Death of muzzleloading

[gustrolland]

So at the advent of the cartridge gun did the use of muzzleloaders die out only to be re-invented in the 1970's or did some continue to hunt and shoot these relics. Many here are on the assumption that folk just ceased to use them.

Reading history, a few folks keep using front loaders as to the fact that's all they had. If it an't broke don't fix it. And if you study Sargeant Yorks history, he and some folks where shooting front loaders for sport (pre-WWI).

 

[DuncNZ]

I have the family Henry Nock 14 ga , it has been in the family since it was made in the 1790's and has been used by every generation since , someone converted it to caplock along the way , When I hold it I hold family history .

 

[RIDE-RED350R]

I have the family Henry Nock 14 ga , it has been in the family since it was made in the 1790's and has been used by every generation since , someone converted it to caplock along the way , When I hold it I hold family history .

Best post in this whole thread. That's amazing!

 

[Capnball]

So at the advent of the cartridge gun did the use of muzzleloaders die out only to be re-invented in the 1970's or did some continue to hunt and shoot these relics. Many here are on the assumption that folk just ceased to use them.

Oh no, no, no, no. These guns were always around and will always be around. There's an evolution of firearms that started with a piece of pipe, a rock, some powder and a lit torch and is still evolving even today. Muzzloaders were the beginning of that evolution. Flintlocks and percussion were the apex of that one small part of the overall evolution. People never stopped using them because they were reliable and fairly accurate.
As long as there are gun tinkerers and history buffs, these guns will be around.

My restored 1862 Bridesberg

 

[3 trees]

Dave 951,I got my first mloader when I was 12 I believe. My father bought me a H&R. He got me a pound of FFF, 200 caps 100 .445 balls and a mold with handles, had a friend show me how to load it. That gun occupied my time for 1000s of hours growing up. I married into a muzzleloading family, and my brother in law was the eastern field rep to NMLA....Gary Butts, aka 3 Trees. Some might remember him. In the mid to late 80s I went to friendship with him. I was amazed at what I saw, and excited. At that point he told me it used to be bigger, and he felt mloading was declining in interest. I told him I didn’t agree, but here we are 40 couple years later and the decline in numbers is easy to see !

 

[SirFrancis]

Until relatively recently, a cap lock muzzleloader was dramatically cheaper than a cartridge breechloader, per shot. The guns were cheaper too (particularly after many moved on to cartridge guns so there was a plentiful supply of old and unwanted muzzleloaders) and while one could reload cartridges for a breechloader to bring down the cost, that still required a sizeable outlay of cash for equipment, dies, and so forth. For families in very rural parts who still depended on their guns on a daily basis for the necessities of life, and who didn’t have a lot of money, a muzzleloader was undeniably the best value proposition, So they kept being used (albeit by fewer and fewer people every year who depended on them for daily subsistence without the conscious idea that they were doing something different or anachronistic or deliberately carrying the torch of a bygone era) for decades after the rest of the more fashionable “gun world” moved on to breechloaders. By the ‘40s I’d say, the number of “torch bearers,” or hobbyists/enthusiasts/history buffs, started to outnumber the ones who just kept right on using the old guns, and by the 60s-70s that was pretty much the whole field.

Please note that I didn’t live through any of this but this is my assessment from talking to old timers and reading books.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

Muzzleloaders and their use never totally went away, but the popularity of them has fluctuated. My concern is not that it will totally go extinct (I don't think it will at least), but that it would lose enough of a critical mass so as to make getting powder, good flints, supplies, caps, etc. very difficult. There must be a sufficient market for manufacturers and vendors to continue selling necessaries to us, and if we lose a critical mass of participants and venues, then suppliers stop carrying things, and it feeds into a cycle of downturn. The perennial question is how to keep things viable in the future, and it's something almost all of us think about.

 

[jimhallam]

My first pistol at 12 (1957) was a screw-barrel 54bore pisto from the local "junk-tique shop" run by Reginald Verdun Cooke -- obviously his father was a WW1 vet. 2 years later a cased 54bore 4th Model Tranter and then in 1967 a Centaur repro M1860 Army (yes! the Belgians were making excellent repros well before the Italians.)
What surprises me is that no-one seems to have mentioned the commercialisation of the Centenary of the American Civil War (that's generally what it is called in the UK, but I DO understand that below the Mason-Dixon it might be called by another name). Then "Colt" importing parts and finishing them off in NYC (was his name Imperato?). The flood gates opened for all sorts of companies selling repros which they didn't make -- with their own names on.
As far ar I can work out, the extension of the "primitive hunting" in certain States fuelled the development of the more modern-looking ML rifles, which were just tools for hunting (the same as fishing rods which changed from cane to carbon fibre?).

I still prefer the originals but it is each to his own ( oops! musn't say "his" in these woke days --- hers / its / theirs ... RIDICULOUS!) and focus on enjoying what we have rather than castigating people with different prefeences.

Happy "April Fools Day" ;-)

 

[Wildrangeringreen]

I got my first ml at a hardware store in 1974. The store owner, who was was in his fifties couldn’t understand why people wanted a ml. He grew up shooting them, got his first cartridge rifle when he was in late teens, and was so happy not to have to hunt with a ml.
So this fellow was teens sometime in the 1940s still useing ml then.

That sounds like my grandpa (born in 1927)... he could never figure why anyone would spend the money on "that antique junk"... then again, he often hunted out of state with a surplus M1 Carbine. From what my dad's told me, great grandpa thought much the same (born 1895). It seems that many of the people who had a little extra money and lived around the end of the 19th century beginning of the 20th century were all about modernizing and scoffed at the "hard way of doing things", at least in the US. Pretty sure the last of my family that thought a muzzle loader was good was Nicholas, who was born in 1832 in Bayern. lol

I doubt it because that would be a form of BREACH Loading rather than muzzleloading.

Tradition's imports the "nitro-fire"... which is a breech loader that you load the bullet in through the muzzle... so similar to a modern cartridge gun that the ATFE requires a 4473 to buy it lol, due to it being "readily modified to fire fixed ammunition". Even some smokeless-capable ML's out there aren't THAT "modern" lol.

I got into ML'ing because I grew up hunting and shooting with a single-shot .22RF, and as a kid, it was the only gun I had access to that I could afford to buy ammo for (back when a 550 box of Remingtons were $5.75 with tax at wally-world). I saw ML's as a more versatile .22. could legally shoot groundhogs and deer with the same gun (my .50 tradition's PA Pellet) and cost about the same as .22 (which by that point were around $30/550) for whistle-pigs and less than 12ga slugs for deer. I quickly got hooked on the "one (or two if you have a double) shot(s) and that's all you got... make 'em count" and the process of loading them for accuracy (avid hand-loader for cartridges). Funny how time flies

 

[Johnny Tremain]

First one, Oh my. It was in the 70s, and it was a two piece Japanese made Hi Power I think.
Good thing I got into flinters in the 90s.

 

[Flintlock]

First one, Oh my. It was in the 70s, and it was a two piece Japanese made Hi Power I think.
Good thing I got into flinters in the 90s.

The old Miroku Ultra-Hi's. I just found one in a pawn shop the year before last, I brought it home for $50, cleaned the snot out of it, and made a new spacer for the two piece stock. Don't know what I'm going to do with it but it shoots pretty good.

 

[RIDE-RED350R]

The old Miroku Ultra-Hi's. I just found one in a pawn shop the year before last, I brought it home for $50, cleaned the snot out of it, and made a new spacer for the two piece stock. Don't know what I'm going to do with it but it shoots pretty good.

I didn't know Miroku made muzzleloaders. That's interesting. I know first hand that they make marvelous lever rifles. Their muzzleloaders weren't so good?

 

[Flintlock]

I didn't know Miroku made muzzleloaders. That's interesting. I know first hand that they make marvelous lever rifles. Their muzzleloaders weren't so good?

I would put them on par with the CVA Kentucky rifles and pistols, maybe not even that good, I have one in the safe I will hopefully get more time to play with this spring. The triggers on the "Kentucky" models are among the worst ever built but usable I guess. They also made a Brown Bess copy for awhile that was sold through Dixie that I would like to get my hands on, think they are much better quality and yes their shotguns and rifles are among the best of commercial firearms. Ooops, forgot, the kids brought me home a Ultra-Hi Kentucky flintlock pistol that I just refinished (terrible designed trigger) that I will play with and sight in as soon as some of this dang snow melts.

 

[stickmann00]

I thought that my buddy would have a fit when I converted my southern mountain rifle flinter to percussion. I still use my .50 cal Pennsylvania flinter for most things

 

[helwan9]

My first muzzle loader was an inline. I used it for hunting for a couple of years along with my dad who had bought a muzzleloader first. Then I discovered the Log Cabin store. that opened up a whole new world of opportunities and brought me into the light and saved my soul. I have been shooting traditional muzzleloaders ever since. I even became an instructor and work with the boy scouts to teach them to use muzzleloader rifles and pistols. So the in line rifles can be a conduit to bring in new shooters so don't scorn them, help then see the light.

George

 

[stephenprops1]

Thank you sir, even here in Australia BP Muzzle loaders continued in use albeit in limited numbers and in isolated community groups throughout the intervening eras until today.

In Australia there was no shortage of original Flintlocks and Percussion Muzzle loaders right up until the 1990's, Gun shows were awash with reasonably priced originals and parts, Ball moulds etc in those days; and it was only older guys who were interested until others realised how collectable the old Guns really were.

The reproduction Muzzle loaders really got a hold here in the late 1960's early 70's with GRRW and later Master Craftsman Alan Vaisham (took over GRRW) making authentic copies on both Flintlock and Percussion lock ML's. Sadly Alan retired but there's still a couple of guys trying to keep the tradition alive, importing Stocks, Barrels and parts whenever possible; but thats coming to an end.

Our major problem in Australia now, is less and less American ML builders, Kit and Parts suppliers are willing to export to Australia, even though its still quite legal to do so. As time goes on we're going to be strangled by lack of availability if it continues.

Why are there no Australian's starting a business of building muzzleloaders? It seems there is a market for someone to step-up to the plate and do it.

 

[stephenprops1]

The thing is, Muzzleloaders worked well in the 18th century, and in the 19th century. They continued to work well after that. It's not like everyone was just given a free cartridge gun or else maybe they would have just dropped the BP guns. When they took the crossbow high tech 20 years ago and pushed for legalizing them in archery season, lots of people said it was the death knell for compounds because it was easier. Many hunters dont have the money to just go out and buy a crossbow when they already have a perfectly good compound or maybe just dont want one. I think it could have been the same way with muzzleloaders.

As you mentioned, everyone could not afford to run out and buy a new cartridge gun when they became readily available. Many of those that did give up using a muzzleloader may have retired the old smoke pole and hung it with pride over the mantel or passed it down to a friend or family member or sold it.

 

[toot]

Oh no, no, no, no. These guns were always around and will always be around. There's an evolution of firearms that started with a piece of pipe, a rock, some powder and a lit torch and is still evolving even today. Muzzloaders were the beginning of that evolution. Flintlocks and percussion were the apex of that one small part of the overall evolution. People never stopped using them because they were reliable and fairly accurate.
As long as there are gun tinkerers and history buffs, these guns will be around.
View attachment 131427
My restored 1862 Bridesberg

what are the shot gun shells for? I know for a shot gun.

 

[Capnball]

what are the shot gun shells for? I know for a shot gun.

Actually they're charge tubes. Each tube holds 60 grains of FFG black powder. I've seen (or heard of) accidents on the firing line with powder horns and bulk black powder. Not only does this keep it neat but it speeds up loading without the safety issues of paper charges.

 

[BP Addict]

The "Beef" shoots never went away in the south and are still practiced today. As mentioned, Alvin York was a regular participant. Read "The Muzzle Loading Rifle, Then and Now" by NMLRA founder, Walter Cline.

Thanks!

Walt