RESULTS - Age of Forum Users

[jaybeach]

Of 134 Users who reported their age, the average is 48.4 years.
I originally had this thought as a result of a post concerning The Future of the Sport. What conclusions can we draw from this survey?
1. It's probably a good representation of the average age of those on this forum, but not necessarily all those invloved in the ML sport.
2. It also may not be a good indicator of all who are involved in the shooting sports as a whole. Maybe someone who is on a forum that deals with ALL guns could run a poll similar to this one - or maybe someone already has those stats.
3. At any rate - it's obvious that we need to try to attract younger people to the sport in order to have sufficient numbers to stand against the forces that want to take this heritage away. I think it's good to discuss ways this might be accomplished.

Thanks, IM jaybe :thumbsup:

 

[Dave Poss]

Excellent poll Jaybe.We as muzzleloaders better get things going with the kids or in 30 years this sport/hobby/lifestyle may well be dead....along with a big part of our heritage!

 

[PaulN/KS]

Good poll and the results are not all that surprising to me.
It is nice to see that,for once,I am above "average"...

 

[rhwestfall]

I just found this and (gulp!) fall victim. I am 38 and just got into this..... Perhaps the age is related to maturing and reasonably wanting to take a trip back away from all the fancy crud we have in our lives!!!! Isn't it ironic though that this band of time warpers, who want to feel some tie to the past are chit-chatting with each others on computer???????? :haha:

 

[Dave Poss]

Isn't it ironic though that this band of time warpers, who want to feel some tie to the past are chit-chatting with each others on computer???????? :haha:

It's Just a faster "horse" to carry the mail! ::

 

[roundball]

I just found this and (gulp!) fall victim. I am 38 and just got into this..... Perhaps the age is related to maturing and reasonably wanting to take a trip back away from all the fancy crud we have in our lives!!!! Isn't it ironic though that this band of time warpers, who want to feel some tie to the past are chit-chatting with each others on computer???????? :haha:

Kind of like how we work ourselves to death to "improve our station in life" by buying more and more material things, bigger house, etc...then to get away from it all, we take vacation and go camping in the woods with the bare essentials and sleep on the ground !
:crackup:

 

[doverdog]

I find the results of the poll to be kind of a bummer. The consensus is that the average age of 48 is kind of old. I am almost 12 years older than that. :boohoo:

 

[roundball]

I find the results of the poll to be kind of a bummer. The consensus is that the average age of 48 is kind of old. I am almost 12 years older than that. :boohoo:

Amen!!
And no time left to waste...I'll be up at 6:30am again this Saturday to go to the range...20* & windy...but I gotta make smoke every chance I can
:redthumb:

 

I figure "OLD" is 20 years older than I will ever be! :blah:

Woody

 

[IronCrickett]

I'd say that those of us who are "above average" just like the smell of sulfer, and use blackpowder as a second source...???

Later
I.C.

 

[gabi]

Just to let you all know, you have attracted a young person. I will be 20 on march 17. i also have my fionce and my best friend and my sister, her two kids and her boyfriend getting into the vou thing(all under 24). I think that every age group has there place at a vou, it just takes the work to get into it.:: ::

 

[PaulN/KS]

Absolutly gabi,we need more of you younger folks to come have fun with us old f##ts.Sides,you young fellas can help us old goobers tote stuff.... ::
Seriously,I really like to see the younger folks coming out and joining in.You are the future of the sport. :thumbsup:

 

[jim gray]

I find the results of the poll to be kind of a bummer. The consensus is that the average age of 48 is kind of old. I am almost 12 years older than that.

I am almost twelve years younger so together we are the average age.

Seriously I am introducing my 13 year old daughter and 12 year old son to muzzleloading, and last year my 13 year old cousin hunted with one of my flintlocks. I have a couple days planned at the range this summer with my daughter's friends. I think that if I get a couple teenage girls involved lots of teenage boys will suddenly develop an interest. :crackup: :crackup: :crackup:

 

[Zonie]

The results don't really suprise me.
IMO, there are a lot of people who are intrested in the shooting sports in general, but I'd guess well over 90 percent of them have only fired modern firearms.

Most of the movies show only modern weapons so that's what younger people think they want.

It takes a few years to find that a carefully aimed accurate single shot can be a lot more satisfying than emptying two 50 round clips at machine gun rates of fire, into a tree. Many of them will reach that same conclusion later in their life.

What is also satisfying is to see the interest the young people (kids) have in watching me shoot my muzzleloaders.
When kids (and dads) show this interest, I encourage it.
I never correct their dad when he calls my rifle a musket, or says things like "That's what they used to fight the Revolution" even if I'm shooting a cap lock Plains rifle.
I figure someday they will find out the truth and there is nothing to be gained by making the old man look foolish in the eyes of his children.

While many just look from a distance, those larger ones who walk up and ask questions usually get (with their parents permission) to fire one of my guns.
When doing this, I always load light so the recoil is nil.
As we all know, once they've fired black powder, deep inside them, their hooked. :thumbsup:

 

[76monza]

Zonie,

When we host our youth camps, the enthusiasm of the kids is really uplifting for me, you know that you have introduced something that is so different from what they have been used to. I'm not just talking about the BP shooting, but the camping, fire starting and all the other sights and sounds that we may take for granted. I've seen many parents who have just a passing interest in what they are seeing, and when they walk away, they're done with it. I believe some parents would rather their kid just file it away as an experience and get on with life. The best results we'll have is by getting a parent/grandparent hooked on BP shooting, the kids will follow.

Smokeydays

 

[REX]

There is an old saying about growing old, "Life is like a roll of toilet paper, The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes". :crackup:
rex (westcoastBPgramps)
BP shooting is fun

 

[vradin]

The best results we'll have is by getting a parent/grandparent hooked on BP shooting, the kids will follow.

AMEN Smokey... can't recall how many times we'll have a demo or let the parents shoot up at the Scout Camp- but I know we've had more than a few converts to the cause from the 'lakefront liberal crowd' including a large percentage of moms. I always light load and make sure they hit something, even if it's a cardboard deer cutout at 25 feet.

Works the other way round too. I've had a few boys try shooting for the first time ever, and there's been a couple or three that have gone on to take a more serious interest in the sport. Granted, it's mostly modern, but they'll come around too.

But the best is the really young ones- cub scouts, age 7 to 10. Never held a BB gun, dad is trying his best to not look foolish, and I get to hand them their first ever gun. Not a kid leaves my range without a hole in his paper, even if I have to have my spotter nkock a skeeter off the line :: I'll see the same kid the next year or so, and hear about how he's STILL got that target hanging on the fridge door, and now he's old enough to use the .22's and even try the muzzleloader.

:m2c:
vic

 

[RiverRat]

I think the big challenge to keep our sport alive is to attrack the younger ones into the shooting/hunting/guns lifestyle in general. I seen this age difference in the motorcycle riders.
The kids lust after the speed, plastic,cheap,throwaway crotch-rocket style bikes. But when they start growing up and their responsibilities increase along with income, they migrate to the more traditional Harleys. When I see a kid hunting with a space age caliber gun, I quietly thank God that he or she is hunting and there style of weapons will hopefully migrate to the more traditional. I have never been to a rondy and can't comment on the age of people there. I only know what I see around here. :m2c:

 

[LeeRoy87]

I'll be 65 the end of March, but as I said on another thread, I've been shooting muzzle-loaders (and modern firearms) since my teens. I was actually given my first rifle, a .22, at age 9.

But I am extremely pessimistic about the future of shooting and firearms ownership in general. There is no more plinking in my state because vindictively anti-Second Amendment officials have closed all the informal ranges -- one of the big reasons the NRA started its save-hunting campaign here in Washington.

The end of plinking means the effective end of all informal target practice. It also means unavoidable mandatory range fees and interminable waits to get on a range at all -- even a members-only range.

Moreover, the kids -- I think of anybody much under 35 as a kid -- are all into AK-47 copies and 25-yard rapid fire, so when my friends and I show up with something like a Trapdoor Springfield or an 1886 Winchester or a Sharps Business Rifle and start contemplatively punching little groups of holes in paper at 200 yards or ringing the 500-meter gong with black-powder handloads, it always creates a bit of a stir. Not to mention groans of impatience from the people in line behind us. Even more so when the rifle is a "slow" muzzle-loader, accurate or not.

Thus even the time pressure imposed by the closure of the informal ranges contributes to poor shooting. And as long as this is true, nothing at all will suffice to wean today's kids from their spray-and-pray preferences -- not to mention correcting their seemingly utter inability to shoot with any degree of genuine accuracy at any range.

In my younger days, including as a soldier, I have fired iron-sighted service rifles accurately at 1000 and 600 yards. Even today, even given my 64-year old eyes, with my peep-sighted .45-70 I routinely shoot 100-yard groups of two inches (or less).

But on big-game-season sight-in days, the groups by shooters at least 20 years my junior are disgusting: the local average would be no less than six inches at 100 yards, this with bolt-action magazine rifles typically equipped with 3x9 scopes. Thus I have no doubt we have already seen the forever demise of the once legendary American Marksmanship -- maybe even its perversion into a contradiction in terms.

Not to speak heresy, but -- being strictly facetious -- I've often wondered if an assault weapons ban might actually have the unintended effect of resurrecting marksmanship among the young.

Don't get me wrong; I believe the almost innate American passion for the shooting sports is still there -- I'm sure of this from the youth I myself have taught to shoot -- but it's rapidly being submerged in a brainwash of pacifism. That's why, despite my pessimism, I salute any of you who are still working with youth, de-conditionining them from the cult of political "correctness" and just maybe keeping the Second Amendment -- and ultimately American liberty itself -- alive for another generation.

 

[jaybeach]

There is no more plinking in my state because vindictively anti-Second Amendment officials have closed all the informal ranges

OGW - by "informal ranges", do you mean any place that is not a club? Like plinking in a gravel pit, or against the side of a hill on State land, etc.? What about on your own private property?
I'm curious as to how the regulation reads. :huh: