Replying to this so it’s here twice if anyone not involved with most of the thread ends up skipping through it all. My personal experience, I knew some people who were heavily into muzzleloaders and any time you asked a question, they acted like you had kicked their dog. Telling you to read books, figure it out, etc. That’s partly why as a late teen into my mid 20s I never owned more than one cap and ball revolver at any one time. I never could get advice in person and I got tired of wading through stuff like this online.
Now that I’m older and wise enough to not blow myself up I don’t really rely too much on needing help but I do participate here. I want to shoot my muzzleloaders and I don’t really care about PC/HC but can appreciate the skill to build something like that. Can’t find anyone local that does this stuff either so I scroll the forums. Deer Creek Products is within an hour from me, those are great guys and I’ve been in the shop a few times. Plenty of good advice from them.
But as far as forums go I feel this one is about as bad as I’ve ever seen about guys dragging stuff out, derailing threads, and generally upping their post counts posting near gibberish or generally being abrasive. See “Holland and Holland Identification” or that T/C Hawken flinter in the classifieds. Both of those threads were started by new, low post count members and they got eaten alive or the posts went off the rails. The Hawken rifle thread got cleaned up however so you had to see it while it was new to understand that one but the Holland and Holland thread I think they’re still talking about haggis while the original poster has left the forum for good all because he trusted a widow to tell him the gun was an H&H. Turns out it’s legit but he definitely got dragged hard before it was confirmed it was a limited run of guns made.
As that video states, no new movie or political action will increase the number of traditional muzzleloader users. Being welcoming or helpful is what’s going to slowly bring more people in. If you can’t be either of those things, being silent works too. Because of me willing to loan out duplicate tools, gear, and give advice, I have one friend who after shooting my flintlock is really wanting to get into this sport. One other friend is about to purchase a percussion rifle as well because he’s shot a few of my handguns and likes the idea of muzzleloading. I can’t find any local shoots other than the standard Friendship spring and fall shoots and since I have no social media like Facebook it would be unlikely to ever find info on upcoming events.
Long story short here. Without me being helpful to my friends the sport would not have gained two new people to support what we all enjoy. Without me being as into firearms as a whole as I am I would not have tried three or four times to pick up muzzleloading since I had no help. I’m going to guess there’s plenty more out there like my friends and myself and this thread and others I mentioned are good examples on how to keep people away.
