What got you into muzzlleloading?

[gearheart]

You're in trouble. Remember what the rooster says.."Es verzieht sich". :haha:

 

[AllenHawken]

At an overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia last year, I remarked to my wife that the information signs at the overlooks all had a silhouette of a muzzleloader long rifle on them and that it would be cool to own one.

For Christmas, my wife surprised me with a kit from Dixie Gun Works to build an InvestArm .54 caliber Hawken black powder muzzleloader.

I had a lot of fun building the rifle, and shot it for the first time at a BP muzzleloader shooting match on Memorial Day.

I have been hooked ever since! Now I am at a range every weekend gaining proficiency, experimenting with patch/ball/load combinations, and improving my offhand shooting accuracy.

 

[buttonbuck]

for me it started out as a second tag for deer, and a cheap traditions. I got a deer my second season with my second muzzleloader, a renegade. I just enjoy shooting and hunting with muzzleloaders more than modern guns.

 

[izzyjoe]

my dad had a few smokepole's, that's what he called them. the movie that did it for me was Jeremiah Johnson, i seen it as a kid, and i now have it on dvd, and i watch it quite often. i've had a few ML's, but never kept any of them until a couple years ago. now it's all i want to shoot!

 

[cynthialee]

my dad had a few smokepole's, that's what he called them. the movie that did it for me was Jeremiah Johnson, i seen it as a kid, and i now have it on dvd, and i watch it quite often. i've had a few ML's, but never kept any of them until a couple years ago. now it's all i want to shoot!

That was the first grown up movie my folks took me to.
Probably had something to do with how I took to black powder.
Every time that scene plays where he finds the dead mountain man with the rifle that saves his skin I start to choke up and cry.
:redface:
Hell I am doing it now just thinking about it.

 

[Lonegun1894]

I have always had a thing for history and doing things the old ways, and keep being told that I am an "old soul", a "dinosaur", or was "born at least a couple centuries too late". I started out with modern stuff, like most here, but have preferred hunting with MLs since I was about 17 or 18 years old. I still have modern stuff, and have a definite interest in 1870s-1940s firearms, but anything more modern is kept more for defensive use due to prior military and LE training. Now the MLs, I dont know how to expalin it, but there is just something satisfying about it. It is also relaxing, as opposed to a lot of the more modern weapons out there. I won't ever give up the more modern stuff completely, for obvious applications, but hunting and target shooting are much more of a challenge with a ML. I mean, I have reliably hit targets out to 1450m with military gear, and have done so with personal equipment out to 1250m, but I refuse to hunt with those kind of tools unless it is a matter of taking out hogs, coyote, etc for pest control purposes. Those are just business, and not hunting. I'm sure you all know what I mean even if I can't quite put it into words.

And I do not give those distances to brag, because that is really not a significant accomplishment by any means, and it is something I am sure anyone here could be taught to do given the proper equipment and enough ammo and range time. Just to say that modern guns are just not a challenge if the equipment isn't limited to something reasonable, where MLs have some serious limitations that made me a better hunter than I ever was when using a modern scoped rifle, and I would bet that goes for many of us here.

 

[roundball]

An additional week of deer hunting via an ML season where CF rifles / shotguns couldn't be used...saw a T/C Hawken, started down the slippery slope into the world of black powder and never looked back.

Spent the first 8 years with a variety of caplock calibers & gauges. Spent the past 12 years exclusively hunting/shooting Flintlock rifles & smoothbores for the added challenge and satisfaction of taking all my game similar to the way the settlers did.

My interest is not that of a purist, or a thread-counter, or being a PC/HC bigot...after 17 years of half-stock Hawken style MLs, my current TVM Early Virginia's and Late Lancaster are excellent quality hunting guns built with top notch components and have punched every game tag when called upon to do so without fail.

And when not being lined up on a deer, turkey, squirrel, etc...they're resting comfortably in the crook of my Camo Gore-Tex covered arm......or being held in my Thinsulate insulated gloved hands...LOL.

 

[meanmike8665]

I brought a T/C at a gun show just because it was cheap, much later I needed a cash register repaired when I called a repairman he told me he could not come until after he came back from a muzzle loading shoot!!!
I waited, when he came we started talking about his hobby, well 20+ years later we still shoot together. Because of a chance encounter, my wife and I have many friends all over the West and enjoy shooting today more than ever! So, I now enjoy muzzle loading because of a T/C and a cash register repairman.
Michael

 

[flintlock75]

When i was 8 years old my dad brought me to visit a friend of his in the VA hospital, the old fellow was a WW1 vet and had known my dad from his Navy days. On that visit he told my dad to get a box from under his bed out, it held an early production flintlock kentucky rifle and a remmington C/B revolver, he told me my dad had mentioned that i liked to shoot his .22 rifle so he held my hand and said these are yours now to shoot since he did not have much longer to be around and charged my dad to show me how to shoot them. The fellow passed away a few weeks later. But my dad bought me the Lyman black powder manuel and it took off from there. Living in New Hampshire exposed me to alot of colonial history and with the upcoming bicentenial there was a big intrest in MZ guns and shooting, My intrest realy took off when a wagon train came past my school that had started in Maine and was going to travel to all the 13 colonies.Thats when i met several adult shooters and started my reenacting of a Rev war rifleman. That was long ago and i have been shooting MZ ever since. I know have 2 daughters who shoot them as well, my oldest has been competeing since she was 7 and just finnished the Alaska Territorials last weekend, with 5 gold and 5 silver medals, my youngest turns 7 next year and is already shooting and will compete next year. Also my wife shot in the competition for the first time this year and brought home medals as well. This is how we will keep the spirit of muzzleloading alive for more generations of shooters, Pass on what you know to your kids and grand kids and take them out shooting.

 

[jamesthomas]

My older brother got me hooked on it. He's made 4 rifles one of which is my rifle. I talked to him the other day and he might have a flintlock pistol ready for me in time for hunting season. I've been shooting black powder only (sold my .243) for the past 6 years. Though back in 83 to 85 me and my brother had .54 renagades, used 120 grns of pyrodex with a 230 R.E.A.L.. kicked like a mule. Traded the Renagade and a M1 carbine for a Ruger Blackhawk .357 which I still have. Wish I had the Renagade back :redface: You can tell I'm a J.J. fan by my signature.

 

[robtattoo]

It seemed to me like a step up from hunting with a traditional bow, while remaining traditional in spirit.

I've never been a fan of modern bows & the only deer I've ever shot with a modern, scoped rifle left me feeling like I'd committed a murder.

Hunting with a roundball rifle just felt like a longer range version of hunting with my longbow.

Oddly, I bowhunt right through both our bow & muzzleloader seasons & don't usually pick up my rifle until open gun season. I love the looks I get from folks when I meet them at a WMA parking lot & unpack a 42" barreled gun!

 

[50cal.cliff]

I have always thought they were cool since the days of ole, Daniel Boone.

However I never got into it much till much later in life!! I had a friend who I worked with that got me interested in Bow Hunting. He used to talk about his days of BP hunting and it sounded like so much fun I wanted to try it.

The real kicker was around here unless you are a member of a hunting club, public land such as the Forestry land had become the only alternative to hunt on.

I had hunted Forestry land for years and the deer especially early in the season and late in the season seemed to migrate to areas that were reserved for bird hunting only!

Now here is the catch during early muzzle loading and late muzzle loading you are allowed to hunt these area's. I realized the deer weren't stupid and they used these areas to escape hunting pressure as well as just human contact!

I located a good trail and put a stand on it. One cool morning about the third day, something catches my eye coming through the woods, shortly after day break.
It is a pronghorn buck, no its two, no it turned out to be six bucks all moving through the woods together. The one in the middle a big six point, all the rest either pronghorn's or better.

Well of course they were all legal by local standards but I was going to take the six point. I set the set trigger and beaded in on him with the borrowed 50 cal. TC and when I touched her off and the smoke cleared.

To my amazement they were all still milling on the trail ( I didn't realize but early in the season before they have been shot at they seem to take the report of a BP gun as lighting/thunder) but the six point's front knee were bent.

Ah ha, I thought; he is going down right on the spot! No he stands upright and they look around and then began to slowly walk off. I couldn't believe I had missed!
I tryed to reload as quickly and as quietly as possible and as I recap the ole gal and I look back up. Only to see,............. the last one's butt walking down the trail away from me. No shot on any of them!:shake:

Once I bought my own muzzle loader I vowed to redeem myself. I learned all about muzzle loaders and BP and now know why I missed that day!

But I have never looked back. I enjoy shooting BP even more these days because NOW I know what to do so I don't miss anymore. I take the muzzle loader more often to the range than any other gun I own! I have bought another since the first and am now thinking of starting my first from scratch rifle this winter!

 

[Dave Marsh]

I honestly don't know what prompted me to switch to a flintlock as my real love is bowhunting. I was a Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone fan when a kid however my dad did not allow firearms. My first gun was a lever action Marlin 30-30 that I bought when I was about 24. Shot centerfires when deer hunting since then.

About 8 years ago a friend talked me into getting a TC Hawken caplock. We did not know what we were doing and it just wasn't fun. Then he had a stroke and I had no one to shoot with. Another friend said get rid of that thing and get an in-line. Tried that but to me that is a single shot modern rifle.

Then 3 years ago I was in the local gun store and standing in the corner was a TC Renegade flintlock that was a dirty mess. I asked the guy what he wanted for it. Got it for $75. Took it home and after about 3 hours of cleaning she came out unbelievably in good condition. I read up on flintlocks, practiced a lot and that was it for me.

Now I have a custom 62 cal NE fowler, the renegade with a 62 rifled GM barrel and a smoothbore GM barrel for it. I am awaiting (hopefully 2 more months) a custom 58 cal southern mountain rifle.

Unfortunately I am on my own as not a single one of my friends will have anything to do with any type of gun but centerfires and in-lines. I am hooked on flintlocks and actually enjoy being the only one. We have 450 acres that we own / lease so plenty of room for me and my addiction. :thumbsup:

Dave

 

[roundball]

I am hooked on flintlocks and actually enjoy being the only one. We have 450 acres that we own / lease so plenty of room for me and my addiction.

I prefer hunting alone, particularly with a Flintlock...seems to be the way I imagine a settler stepping off by them self to get something for the table

 

[stormcrow]

My interest was born out of the Fennimore Cooper books and the local connection with Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. The catalyst however was the ML hunting season (pre-inline) and reading the book by Sam Fadala. I know he has a lot of detractors in the veteran community, but for a young greenhorn who knew noone else in it and zilch about ML personally, it gave me the information and the confidence to get started. There were no internet resources at that time and, Fadala's book is still around so longevity must say something for his work.

 

[ihuntsnook]

My first longrifle was a plastic model of a Kentucky rifle. Fess Parker, Davy Crockett and Walt Disney started me down this road. Still have my first custom built longrifle from Ray Mitchell built in 1979 and still hunt with it.

 

[Dave Marsh]

I prefer hunting alone, particularly with a Flintlock...seems to be the way I imagine a settler stepping off by them self to get something for the table[/quote]

I agree and as hunting with a flintlock is more like bowhunting to me alone is better. Also, around here a lot of guys don't sit but drive the deer which I do not care for so alone is better again. :thumbsup:

 

[nchawkeye]

Settlers and Indians drove deer and other game as well, many accounts of hunts that way...

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I had a buddy who wanted me to try CW reenactment..., he was in an artillery unit, Dement's Battery, Maryland Light Artillery, CSA. Well we found we could get muskets mail order, and did so.

It wasn't until 1992 that I made the switch to flintlock, after seeing LOTM and found out a couple of coworkers used them. That's a long story...

LD

 

[D Sanders]

What first sparked your interest in muzzleloading firearms?

Mine was a keen interest in early American history, the Daniel Boone series and my dad getting me my first ML when I was 10 years old.

HH 60