The joy of BP

[Hota]

With all of the talk about distance shooting, ethical hunting etc., I thought I would share with you all and feel free to relay your own thoughts about why I am addicted to black powder sporting. I just wish I would have gotten into it long ago. Since I have gotten into BP I have been so excited about several things;

1. The rifles are so basic and so natural that they seem much more of an extension of a human arm than that of any modern firearm. From the hand carved wood to the hand forged iron extracted from the ground to the black powder itself which can be extracted from the ground and used to ignite a charge. How awesome is that! Think about all the pieces of a modern weapon there are and all the machining that goes into it. Such a simple design and so effective.

2. I don't have to compete anymore to prove myself. Most folks at the range want nothing to do with black powder because there is a discipline required with priming shooting cleaning etc. The same discipline that is required yet seldome followed when doing distance shooting. With so few people interested in the sport, it gives me all the room I need to enjoy myself.

3. My wife allows me to place my BP rifles all over the house as pieces of furniture where I can enjoy looking at them all the time. And what beautiful pieces they are.

4. I get to hunt and shoot with a weapon that my heros used (as a kid, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone and as an adult the mountain men of 1790 - 1840)

5. The ability to maintain the traditions of our forefathers so that I can pass that knowledge onto my kids.

6. Most important, hunting the traditional way. Where field skills were the utmost of importance and you had to get as close as possible because the powder wasn't pure, was most likely inconsistent and the shot had to count because the kill was your survival. Resources were scarce so nothing could be wasted.

There are more reasons but these are the biggies.

 

Bravo and well said, Hota, well said indeed.
:RO:

 

[Flint50]

Well said sir, and I could not agree more. I have been away from BP many years, and am just now getting back into it. I fell victim to all the modern stuff. BP, for me is getting back to the basics.
After hunting a lot of years with a scoped 30.06 here in Colorado, this will be my first year hunting with a .54 PBR. To me this will put the hunt back into hunting. Like you said, I must apply my field skills.
Besides, trudgin through the mountains carring a .54, I can "pretend" to be a mountain man, if only for a little while.

 

[Don]

Black powder guns bring me back to simpler times when life was less cluttered and people took little for granted. Now a days technology has so cluttered up our lives and distracted us that we have forgotten what is really meaningful. Yes, people worked 10 times as hard 100 years ago to do things that only take minutes now but I think about all the time I waste sitting in front of the boob tube. Back before the tech age folks worked together to accomplish things. Technology has turned us all into little islands cut off from each other. Mind you I live in a town and can't escape the clutches of the modern world but I have no desire for the latest gagets. For cryin out loud, I still own a turn table. As far as guns go, I have some modern guns(simple designs)and among them an auto pistol for self defense in a dangerous modern world. But the guns that get me fired up and wishin I had more of all shoot lead balls and burn black powder. Yes, technology has made life easier but it has also insulated us from the reality that life is fragile and can not be taken for granted. It also cuts us off from most of the human race that is still living the way our fore fathers did making us look spoiled,insensitive and arogant. Technology may have a place in our lives but it shouldn't be our lives. OK I'll get off my pulpit now.

Don

 

[bshultz]

I agree totally, and it's just plain fun!!! :imo: :redthumb: :thumbsup:

 

[bob1961]

i'll second all of the above....twice...............bob

 

[roundball]

My 45 year shooting / hunting technology evolution:
BB gun
.22 rifle
Single/double/pump/semi-auto shotguns (.410/.28/.20/.12)
Single/bolt/pump/semi-auto rifles (.30-30's/.35Rem's/.30-06's/.264 Win Mag)
Revolvers and semi-auto pistols (.22/.22Mag/.38/.357/.45ACP/.45Long Colt)
Handgun hunting
Bow hunting
Percussion muzzleloaders
Flintlock muzzleloaders

After all the years of hunting with some very fine rifles, scopes, etc, my most rewarding sense of accomplishment has been the past three years of flintlock hunting...when I lay a flintlock back down across my lap, smoke curling up out of the vent, a buck laying in the leaves 50yds away and think: "this is how they did it back then"...really gives me a strong sense of 'connection' to the past...first flintlock squirrel was about a thrilling as my first flintlock deer...hadn't squirrel hunted since the '60's.

I know TC Hawkens are not period specific, but using real black powder, real flint, and patched round balls in a rifle with a reasonably traditional style is an outstanding experience...all hunting for three seasons now has been exclusively with flintlocks.

In fact, I'm so certain I'm not going back to conventional firearms hunting that I've begun systematically selling off a lifetime collection of them...sold a half dozen already....the only thing worse than having an investment in something that you don't use, is also paying high insurance premiums on items that you don't use.

Be making smoke again this saturday!
:redthumb:

 

[Pasquinel]

long journey into night. Started out with .22 single shot
iron sights for groundhogs. Next came recurve bow, round wheel compound bow (cougar-martin about 15 or so years old
now and still my only bow) next came bolt action savage stevens 30-30 just because I liked the looks, never hunted with this gun. We followed this up with a T/C hawkins percussion in
early 70's just sold last year. Traditions 50 cal flint. Pa.
longrifle ( a good gun for the price) and now 50 cal. swamped barrel flint Pa. Longrifle custom made for me. Also
32 cal flintlock in the building stage. Once into BP there is no turning back and once into flint it's probably as close to pure joy as I'll ever get!! Love that flint!!! :RO:

 

[BigCity]

:applause:
Well said, Hota!

I just wish I had more free time to do the same thing.

 

[Stumpkiller]

:applause: :applause: :applause:

. . . discipline . . .

That's the word I needed. The challenge exists externally. That is, the difficulties in hunting or shooting primative weapons. The discipline is the internalized structure that allows us to meet that challenge. To be able to pass on a chancy shot, even if it is the end of the season. To put in an hour of cleaning or maintenance instead of watching reality TV, or even the History Channel. To spend a whole lot of time doing nothing but working on form or muscle strength/control to train our arms and brain how to shoot a weapon that can't be mastered minutes out of the factory box.

Discipline.

To take ownership of one's own faults. The difference between "I must get closer" vs. "my gun needs to be able to shoot farther."

Muzzleloading is truly one of the martial arts.

 

[Tahquamenon]

Very nice story...

Stump coined what is truly required to be able to really appreciate muzzleloading and hunting with one.

Disipline.

I agree 100%. :thumbsup:

I also enjoy shooting and hunting with other firearm types to include sporting and military centerfire rifles and pistols.

But muzzleloaders are by far my favorite.

:RO:

 

[Maestro]

I was a latecomer to hunting (but boy, did the bug bite!). I started at age 45 (5 years ago) with spring turkey hunting (modern shotgun) then that fall for whitetail with a bow. I shot my first deer with a bow that first season and have shot one (with a bow) every year since (even two in one year). This past deer season, I took my first two deer with a modern firearm (.7mm-08 with a 2-7x scope) and my very first thought was "gee, that was too easy!". Although I was excited that one of them was quite a trophy (for me, at least... a 178lb. 9-point) I just didn't have the sense of "accomplishment" that I ever got even taking a doe with a bow.

I had just gotten my flintlock this past fall and didn't feel ready to use it in the field until the Jan. season - I did take a shot at a deer with the flinter and missed - but I was "smitten" - Roundball, I know what you're saying - the feeling of being out with that handmade primitive gun so perfectly balanced in hand, the smell of the BP smoke in the early morning air, the feel of linen and leather, the dew-soaked feet from not having "greased up" my new Hi-Lo's (live & learn!) - there's definitely an intimate connection with the past - for me, that's what it's all about!

Next year, the flintlock is ALL I'm going to use during all of our (PA) firearms seasons. I think that, unlike a lot of hunters that I know, I learned (am learning!) to hunt using a bow and I'm more conditioned to think like a bowhunter (like shot placement, for example). I've even gotten ahold of a 20 gauge smoothbore flinter and am looking forward to using it in the spring for turkey.

I may have been a bit premature in saying to my wife, "I love shooting these flintlocks so much, I could see selling my other guns!" She's making plans to reclaim the space currently occupied by the gun safe! At least she let me hang the flintlocks on the walls! :winking:

 

[graybeard]

I have to agree. I did almost all my hunting for many, many years with an L.C. Smith doublebarrel that my grandfather bought more than 100 years ago, and a Model 1894 Winchester that I bought when I was a young man. A little over 20 years ago my wife bought me a caplock replica of a Kentucky rifle. I found it a progressive disease. Now I'm shooting a flintlock rifle and I worry because I find myself looking with great interest at the earlier muskets. And I've started reading the pre-flintlock items. I must say I've always enjoyed walking in the woods with a rifle in my hands and a pistol at my belt. But when the rifle and pistol are muzzleloaders, it seems to increase my sense of connection with all the hunters who went before. There is a beauty to the curve of the wood and the fitting of the steel on a blackpowder gun that I don't find with modern weapons. Not even my lovely old Smith. graybeard :thumbsup:

 

[Gary]

I lack eloquence and my prose ain't purty. I like blackpowder because it's fun. I like blackpowder because the blackpowder community is the most fun group of shooters to hang around. I like it because when I'm with blackpowder shooters, I belong. :thumbsup:

 

[roundball]

I lack eloquence and my prose ain't purty. I like blackpowder because it's fun. I like blackpowder because the blackpowder community is the most fun group of shooters to hang around. I like it because when I'm with blackpowder shooters, I belong. :thumbsup:

:agree: real blackpowder muzzleloaders are unique from other firearms...they make us pause and think, study, practice, etc.

We can walk out of a walmart with a .30-30 and immediately be proficient...no challenge...and we expect it all to work perfectly and easily like that to boot.

But with a flintlock for example, after a good 3000 shots now, I still keep being surprised that the darn contraption keeps going off as good as it does...part of the mystique I guess
:thumbsup:

 

What other "group" of shooters would welcome a blind shooter into ther midst?????? (none, thet I know of!!) :master: :master:

I really "like" you guys!! :cry: :cry: :redthumb:

YMHS
rollingb

 

[Rebel]

Heck, we'un's would put up with ya even if ya weren't blind. :crackup: Danged inlines anyhoo. ::

 

What is so facinateing is the simplicity of a flintlock and the amazement that they shoot like they do. Every time I load mine it takes me back 150 to 200 years and the mine set is all together different than any other type of shooting. Simplicity.... effectiveness..... and fun.... keeps my attention.

Woody

Did I mention the smell?

 

[TexasMLer]

I agree with everything that has been said and would only like to add one thing...

This forum adds to the joy of BP immensely for me. I don't know any of you fellers personally but I would rather hang out here and talk BP with you fellers than go to the range and shoot centerfire anyday!

Even though that sounded like something my little sister would say, I think you all can relate. :haha: :haha:

 

[jaybeach]

I had a friend - - once - - who told of the days when he hunted with an '06, semi-auto with scope. He said he never failed to get a deer. "All you have to do is start walking through heavy cover until a deer jumps up. When you see hair in the scope, pull the trigger :no: - then go pick up your deer." It was "so simple" for him that he quit hunting all together (prob'ly a good thing). Too bad he didn't try some BP, eh?