Hello everyone, I already jumped right into a couple of the discussions without introducing myself properly 'cause I didn't notice this particular welcome-wagon thread until just now.
Been shooting muzzle loaders (and modern firearms) since my teens in the 1950s. Grew up about two-thirds in the South, mostly East Tennessee, about one-third in northern Lower Michigan: the AuSable River country when it was still pretty wild. In those days I had a 14-gauge Lacey of London Pacific Northwest trade gun (percussion) that I regularly hunted with, an 1861 Bridesburg, a .69-caliber c. 1770 Hutchinson flintlock pistol w/Dublin Castle proof marks, plus a couple of nameless percussion pistols, one a double-barreled .40-caliber belt pistol I often carried (loaded with birdshot) as a snake gun. These days the battery is a lot more pedestrian -- all percussion, all replica -- and I don't get to shoot nearly as often. I'm not a re-enactor, but I am very much a traditional-muzzle-loader, a real-black-powder purist.
Discovered this site by accident a week ago and hope to learn from everyone on it, because even after all the years I've been shooting, seems like I'm forever discovering just how ignorant I really am.
Shining times to one and all...