What got you into muzzlleloading?

[Leatherbark]

I grew up watching Daniel Boone on TV back in the 60's. A soldier named Tony Shields just got back from Viet Nam and found an old "Honaker" rifle under a house here in WV. He gathered parts from Dixie Gun Works and stuff to shoot it. It was a 30 caliber IIRC. He let me shoot it when I was 14 and I was hooked. It was a capper gun. I finally got me a CVA Kentuck about 76 or so and have been frontstuffing since. Around 77 I was shooting a FIE Remington 58 and showed it to Shields and let him shoot it and then he had to have him one. I miss those days. I'd like to take that old (now) soldier to Friendship or a Rondy somewhere (The CVA is long gone but wish I still had it)


Bob

 

[tkyhuntr]

I got into muzzleloadingby my big brother. He was the one who got me my first frontstuffer.Once i shot it and smelled the smoke i was hooked. I at one had 3 (2-50 rifles and 50 pistol).Iam starting to get back into it. I have made everything from balls to patchs and everything in between. I hope i can find a good shooting 50 for deer season here in missouri.

 

[S.Kenton]

When I was 15 yrs old I overheard my father say He'd like to have a T/C Hawkens BP rifle. So I started looking for one to give him as a gift for Fathers Day( as it was the closest "gift giving" holiday). Turns out a good freind of mine had one that had never been fired..he sold it to me for 100$ and I gave it to my father. He and I shot it quite often..that's what started me out.

 

[lonehorseman]

Like all kids, who grew up in the late 60's and early 70's, I thought Fess Parker was the coolest guy ever. And I was from Kentucky, even though Daniel Boone's KY looked more like CAlifornia!

I built my first CVA KY Kit when I was 13, but without a mentor I soon drifted away.

3 years ago, a friend invited me to play guitar to entertain at his Annual Invitational Primitive Camp. I came early and watched all those guys in primitive clothing, shooting beautiful flintlock guns. I was transported back 40 years, and I was hooked. I really didn't know grown men were allowed to have this much fun! I bought a complete camp before I left. Within a week I owned my first flinter. (I now own 5) It is still as much fun now as it was 3 years ago, and as much fun as I imagined it would be 40 years ago.

 

[cgn71]

For me it was several things others have mentioned, the reruns of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone when I was a kid back in the 70s. By the time I was 10 and in the 5th grade I loved to read history and being in Georgia back then most history you found to read around here was Civil War related so I went that route for years.
I was fortunate to grow up and live 30 minutes from Bob Watts shop and closer to his house later on and got to go to the shop often, I bought muzzle loaders and supplies from him and the advice I got for free. When his daughter got into riding horses he came and bought a couple saddles, bridles and such from us so I was the one answering his question for a change.
I got a percussion CVA kentucky rifle at 13 then a Philadelphia Derringer kit not long after, then at 14 I got an 1860 army 44 and later that same year a 58 caliber Zouave rifle and since then it's been more than I can remember all the way up to this evening when I ordered a Pedersoli Brown Bess.

 

[crazybushman]

i started liking the old .22 single shot actions as they required less tools to make from scratch compared to ar 15s ect . so i started gathering all the jaco instructions which included 3 muzzleloaders . based off the horse pistol , kentucky rifle , and hawken rifle .i thought they would be too much work back then.
one day i stumbled across underhammer society and saw a cooper underhammer and thought that it would be a quick build and my first muzzle loader , it is .22 with a stainless barrel. my second was a traditional looking inline .22 , both cap and ball using .22 projectiles pulled from long rifle rounds and toy caps for ignition , they taught me alot about how the nipple is one of the most tempermental features on a muzzleloader and now i have the knowledge to make them reliable . i also make my own black powder for them

it shoots quite powerfully with the cap and ball mode , and just acceptably with a patched air rifle pellet

i use 10 grains of powder and the 40 grain .22 heads jammed down the barrel