What got you into muzzlleloading?

[mart]

I grew up on a dairy farm in the most northern region of New York, a fairly remote area and like a lot of other kids took up trapping and hunting. I never really got the muzzleloader bug though till later in life. I went through the modern rifle craze, trying every caliber and rifle I could and finally realized my interest lied in classic American rifles and shotguns. About the same time that I came to that realization I became friends with a gentleman would would become my mentor in many aspects including muzzleloading. He filled me with an fascination for flintlocks with his stories and the rifles he had built.

My first muzzleloader was a TC Renegade in 50 caliber, followed by a Lyman 50 cal deerstalker left hand and while I am still pining for a custom flintlock, both rifle and smoothbore, I do have a nice 32 caliber left hand flintlock and a put together Renegade percussion with a 62 caliber GM barrel rifled by Ed Rayle.

My interest in muzzleloaders is still young compared to my long time interest in classic American guns. High on my list is a TVM 62 caliber flintlock leftie rifle and after that might try my hand at building a 10 bore half stock fowler. I still love my centerfire rifles and shotguns but find my self drawn more and more to flintlocks.

Mart

 

[VEARL]

Everyone join in singing now...Davey...Davey Crockett, king of the wild frontier.
:hatsoff:

 

[cynthialee]

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee.....

 

[hanshi]

I'm originally from the High Florida mountains and I thought that's where Davey was from. :rotf:

 

[Lonegun1894]

Hanshi,
Are the High Florida Mountains the ones above the waterline and the Low ones, well, below it?

I'll save you the trouble... :slap:

 

[hanshi]

You got it! Fall off the high ones and you'll splash face first on the low ones. :nono:

 

[Cheyenne]

Mine was:

" Daniel Boone was a man.....yes a BIG MAN!"

We miss you Fess. :hatsoff:

 

[Cheyenne]

I'm originally from the High Florida mountains and I thought that's where Davey was from. :rotf:

Hanshi, I grew up in mid-Florida, Clay county, south of Jacksonville......good times as a kid in the hills of Florida! :rotf:

 

[hanshi]

When I was a chap those high mountains made it easy to mount a horse. Always a PITA having to drag that little step stool around. :v:

 

[tom deinek]

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!

Yeah, that. Robt. Reford movie movie about Liver eatin' Johnson.

 

[htredneck]

Started researching family history and found out I have a couple of 'characters' in the woodpile. G-G-Grandfather was big on the Mo-Kan border during the Border Wars and Civil War. Documented as being friends with Hickock and could out shoot him. I have the interview and article where Hickock stated that he was the only person alive he would be afraid of facing with a gun.

Also found out that way back when, one of my grandfathers was a mountain man involved with Lewis and Clark, the fur trade with Manuel Lisa and no telling what else. He mastered mule trains across the Sante Fe Trail. From what I have found out, he ran the 'western grounds' and Rockies until the 1830s.

Once I really started finding out about them, I was hooked!

 

[Dphar]

Zane Grey.
"Spirit of the Border"
"The Last Trail"
"Betty Zane"
He was Betty Zane's Great Grand Nephew.

Dan

 

[hoochiepapa]

You're gonna think I'm braggin', but it got too easy to kill an elk with a cf. So I got me a compound bow and practiced and practiced. But I never could kill an elk. So I tried bp. And I was hooked. Of course it was a percussion rifle, and I used pyrodex, but the old meanies on this forum got me converted, and now it's true black and flint.

 

[hanshi]

You can now go to Heaven. :thumbsup:

 

[Lonegun1894]

You can now go to Heaven. :thumbsup:

You mean it gets better than suuccessfully hunting with a flinter?

 

[rmark]

Jeramiah Johnson for me also. I bought a TC Hawken circa 1978, later shot military surplus, and now back to muzzleloaders.

Plus I promised my wife I wouldn't drag any more old cars home. The muzzleloaders look cheap in comparison.

 

[hanshi]

You can now go to Heaven. :thumbsup:

You mean it gets better than suuccessfully hunting with a flinter?

Well, no. But NOT shooting a flinter will get you a reservation at the other place :nono: .

 

[Rat Trapper]

My first muzzle loader was a in-line made my H&R back in the early 1970's. Gun was nothing but she--it! Never got it to shoot. After I retired, a Knight rep talked me into a Disc extreme 50 cal. Great shooting gun, and it got me reading and thinking about traditional rifles. Soon I had a pile of TC rifles. Today while I still have the Knight, it seldom gets shot. I like the history of the traditional rifles.

 

[Pacobillie]

Forgive me brothers but I have sinned. My first ML was an "unmentionable", and I still own it. I must even mention that before I got my first sidelock, I liked that gun a lot, as I did not know better. That said, a few years back, I bought a used .45 caliber TC Hawken caplock. I have been hooked ever since. I now own 3 percussion guns (.45, .50 and .54) and one .50 flintlock.
Sidelocks make you think about your shot and the variables affecting it. To succeed, you have to develop a load, and think about distance, bullet drop and wind drift.
Sad to say, but the unmentionables are essentially single shot centerfire rifles in disguise. Whoever invented them figured out a loophole in the hunting regs and came out with a solution that defeats the purpose of having a separate muzzleloader season.

 

[jbg]

It was Jeremiah Johnson that started me on BP guns. Like many of us my first was a TC Hawken. Winfred Blevin's book Give Your Heart To The Hawks, followed by Allan Eckert's books sealed the deal. It has been a life long love affair ever since.