So..... why a muzzleloading?

[Snydly]

Growing up in the 50s and 60s I was in awe of the television show "The Rebel" The main character packed a cap and ball pistol from the civil war era. I thought that was the coolest pistol ever! After about a year of watching the show, one of my aunts bought me a toy pistol exactly like the one the Rebel carried. I was on cloud 9!! Fast forward to around 1968 or so I went to work for a fellow in Story, Wy. who was putting in a sporting goods store. He didn't have a lot of money but he had a huge inventory and one of the things that he had that immediately caught my eye was a Navy Arms 1851 44 caliber cap and ball pistol! For my wages we just kept track of my hours and then could pick something out of inventory as my pay. After what seemed like an eternity I had enough hours in to take the pistol off the wall as my own. $24.00!! Soon I had enough for a lb of black powder and the lead balls. The lead balls were perfect in every aspect, because I made them. He also had given me lessons in making lead balls because we were selling them.

It took me exactly ONE SHOT to fall in love with black powder!... Soon after he did not need me any more and I went to work on a ranch outside Buffalo Wy. The ranch was crawling with mule deer and on the creek bottom we had whitetail deer also. Visiting my old friend at the sporting goods store he pointed out a new rifle on the wall. Black powder of course as that was all I talked about. It was a 58 caliber Zuave. I had to have it! Took money out of my savings from the ranch work and proceeded to buy the Zuave. Shortly after I shot my first big game animal with it. I had an extra doe fawn tag and proceeded to shoot a doe in one of our fields just a short way from our grainery. Needless to say I was now hopelessly hooked on black powder hunting!!

Have never looked back!! Except for a model 64 Winchester 30WCF lever action and an AR15 I don't even own a modern smokeless rifle. All my hunting is done with a traditional style muzzleloader. I have built 3 rifles and 1 pistol and am now in the process of building a Kibler SMR in .40 caliber. I am on the board of directors of the Wy Muzzleloader Association. Life is good,,, God is great!

 

[sheriff john]

It's just FUN! Killing stuff is honestly not as rewarding as it was earlier in life, so that's over. All my old M/L buddies are ,,,dead. Fooling with M/L's brings back great memories of hunts & shoots long past. Old guy thing, I guess.

 

[Gopher0]

History and a love of it .

 

[Edm]

It’s funny so many people mention bows. I move with my Job every so often. The top of the list when looking for a new house is yard has to be big enough to shoot a bow in the backyard and also grow a garden.

 

[PA lead]

Over 30 years ago I started simply to extend my season and didn't have a care about history. Now I love learning more about history. This sight has been great. I'm glad I found it.

 

[Tannehill]

Some years back I lived in Iowa and it was shotguns and slugs. They did have a ml season. One summer in 1986 I was visiting a friend in NE and mentioned I would like to try ml hunting . He had a investarms.45 plains style rifle he didn't use anymore. He gave it to me. Needed some tlc as he had taken very good care of it. Went home tore it all done refinished the stock, cleaned the barrel took it to abgun smith who checked the bore. It was good.

Hunted with it that fall and killed my first ml deer. Been hooked ever since.

 

[GeronPG]

In my area of NC, 20+ years ago, muzzleloading season was the first couple weeks in october (still is) but it was "either sex" back then , so it gave me an extra 2 weeks of hunting and upped my chances to shoot one. Now the whole season is either sex, and the weather is a little cooler from mid-October on and I usually see more deer activity in late October and November, but I still enjoy getting in a few extra days of hunting in early October.

 

[Campbell]

The first rifle I ever bought with my own money was a Remington 514 single shot .22. I started deer hunting with a muzzleloader in the early 1960s and when my wife bought me a box of ammo for an old Win. 94 30/30 I started mostly using modern rifles. It was too easy with a "modern" rifle and not as sporting as I wanted it to be. That's when I started hunting deer with revolvers. I used two different .357 mags, a .41 mag and a .44 mag. Small game was also hunted with .22LR revolvers and pistols, .38 spl, .45 Colt & acp. That became less challenging and I switched back to muzzleloaders. Flintlocks were my main tool and so I "mostly" left percussions behind. I hunted all seasons with a flintlock rifle and NEVER needed more than just the one shot to take a deer. Interestingly I usually did better than my friends with their latest magnum-long range rifles. Deer, bobcats and squirrels were taken with various muzzleloaders.

I always loved history and it felt so satisfying carrying an 18th century rifle or smoothbore into the hunting woods and experiencing, if for only a few hours, what our ancestors experienced. I cast my own ball & bullets and had to buy only flints and black powder. I no longer hunt the woods and shoot only inantimant targets now. And I rarely shoot a modern gun nowadays.

My story pretty much lines up with Hanshi, so I’ll just use his post.

 

[DuncNZ]

One of my earliest memories is when I was about 4, sitting on the back step of the house , helping my uncle cut wads from felt for his Henry Nock 14 ga . when we finished we went out to the cow paddock to shoot a rabbit or two , I carried his shot bag and powder horn , with the straps shortened to keep them off the ground . He shot 2 rabbits which I tried to carry , it was a big load for a little kid , We saw another rabbit and I asked if I could have a shot , He held the gun while I aimed and to our surprise I shot it . That gun has been in my family since it was made and sits in a safe 10 feet from where I am writing . When I was 10 my uncle gave me a 2 band 1861 .577 Enfield snider mk 1 conversion and a case of ammo , I'm not allowed to talk about that on this forum, but that rifle started me on the road to where I am now .

 

[Sean E Bug]

for me it is arts and crafts. I got into guns and then immediately reloading. I like going through the process of doing things. a muzzleloader is just handloading in the gun. I enjoy casting balls. cutting and lubing patches, and now building guns. gives me a way to spend my time and have something to show for it. Muzzleloading is more fun for me to shoot. it forces me to slow down and enjoy the range time with the fire and smoke.

 

[Thingamajiggy]

For me, it was another season to hunt. Here in PA, there is an after Christmas season for deer which is archery and Flintlock only. Found it really fun to chase them that time of year. Has since progressed from having 1 flintlock to hunt that season with to having, I'll say more than 1 flintlock (don't tell the misses). I pretty much set out to hunt ONLY with flintlocks for everything now, only need a fowler for small game/turkey hunting which hopefully will be in the works shortly.

 

[Daveboone]

Its all aboout the first shot. Going back to the roots of the sport. Also, as a hobby it has a lot of depth...the history, craft, camaraderie...I love the aspect of the "do it yourself". I clumsily lost my wedge to my T/C renegade, which I will be shooting in a club shoot tomorrow. At first, low grade panic...what to do, where to find one...(goddam stupid money nowadays! ) when I realized....hey, I have some angle iron outside....
Twenty minutes later I had a barrel wedge as functional (and not bad looking) as the one I lost. Of course, this a.m. I found the damn original.

 

[TexiKan]

This is an interesting thread as to why WE became interested in muzzleloading. Reading it gives some insight into what motivated us. Other than the "fun" aspect, see how it differs for today's youth.

Back then, the Westerns and TV shows about the era sparked my interest. I would often walk past the window display of a sports shop in my hometown and see a muzzleloading rifle on display. Years later, while in college, I was a reporter/writer for our college newspaper and the editor and sports writer were going to go out to do some muzzleloading shooting and asked if I wanted to come along. I joined them and they let me shoot their rifles. After graduating and moving, I subscribed to Muzzle Blasts and learned of a nearby club. I went out for a visit even though I did not have a gun. I was finally motivated to get one and I have been a member of the club ever since then. No, it wasn't about hunting for me. I simply enjoyed shooting a muzzleloader.

 

[Coinneach]

I have always felt a calling to the past and primitive skills. My interest in muzzle loading began in high School and the civil war period. Funny thing is,
the older I get the further back in time I go.

Ditto

 

[Louisk]

Great topic. I've been interested in muzzloading guns for as long as I can remember. I don't recall what started it but it was from preteen years. It took a LONG time to actually buy a muzzleloader and start onto the hobby even though I bought many books and magazines on the subject along the way...Always seemed like there wasn't enough extra money other expensive hobbies took priority. Then marriage, kids, etc. and it seemed whenever there was enough extra money to buy something I didn't really need, something I did really need broke. Finally, in 2015 (In my mid 50's) I told my wife that I wanted to buy a muzzleloader so I could, potentially, participate in a muzzleloader only moose draw hunt, even though the reverse was true. I picked up a .54 GPR. Drew the hunt but only scored some "moose track stew." Don't care, loving the hobby even if it never puts a scrap of meat on the table.

 

[oreclan]

While stationed at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station a friend , Mike Brosee, from Cincinnati brought back two original percussion muzzleloaders from home. This was in about 1971. He had a gunsmith get one of them to fire, and we shot it in a nearby swamp. I was hooked!
I was transferred to Camp Pendleton and frequented a San Diego muzzleloader shop and bought an original powderhorn with a brass measuring valve and a swivel breach percussion from Navy Arms. I still have the horn, my brother has the gun after our Dad hunted with it.
My first kit was from Golden Age Arms near Columbus, Ohio. It took me 7 years to build it as a flintlock poor boy.
My second kit was a used unassembled Miroku 2nd model Brown Bess kit from Log Cabin Sport Shop for $150! I assembled it in several weeks. I used it in re-enacting and live fire as a member of the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment, Fort Laurens Detachment during the American Revolution Bicentennial.
I have been building muzzleloaders, making powderhorns and bags, re-enacting, shooting, hunting ( Mostly walking in the woods.) ever since.

 

[Omahkapi'si]

What’s so good about this century? No thanks.

 

[nchawkeye]

Fess Parker, bless him!!!

I was 9 when the series Daniel Boone came out and my brother and I never missed an episode...I always loved history and grew up near Roanoke Island (saw the Lost Colony outdoor play several times) and near Jamestown, Yorktown and Williamsburg...I moved to Atlanta in 1977 when I got a job with John Deere and bought a flintlock from Bob Watts (he is in Foxfire 5)...I killed a deer with it that fall, I had always hunted and this just gave me another option...I later started going to schools, dressing up and giving talks on the American Revolution...I now live near Guilford Courthouse and Old Salem and have visited Kings Mountain and Cowpens...It's been a great ride!!!

 

[DementedMindOfJac]

There's got to be a story behind everyone's choice made to shoot and hunt with a muzzleloader. Me? I got tired of all the manure with shotguns and the ammunition. Plus, I seldom needed more than the one shot.

I grew up using a smoothbore shotgun and foster slugs to hunt deer, starting at the age of 14. I shot deer and got pretty good at killing them. I put together a slug gun over time that sported a scope and rifled barrel and that made the hunting that much more humane. What griped me was the constantly changing world of ammunition and with each change the price of using it going straight uphill. I'd shot a handful of deer with a TC Renegade .54 during the regular gun seasons which is where I started developing my attraction to the "one-shot theory" that I'd always adhered to and pushed at my hunting partners, but they were firm in their shotguns.... and making the woods sound like a war zone.

I stumbled across a Winchester bolt .45 muzzy and bought it new at a locally new Cabelas. I scoped it and shot a hundred pounds of bullets and sabots through it getting ready for the next deer season. For the next four seasons this gun and I took as many deer as shots to collect them. BUT, I still played with shotgun game too and ran out to buy the newest and latest and greatest sabot slugs, usually spending $100.00 on them so I could shoot the gun in to them and then use one to kill my deer. Back then I hunted a second season which usually meant hunting on snow or in falling snow. Generally, it was cold, but it was also back when we started to see much warmer weather and hunting in slop was as common as hunting while it was below zero. The shotgun afforded me a reliable first shot while sometimes that front stuffer would balk at the trigger pull and I'd get to see a white flag leaving the area. Over time I was able to find some confidence in what I was shooting in in my muzzy during this late season and somehow just made the switch to using is while my buddies were blazing away and their deer harvest boasted of their lack of accuracy, often sporting two to four hits on a deer. to them it was a deer take. To me I saw waste.

About 25 years ago I got the opportunity to manage a property for an elderly couple. This gave me specific permission to post the property on their behalf and control who was on or using the property. The property was an absolute deer haven, so I decided to hunt it myself, as in by myself. I used my muzzleloader and enjoyed the peace in waiting out deer or the peace of still hunting. After 5 years both of the elderly couple had passed and their kids sold the property. While I managed the place I gave a neighbor permission to come in and harvest downed trees for his firewood as he heated with wood. Not only did he help clean up the forest floor but he help eliminate to a great degree the threat of fires. When the property was lost for me I asked him about hunting on his parcel just up the road. He was more than happy to let me on to hunt and to this day he is one of my best friends. I can count on one hand how many deer I have taken off his land with a shotgun. I have no idea how many I have taken with the muzzies.

Over the years I have added to my muzzy collection, mostly in-lines but also a couple sidelocks. I'd sold that Renegade I hunted with earlier hoping to find a single trigger model. I finally found one only a few years back here on this site. I still haven't shot it and as far as I can tell its never been shot. I sold the Winchester.45 too and hope to someday find another. I have a couple older .45 TC Hawkens that I don't shoot, but they are fun to handle occasionally. There's a lot of memories tied up in those sidelocks and the beginning of the muzzleloader love affair. I seriously shoot at a local club where I'm a long time member and some of the rifle shooters there are simply shocked to see a front stuffer poking holes in holes at 100 yards, so over time my shooting has evolved and gotten much better. So back to the original question.....
Shooting these muzzleloading either at the range or in the stand has taught me to relax and not be so hurried to shoot. They've taught me several things by the most important is to have confidence in what I am shooting and what I am shooting at. We all go thru little trials with the smoke belching guns, but the trials become teachers and we pay attention. Hunting with muzzleloading has taught me to appreciate that first shot, and except for twice in all these years, is the only shot that really matters. Hunting with muzzleloading has allowed me to thoroughly look at the experience, each and every day different from the day before, not so much from the standpoint of the kill but to simply experience what the woods has to offer: the snow falling, the still and quiet, the birds and other animal life, sunrises and sunsets that so many others simply don't see or can't see. I'm getting older and know it... feel it. I don't go to the woods with my muzzies to lament what is coming someday, probably sooner than I'd like, but I go there with my old friend the muzzleloading to be thankful for being there today. I'm a sausage maker and I really do intend to kill deer for that purpose, so I struggle with the idea that I am going there to kill, because the whole experience is so much more than that. Over the many years of hunting with the stink stick I've learned to be more selective in what I take. Horns are nice if what I am aiming at has them but the long nosed, tall eared, does are welcome too. I watch an awful lot of deer come and go while I have that muzzy in my lap. And I don't have to listen to that terrible racket of a shell being racked up.
So, to say that making muzzleloading my choice over the years is a matter of evolving, the statement would be correct. Being a part of this family here at MM has allowed me to spend time with other who have sauntered down a similar path in their hunting/shooting life. Its given me a chance to watch posting as newcomers go thru the trials and tribulations that making smoke seems to bring with it early on and watch them grow to confidence. My grandkids ask why I don't hunt with a rifle. I tell them I do. The oldest grandson has a muzzleloading but he's still stuck on the cartridge hunting. One day though, he'll get the bug and like all of us here, the evolution will begin in him.

I got into muzzleloaders primarily because of ascetics. I got a thing for long, sleek rifles. My first rifle was an 1891 Argentine Mauser. My dad bought it at a surplus store back in the '50's for less'n a gallon of gas today. I killed my first antelope with it aged 14, an' nagged my dad into an early inheritance before I was 15. I still have that rifle, as I did not succumb to my son's desire to continue tradition. Bought him his own instead. Gotta be smart.

Where I lived before coming to the US, it wasn't practical to shoot black powder. Black powder was (is?) classified as an explosive, an' unless you have a government explosives permit, you'd not want to be caught with any. Yeah, I know. It's stupid.

I remember my dad comin' back from Spain with a boatload of 'em pewter non-firin' replicas replicas to decorate his study. My brother an' I broke ALL of them inside 3 days. I didn't break the sword an' I'll stick to that till my dyin' day.

Well, given my nature, it's not strange I'd wind up in Tennessee. An' given Tennesee's nature it wasn't long before I run into folks with smokepoles. "Want to shoot it? Oh, hell, yes!" It always starts like that. A friend offers you a taste, an' next thing you're lurking on shady places on the interzones tryin' to peddle your offspring for a can of CCIs. I even learned to shoot both-handed. You shoot a right-hand flintlock left-handed only so many times afore it sets your beard afire.

I honestly can't tell you why I love long rifles, just that I do. I don't hunt, so it's not that. Got blowed up in Iraq an' my joints just hurt too much in winter. Used to, though. Loved it, even when I got nothing. I guess I like the ritual. Powder horn to powder measure, down the spout, patch, ball, short start, ramrod, prime/cap, shoulder, full cock, aim, set trigger, front trigger, recoil, smoke. Lots of it. It's not the same without smoke. Sulphur. It's a man's smell. Like oiled leather or wet dog. Man smells. Maybe it's a subconsious wish for simpler times?

 

[Eric Krewson]

Back in the early 70s, deer hunting was bucks only, of course this led to the need to thin the herd. Hunters were so locked into the thought that killing does was a travesty that the wildlife managers started having either sex M/L only hunts on the mgt areas to get the hunters to kill some does. I was a so-so hunter at the time and seldom saw a buck to kill, the either sex hunt really appealed to us unexperienced people who had only killed a deer or two at best.

in preparation for the first hunt, we all bought a M/L, mine was the cheapest one out there, an unmentionable H&R "Huntsman" in .45. I killed one deer with it and decided to change to a TC Renegade which led to a Senica, several Hawkens, back to Renegades and then to more Hawkins and back to more Renegades. I didn't know anything about working up a load, if I couldn't get a gun to group right out of the box, I sold it and bought another, DUH!

My last couple of TCs were flintlocks, a gift of a nice longrifle started me on the builder path, I sold my TCs. I thought I would never own another TC but my brother found a Hawken kit in my dad's closet when he went to assisted living. I put the kit together using my new found gun building ability, next I built a flint Renegade from random parts with a L&R lock and a Hawken percussion from random parts with a GM drop-in barrel.