Amusing/Ridiculous Muzzleloading Misconceptions...

[Justin.44]

Dad would say the same thing every time we would shoot BP guns. "Can you imagine........" Kind of made me irritated, but I'd hear it a thousand times again if I could have him back.

I know what you mean. My dad is still alive but there's about a dozen stories I've heard from him many times each, some he tells me at least once a year. When he starts telling me, I swear I could recite the rest word for word. I just listen and pretend I've never heard it before.. I could imagine missing that when he's gone.

 

[LawrenceA]

case in point

 

[R I Jerolmon]

If you use "this lube" you will season the bore, just like seasoning a cast iron fry pan.

 

[LRSmoker]

The best one I’ve heard “ You shouldn’t attempt to shoot at anything past 50 yards because you’ll FORCE THE BARREL “. Heaven forbid !

 

[deermanok]

At the public range I used to frequent, I've heard comments like, "look at the old fashioned gun", or people would see all the smoke and say "what the hell does he have in that thing".

 

[forty_caliber]

What a great thread! Watching. A good response to some I've heard is... at least I don't have to try to find primers.

.40

 

[Grimord]

A friend of mine and I were at the range one day shooting our muzzle loaders at a 100 yard target off-hand. Several other guys were shooting their "deer" rifles at the same range, from the bench. One fella came over to us and said "you guys are crazy to think you can hit that target at 100 yards with those guns. When a cease fire was called, we went out to our targets to retrieve them. The same fella came over with his target, showed it to us, and said "bet you didn't even hit the paper. His group was about 4" or more. I showed him my target which had 4 .54 caliber holes at about 2.5". I said, " and I shot this off-hand. " He left shaking his head and muttering.

 

[JohnL]

My coworker offered to take me Turkey hunting a few years back; however, he changed his mind when he found out that I was hunting with a Muzzleloading shotgun. Said, “I can’t take you out there because it’s dry and you’ll burn my woods down with that thing.”

 

[Whitworth]

I can't believe people would make such ignorant unsolicited remarks. My experience in life has been those who speak the least usually know the most. I am so blessed to not have to deal with a public range and the public.

 

[TNsourdough]

Asked when shooting my 48" barreled Pennsylvania rifle: Did the make really long barrels because the powder wasn't very good?

 

[Spikebuck]

"Can you imagine fighting the British or the indians with one of those? You wouldn't get 2 shots off before you'd be dead!"

But Dad....they all had the same thing! Or... But Dad, the Indians only had bows and arrows with stone heads!

I hear you on listening to the stories and missing them. Like many of us, I'm sure, my Dad is the one that instilled a love of nature and hunting in me. He was a modern hunter as it was a "job" and not a "sport" to him so he didn't mess with bows or muzzleloaders for pleasure or more challenge. But through me, he saw that stick bows and rounds balls were indeed deadly and believed it.

 

[N.Y. Yankee]

I always get a laugh hen a guy removes his 28 inch, stainless steel, synthetic stocked, in-line ignition, pellet firing scope sighted muzzleloader, firing saboted pistol bullets from a nylon and foam padded gun case and says "Guess I'll fire up the old smoke pole"!

 

[VA Guy]

Cleaning a muzzleloader is an elaborate, laborious process and after each firing they must be completely disassembled and scrubbed down in the bathtub, otherwise they will rust into oblivion.

 

[Bob McBride]

I’ve heard a bunch of good ones but my favorites are,

“It’s irresponsible to shoot a handmade gun. At least do the right thing and warn your viewers they’re not as safe as real ones”.

“If you’re going to make videos about how to do stuff at least wear your bag and horn on the correct side dummy. No one wore them on the right side”.

“Are you going to replace the barrels of folks you told to clean their guns with water?”

 

[skwerleater]

I was looking at muzzleloaders in a gun shop and the guy behind the counter trying to sell me a flintlock told me “ you can’t hunt in the rain with it, it won’t work”

 

[Kenn]

My coworker offered to take me Turkey hunting a few years back; however, he changed his mind when he found out that I was hunting with a Muzzleloading shotgun. Said, “I can’t take you out there because it’s dry and you’ll burn my woods down with that thing.”

The US Forest Service has had a similar interpretation whenever fire restrictions are in place almost every summer now in Arizona. Muzzleloaders were prohibited from being fired during those periods. I didn't see the same restrictions being mentioned last summer, so maybe it was deleted.

 

[rafterob]

I've had folks come up and yeah, they may say something silly, but are always curious. After briefly explaining what I have and offering to let them shoot it they just about always accept. The universal reaction is a big smile followed by "that was cool!"

 

[Pukka Bundook]

One of the old ones from back in the UK, was that a clay -pipe bowl held "Just the right amount of shot", for your shotgun.
We used to find broken clay pipes on the fields, and I measured what some held.
they held from about 3/4 of an ounce, to two Ounces!

 

[nkbj]

In the early 90's we lived near the Carters Country shooting range north of Houston Intercontinental.
Target shooting with my Dixie Gun Works fifty caliber there at the range while the annual fall ritual was going on of the sighting in of the deer rifles... it was just funny. That rifle is so accurate with 90 grains of FFg and the sight radius is so long that it's easy to shoot good groups. There would be a whole range full of guys flinching behind their scoped bolt actions, hosing down their targets and screwing their adjustment nobs all over because they couldn't figure out where they were hitting. And you'd see the guys nearby turn their spotting scopes over to that fifty's target in aggravated frustration after that crackin'boom.

 

[.36Rooster]

Something I hear from fellow muzzleloaders (muzzleloader hunters) is sometimes they don't go off and you end up snapping caps at something but that's part of it, and that's the way it was back then...

Well, it wasn't...and you can't convince them that it's user's fault. These guns aren't ***** proof.