Gunsmithing Biography: James Kruse

My interest in black powder guns started at an early age, but was more of an interest in the history of the Civil War in the beginning. In the seventh grade I was given a percussion revolver kit, an 1860 brass frame Confederate version of the 1851 Colt. Both the wood grips and the brass frame were unfinished, so I cut my teeth on working both brass and wood.

As I got older I had decided to build a rifle kit next, and when a small black powder shop opened just across the street from me, the temptation was irresistible. Frame’s Flash-in-the-Pan on Hwy P, just south of West Bend, Wisconsin was only open for two or three years, but Ben Frame convinced me in that short time to not only build a rifle kit, but to build a custom rifle from scratch. Frame said he built some 400 rifles, but I don’t know of one floating around, nor have I ever found anyone who knew him. However, he taught me a great deal during a roughly one year long apprenticeship in the mid-1980s where each week I went over to his shop, he taught me the next step, and I went back home and worked on it. After no one answered the door in over a month, I surmised that Ben moved or died, I don’t know which.

The rifle I was building had nearly all of its parts inletted, but was a long way from being finally finished. I picked up Chuck Dixon’s book on ‘Building the Pennsylvania Long Rifle’ and worked on the gun for awhile, but ended up joining the Navy for four years, and then going to college. The rifle was shootable, and helped me take several deer, but the finish nails holding many of the parts in place was a constant reminder that I still had work to do.

After moving from Wisconsin to California for school, my interest in black powder in general took a new course. My new wife and I joined the Diablo Buckskinners black powder club and began attending rendezvous. Making or purchasing period-correct clothing and accoutrements went a long way towards firing up my desire to finally finish my rifle. I purchased some books on carving, and basically self-taught myself how to design and execute wood carvings. I produced a neophyte carving on my rifle, cut pins, and applied a finish to my rifle. It was finally done, but the design was wholly unattributed to history in any way.

Around this time, my best friend, brother-in-law, and hunting buddy Stan Collins, who owned a Thompson Center Hawken, began shooting and hunting with it again, and mused about a custom black powder gun in the hands of all of us who hunted together (he, myself, and my brother Mark). In secret I began purchasing parts to build one for him first, but he later borrowed my parts catalogs and talked about starting on his rifle. Not long after, he was killed by complications following a car crash. In honor of him, within two years I completed the rifle for which I had been assembling parts and gave it to my brother Mark. Within a year, we moved to Alaska.

In Alaska I have been trying to keep up with the activities of the Alaska State Muzzleloading Rifle Association, Coalition of Historical Trekkers, and the Midnight Sun Muzzleloaders, of which I am now president. I have continued building muzzleloaders part-time in my shop in the back of my garage for four years now. I have produced two pistols, two rifles, a trade gun and a canoe gun by custom order or as demos that happen to have sold, and am still learning a great deal with each project.