What is it that pulls us into muzzle loading!

[RiverRat]

The time and commitment it takes to learn how to shoot ml’s. Things can be done differently to suit your own way. Making most of the items necessary to shoot a ml. The feeling of accomplishment when successfuly downing a game animal or shooting out the center of a target. And yes, the people who love, shoot and build ml’s are the best!

 

[deerstalkert]

I have always loved reloading. I started that addiction when I was 9 or 10 and soon found that i got the same satisfaction from muzzleloading. each shot is like it's own reload, but with infinite variables.
each shot is a reload with out the casing.
add the meditative way we shoot and there is almost a spiritual feeling.
personally, i love anything that goes bang. I have a friend that dropped off a Winchester 70 super grade pre 64 375 h&h for me to evaluate. he bought that whatzit 30 cal flinter i cobbled together and now wants a big brother built in 54 or 58. he may get his wish and i may have a new to me Winchester. does that make me a less of a muzzleloader addict? naw. just a bang stick addict.

 

[Eterry]

Dad owned a 22, a 410, a 12ga and a pistol. I could hunt with all but the pistol. I owned a pellet gun, and used his 22 daily for on the ranch he leased. I was 12.
Grew up watching Fess Parker with his rifle, and lived the country cowboy life.

In 8th grade shop class the teacher asked who wanted to build a muzzleloading rifle in class? I'd never shot one, but I needed one.
I came home and begged, pleaded, bargained and everything but cried to talk Dad into it. He thought a 50 cal was too much for a 14 yo, so he bought me a CVA Kentucky rifle 45 kit for Christmas. I WAS ON TOP OF THE WORLD!! Only one person on the bus owned a rifle, a 6.5 Jap. The betting started soon over who could shoot the best group.

I brought it home, on the bus, fully assembled. Dad bought me one box of .440 RB, then got me a mold. I shot it daily, at everything I saw. Took it hunting, took it scouting, it rode across my saddle many times (on broke livestock).

One day Dad came racing home, "Grab your rifle and gear, there's a group of muzzleloaders at the creek." I met about 10 guys shooting on their land, all with muzzleloaders. Was a great group of guys, most are long gone, but I still see a couple 44 years later. We became good friends.

College stopped muzzleloading in the 90s, then i worked nights most my career.
But the first gun I OWNED was a muzzleloader, my first big game was taken with one. The smell of powder smoke never leaves me.

The Muzzleloading community is very friendly. I've seen guys show up to watch a match, loaned everything to compete, and outplace the one who loaned the equipment

I hunt with both modern arms and muzzleloaders. Texas has such liberal game laws and limits you can use both.
I really enjoy using iron sights to take game. So many friends had never taken ANY game with irons, much less large game. I didn't own a scoped rifle until I was 29.

 

[Buff1958]

For me it is just to make hunting more challenging and they are pretty. For over 50 years I was able to hunt all over the world with some beautiful Black Widow recurves. Old age caught up with me and I just can’t hunt with a recurve and compounds don’t do anything for me. A flintlock built on a pretty wood stock is about as close as I can get to hunting the way I always have.

 

[SciAggie]

I have an unmentionable with a muffler on the barrel. With it I can hit small things far away. But it’s cold and sterile - simply a device with a purpose.

On the other hand I love my muzzleloaders because they are beautiful. I love the warmth of real wood and rust blued/browned steel. They force me to be a true marksman and hunter. I enjoy the connection to the past. I love the slower pace and the accoutrements.

I won’t lie, I get a kick out of showing my non-ML hunting friends just how accurate and reliable these guns can be. I have also found them to be equal if non superior in their ability to kill game animals within the limits of their effective range.

 

[Frontstuffer070]

I have an unmentionable with a muffler on the barrel. With it I can hit small things far away. But it’s cold and sterile - simply a device with a purpose.

On the other hand I love my muzzleloaders because they are beautiful. I love the warmth of real wood and rust blued/browned steel. They force me to be a true marksman and hunter. I enjoy the connection to the past. I love the slower pace and the accoutrements.

I won’t lie, I get a kick out of showing my non-ML hunting friends just how accurate and reliable these guns can be. I have also found them to be equal if non superior in their ability to kill game animals within the limits of their effective range.

I agree with you. I have hunt deer all of my life, all the way back to a wee lad tagging along in the woods with my Father. But the first time I stuck a .50 caliber ball in a whitetail buck at 20 yards, I could see the impact send ripples down his side and he folded like a house of cards. I was in awe. They are most definitely game gitters. I get laughed at alot at deer camp and the Hunting club when I step out of my truck with my Kentucky. I hear things like " DANG Daniel Boone, save some deer for the rest of us" Wait till they get a look at the Woodsrunner this year, haha.

 

[Paul Kenney]

A friend once asked me "why do you shoot BP? A modern gun is easier." I told him that I shoot BP because it's harder. I enjoy the challenge. I like the tinkering and research required.

Nostalgia and love of history play a part but it is the challenge that draws me.

I have shot deer at over 300 yards with a modern rifle. It's too easy. I get much more enjoyment from shooting one at 30 yards with my trade gun. Plus BP people are the nicest shooters out there.

Ironhand

Amen! I also enjoy the connection with history and with the development of firearms. You can handcraft every shot. I have, or had, everything from a cannon to a 1911 .45 and in between.

 

[Cruzatte]

A friend once asked me "why do you shoot BP? A modern gun is easier." I told him that I shoot BP because it's harder. I enjoy the challenge. I like the tinkering and research required.

Nostalgia and love of history play a part but it is the challenge that draws me.



Ironhand

Well said, well said indeed.

 

[Banjoman]

What pulls us into muzzleloading? You mean there’s some other kind of shooting?!

 

[waarp8nt]

I have always loved reloading. I started that addiction when I was 9 or 10 and soon found that i got the same satisfaction from muzzleloading. each shot is like it's own reload, but with infinite variables.
each shot is a reload with out the casing.
add the meditative way we shoot and there is almost a spiritual feeling.

I love reloading too. Very well spoken!

 

[Dale Lilly]

There's a little old man inside me. He jumps up and down constantly while screaming "Let me out, I'm Jed Smith." I can't ignore him. Polecat

 

[gunpa]

When we moved from Montana to Idaho 35 years ago I found about these special muzzleloader elk hunts . I bought books and a 54 New Englander and I was hooked. I reload and have lots of other new fangled guns but 4 of them are smoke poles and that's all I seem to get excited about!

 

[Pratt]

Well lets just say that it is an art form. One has to think of the original folks and their dependance on that one shot. Oh I qualified expert all three years with an M14. Iam proud of that. I would like to try those 100 meter targets with my SMR.

 

[[email protected]]

Got my first rifle shortly after seeing Jeremiah Johnson, a T/C Hawken .50 cal of course, and been messing around with BP ever since though not to the exclusion of modern firearms.
Every so often the interest kicks into high gear, like right now!

 

[Coinneach]

Nostalgia.

Doing things the old way. The additional challenge of hunting with a traditional type muzzleloader. Anyone can be even a halfway successful hunter with a modern firearm. However, it simply takes better hunter skills, better marksmanship, more discipline, and more patience to be successful with a muzzleloader. This is especially true for squirrel hunting. There’s simply something unique about using a patched round ball to shoot game. The unique smell of the cloud of smoke from black powder, the unique report of the rifle. Basically, doing things in the same basic fashion as they did over 200 yard ago. Best way I can describe it is, you just have to experience it to fully understand it.

Also, I like the old things. Steam locomotives, old cars from the 30’s, radial engine biplanes, antique furniture, coal oil lanterns, old knives, and especially old muzzle loader rifles. Yes, even the replicas.

Yes sir, we're brothers from different mothers.
Everything you listed is exactly where I am even as a small boy.

 

[Iceman]

I shoot BP because it's harder. I enjoy the challenge. I like the tinkering and research required.

it is the challenge that draws me.


Ironhand

Dittos

 

[Coinneach]

Raised by old people in Texas. When sonic booms and moon shots were invented I was already set in my ways.

I realised that many of our ML fraternity have much the same characteristic in that they were already influenced by the old ways as children, I certainly was.
The Toy shops and Candy stores were a long drive away from where we lived, my grandparents raised me in a wonderful old farm environment; my delights were daily and unpaid for. My grandads huge ol shed was full of old things well preserved, Saddles, Harness; all manner of Tools, and old Steam driven pump that still worked, and old forge that was still used and much more. Everything was valued and repaired when necessary, nothing was wasted.
Old Guns with character hooked me and I learned from old guys who me taught safe handling and accuracy, their cameraderie was infectious and lasting; and I still experience it to this day among the ML folk here down under.

Without seeming to repeat anything I've read on this thread, I also enjoy the tinkering element of BP ML's, that leads to making a kit ML or building one. In this insane era I believe that ML enables us all a rewarding and therapeutic past time that's truly rewarding particularly in retirement.

Are some of us genetically a little different to others who spurn and reject the well trialed and validated old ways ?
I've come to believe so, strangely enough my adult son and daughter; and now 10 year old grandson have the same preferences, Although they have to live and work in the real world, their escape and therapy is Primitive camping and ML activities; and I thank God for it.

 

[stephenprops1]

A friend once asked me "why do you shoot BP? A modern gun is easier." I told him that I shoot BP because it's harder. I enjoy the challenge. I like the tinkering and research required.

Nostalgia and love of history play a part but it is the challenge that draws me.

I have shot deer at over 300 yards with a modern rifle. It's too easy. I get much more enjoyment from shooting one at 30 yards with my trade gun. Plus BP people are the nicest shooters out there.

Ironhand

It is the historical concept that drew me to black powder. When I was about 7 years old, I saw a fellow shooting an original muzzleloader. I was intrigued. I knew what the gun was (I had seen both movies and tv shows about Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone). But I knew very little about them at that time.

 

[Henry Miles]

I saw my first ML up close around 10yrs old when I popped a cap on a man's rifle that he was showing my dad. My next encounter was a TC Renegade kit for sale for $110 in 1980. Put it together, shot it and fell in love with the simple pleasure of powder and ball down the barrel. Have killed most of my many deer harvests with ML rifles.

 

[Secesh]

As for me, best I can recollect it began with watching Daniel Boone when I was a kid growing up in Alabama but what really brought it to life was sitting there on the front porch of my great uncle’s house and listening to the stories of the old folks coming all the way to Mississippi from Virginia in a wagon to make that “New Start”.

I wanted to be able to experience some part of what they experienced.