At which age did you start muzzleloading?

[Ridge]

I was 12.

I'll never forget seeing that CVA "kentucky" percussion gun in the display case of the sporting goods store.

Mom bought me the rifle and a CVA powderhorn that day. I've been hooked ever since.

 

[OTHERN]

35 years ago a friend and I purchased a underhammer boot pistol for $10 and away we went. I still have the pistol plus a bunch of other muzzleloaders.

Othern

 

[RangerThacher]

I was 12 or 13, when I got a repro M1861 Springfield at a Civil War reenactment. I was a big Civil War buff at that age. Took it to a range every once in awhile for target shooting.

When I was 17 I built a Jim Chambers kit, .58 Christian Spring/Edward Marshall rifle. And a year later I got a .58 NSW Early English tradegun with 37" barrel, in the white. Did some trekking and reenacting for a few years until college.

 

[David Teague]

Age 13 in the early 70's.

Cheers,

DT

 

[squirejohn]

Too late, about 12 years ago when eyes were already well on the downhill side. Unless you want to include when in the late 1940's when about 12 years old a "barnyard" uncle, who owned a gunshop, gave me an old muzzleloading shotgun with no hammers - all rusty and slated for the junk pile. I guess he figured I couldn't get into trouble with that non functioning relic - WRONG. I'd light a 2" firecracker and quickly drop it down the muzzle followed by a marble. Had to aim fast and uphill so the marble didn't roll out. I blew holes in several buckets before parents found out and the gun "disappeared" - Good thing :shake:

 

[MikeChapin]

I was 29. My grandmother got me a CVA Patriot kit when I graduated college. It was 1976 and the bicentennial was in full swing. The next year I picked up a Navy Arms Hawken Hunter and never looked back.

 

[2172]

I was 38, and had been shooting cartridge guns since age 12...before that, I blew my pocket money on cap guns...at age 18, I tried to get an bunch of friends to form a group and re-enact Rogers Rangers...but there just wasn't anything available in the early 1950 era....Hank

 

[dispatch 510]

About 3 years I bought a CVA MIssouri and a CVA bobcat,Got me hooked,I have since gotton rid of almost all my centerfires except a couple that I keep for home protection,and a couple of 22's for my kids to plink with,My twins are twelve and frontstuffers are a little to slow for them. :hatsoff:

 

[MSW]

It was, if memory serves, when I was 26, which was (for me) long ago and far away.

 

[Slake]

your statement that muzzleloaders are free to buy struck me......Free? I've gotten one that way...given to me by a widow....Or do you mean your government allows you to buy one....I don't mean to sound sarcastic, please forgive me if I do

 

[Stumpkiller]

I was 17.

Please don't tell me it was Fess Parker in Davy Crockett.

But, but . . .

Then how about Spencer Tracy in Northwest Passage. :winking: Or Sergeant Garcia from Zorro? :rotf:

 

[G. W. Gill]

16, I had already fixed the 64 1/2 mustang he gave me. It was on blocks and needed the works when I reached 15 and a learners permit. There was a wall hanger at an antique shop. A .72 cal. austrian Freueworth. $100, I said I'd work for it. It was on my bed on my Birthday! Thanks Dad! I was hooked. He's gone now.

He only enjoyed shooting them after I fixed them up or we went out to test proof my new find. Boom!The old USMC sniper would giggle at the thought that I had just blown up a few hundred dollars!. He sure would use my 1842 to shoot his armidillos. That I would have to clean! By the way, none failed and wasted my expectations, to my Dad's changrin. :grin: 32 years ago I bought tha Austrian musket.

 

[dlemaster]

It was in 1967 and I was 16. Traded a buddy an old double barreled shotgun for a single shot percussion pistol and I was hooked. I put together a rifle the next year with a pre-carved stock from Dixie Gun Works, a .40 cal Douglas barrel and an old back action lock from a ruined Joseph Manton shotgun, been at it ever since.
I love the smell of black powder in the morning. It smells like.... history! LOL

Regards, Dave

 

Talk today with a young guy , 16 years old, at the gas station.Had my Bucks County with me.Hey not what you are thinking. The gas price is high, but not so high. Ok back too the young fellow.As he saw my rifle, he ask me aloot of things.How expensive was my gun , where i shoot,how old i was when i started and so on.
In Germany you must be 21 years old to get a licence for BP.Muzzleloading guns are free to buy.(single barrel)
So , at which age did you start with muzzleloading and who was the guy who ' set you on fire'?
Please don't tell me it was Fess Parker in Davy Crockett.
:hatsoff:

Some 35 odd year ago, I was 8 or 9 year old, it was my first step father's dad, Granpap Parker. He showed me how to bark a squirrel with an original .36 Southern Mountain Poor Boy.

CP

 

I was 17.

Please don't tell me it was Fess Parker in Davy Crockett.

But, but . . .

Then how about Spencer Tracy in Northwest Passage. :winking: Or Sergeant Garcia from Zorro? :rotf:

Hey! Don't leave out John Wayne in The Kentuckian or The Alamo. And what about Yul Brynner and Charleton Heston in The Buccaneer!

And lest I forgit, Gary Cooper in Sargent York

:grin: CP

 

[Joe Yanta]

1958, I was 11, living with my grandfather in southern Illinois. He only worked 3 months out of the year, May, June and July to earn money to pay for things we could not get from sustenance living. We had a percussion 16 gauge double with damascus barrels, 184? Springfield percussion, M97 12 gauge and a .22. Those were the best years.

Joe

 

[hornetk4]

I started off ok just shooting 22s and such when I was 12 or so that was back in the 60s I was a good kid not lookin for any trouble and didn't find any then in the eightys I got into blacksmithing being a machinist it only seemed natural . But I began to hang out at the local farm and tractor meuseum where they have a big blacksmith club and it was a lot of fun . by this time I had a wife and a couple a kids you no a real family man I don't need any trouble but down at the barn I noticed these guys you no the kind I mean they sorta hang out together kinda peculiar like they whare seed caps and drive old cadilacs and walk with a cane or at least a limp some of them got old faded navy tattoos and gray hair and nra stickers in there windows and patriotic slogans on bumper stickers and if you look in the trunk of there car you'll find old goex cans and all kinds of black powder parapanalia you know the kinda fellas I'm talkin about . Well anyway one day I was down at the barn and there was some of these types just a hangin around talkin about black powder shootin and such when one of them asks me if I ever tried it ? an I stands up straight and says of corse not I'm a smokeless man tryin not to look scared an one of them says whats the matter are you chickin ? I says no I just don't want to get hooked on sumthin like that . They sorta looked at one another and laffed then one of them said come on come with us the first time will be free . It was all down hill from there now I got black powder rifels pistols ans even shot guns I got goex cans layin around the house I can't help myself I get up in the mornin and I think about black powder I read black powder magazines , I hangout on black powder web sites . I'm even thinkin about sellin my smokeless collection to pay for my black powder habit I've been goin to rondyvoos whare the hard core black powder folks hang out and just when I thought things wouldn't get any worse my wife bought me a 50 caliber hawken . Is it any wonder why Ive become the BP JUNKY ?

 

[DVanVorous]

Picked up a T/C .50 cal for deer (IIRC right around '76) when CO started their ML season. I was out deer hunting and met a gent on the hill and asked how things were, whereupon he indicated that he hadn't seen anything but got off a couple noise shots... :cursing:

After that my objective was to figure out how to get the hills to myself to avoid such goings on and CO blessed me with an alternative season the next year iffen I wanted to try it. Havent been out during the "regular season" anywhere since.

Got into the 'vous and competitions late though, about '98 or so in CA. That aspect adds a bit given my affinty for things historical and things of a western bend... :grin:

Keep yer powder dry,

D.

 

[Avio]

I got started when I was ten. At first i was just trying to get my self a gun, and realised my parents would probably let me get a rifle if it was historical. They said yes, so I bought myself a .50 cal Hawken kit. after that i realised that there was a whole community that reenacted and used these guns in an amazing way of living. ever since then i have been hooked and i am currently building myself my second rifle. :hatsoff:

 

Unfortunately, I didn't get stated into muzzleloading until the age of 38. A friend of mine broke me in with his 50 cal Ithaca Hawken. I've been hooked ever since. :thumbsup: I've now got three custom built Hawkens of my own.