard. For certain models, it may take a little fiddling and reshaping to make the flashguard fit the pan. The flashguard is malleable brass, and you can bend it to fit. You will need to drill a hole in the mounting tab, and be sure to relieve spring tension off of the frizzen before removing the screw! This is a project well within the reach of anyone with basic hand tools and skills. If in doubt, ask for help. Hammerstall A hammerstall is a little leather thing that slips over your frizzen. With the hammerstall in place, even if you were to accidentally drop the cock while bringing it back to full-cock, it won't strike a spark. Think of it as a safety. These are required by reenacting organizations. Punch a hole in it and tie it to your musket with a thong or cord so you won't lose it. Sling We get slings in different colors and can get our hands on different buckle styles depending on what is in stock at our supplier. Color and style choice is luck-of-the-draw, but if you ask really nice, Lousie will dig through the pile and pick out a certain color. These are made locally by a lady here in town. If you don't have sling swivels on your gun, we don't send a sling with it. Click here to see a tutorial on how to mount the sling to your musket. Bayonets If your musket would have had a bayonet with it historically, and we can find a source for them, we include them. If it doesn't have a bayonet lug (like the fowler or matchlocks) then it doesn't get one. Baker Rifles had a bayonet, but those are sold separately because they are more of a sword than a bayonet and thus cost too much for us to just give away like the socket bayonets. The Brown Bess varients and French military muskets come with bayonets. We are working on a source for Enfield bayonets too, but it is still in the works. Bayonets may require final fitting, especially the British ones. Historically they were issued with the musket and shared its rack number because they were individually fitted. To keep our prices down, you get to do the fitting if needed. If you need advice on how to do this, give us a call or email Pete at info@middlesexvillagetrading.com Sometimes bayonets or other accessories are backordered. They are not all made at the same place and we have no control over over it. Please be patient if this is the case. Our current bayonet manufacturer does not provide scabbards with them. We are working with a new manufacturer that can produce them faster and include a scabbard. Owner's Manual With each musket or pistol, we include a printed owner's manual. It contains generic instructions for loading and firing a muzzleloader. If you did not recieve a manual or lost it, and would like a copy, just give us a call or an email and we will send one out. The text of the manual is also available online as a text document for you to download if you need it today. Click here to get a copy. We also include an illustrated instruction sheet that was written be the NMLRA. The NMLRA is the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association, a nationwide organization that provides shooter education, competitave events, and living history events. You can learn more about the NMLRA by visiting their website here.