Good for you kid. 
Where do you draw the line?
- Thread starter French Colonial
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I play by the rules where I shoot and hunt, however, lines in the sand can be funny things and cause unintended consequences.
Got invited to ‘blackpowder’ hunting club (primary rules, actually written down, were essentially blackpowder only, no modern guns, Civil War or earlier guns only) and decided to bring my original Smith Carbine. While putting the Smith in it’s case at the end of the first day, the Grand Poobah of the group noticed the break open action and had a meltdown. I was breaking one of the club’s cardinal rules with my breech loading ‘modern’ gun on my very first hunt there. The gentleman who had brought me as his guest made the comment that I had the only original pre 1865 gun in camp, as everyone else had TCs, Lymans or CVAs. Didn’t matter, because everyone knew it was a ‘muzzleloader’ only club..... Buddy and I packed up our stuff and left. Got invited back a couple of times after the ‘misunderstanding’, but didn’t go. Group lost their lease a year two later when they could not attract enough like minded high drama members to keep things affordable. They had a nice piece of hunting land.
Got invited to ‘blackpowder’ hunting club (primary rules, actually written down, were essentially blackpowder only, no modern guns, Civil War or earlier guns only) and decided to bring my original Smith Carbine. While putting the Smith in it’s case at the end of the first day, the Grand Poobah of the group noticed the break open action and had a meltdown. I was breaking one of the club’s cardinal rules with my breech loading ‘modern’ gun on my very first hunt there. The gentleman who had brought me as his guest made the comment that I had the only original pre 1865 gun in camp, as everyone else had TCs, Lymans or CVAs. Didn’t matter, because everyone knew it was a ‘muzzleloader’ only club..... Buddy and I packed up our stuff and left. Got invited back a couple of times after the ‘misunderstanding’, but didn’t go. Group lost their lease a year two later when they could not attract enough like minded high drama members to keep things affordable. They had a nice piece of hunting land.
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doubleset
50 Cal.
I'm not going to flag this with a "like" because there's nothing much to like in it. It's just mostly sad. But it's a good illustration of how a narrow and controlling ideology can do itself more damage than anything else can -- usually in the name of some sort of "purity".
But yet if some things are not nipped in the bud then others take advantage then your idea is turned to crap. We need some rules, those who don't like it can whin elsewhere or start their on shoot or club.
I try to be as HC as I can. Even going to the range I often dress out. When I trek no one’s around and I have an emergency kit. First aid and bic lighter, and water pills. However I try to stick to the rules. My rules, but rules to be hc
This weekend I’m going to fort charters. I expect my kit to pass inspection, down to the food in my market wallet.
I will not take my reed steamed pipes, as I don’t THINK they were in use.
But
I’ll have more cooking equipment then a traveler would carry, I’ll have a candle lantern, braizer and a folding officers chair. And I have a canvas pallet to sleep on. Inside and sewed in is a foam backpacker sleepinmat. My old back can’t take plain ground and I’m getting too sore to sit on the ground for a whole event
I’ll have a first aid kit with me
My outfit. Well I have too much cotton and my handsewn is enough to get an eight year old girls hand slapped for being sloppy back in the day. I’ll have glasses on. Right style but not often seen except on the well to do’s faces.
All my blankets will be wool, but out of step with the time
None of us can go back in time to give a real impression.
that doesn’t stop me from trying.
This weekend I’m going to fort charters. I expect my kit to pass inspection, down to the food in my market wallet.
I will not take my reed steamed pipes, as I don’t THINK they were in use.
But
I’ll have more cooking equipment then a traveler would carry, I’ll have a candle lantern, braizer and a folding officers chair. And I have a canvas pallet to sleep on. Inside and sewed in is a foam backpacker sleepinmat. My old back can’t take plain ground and I’m getting too sore to sit on the ground for a whole event
I’ll have a first aid kit with me
My outfit. Well I have too much cotton and my handsewn is enough to get an eight year old girls hand slapped for being sloppy back in the day. I’ll have glasses on. Right style but not often seen except on the well to do’s faces.
All my blankets will be wool, but out of step with the time
None of us can go back in time to give a real impression.
that doesn’t stop me from trying.
Rock Home Isle
54 Cal.
I’m pretty much a live and let live person. Someone wants to shoot in-lines, so be it and decorate themselves with plastic doo-dads, so be it.
I come here because this is a traditional site, people here think in a way that I understand and appreciate. We may bicker amongst ourselves, but we do tend to stick together. When the bickering starts, I like popcorn…
I’m not an in-line fan. My muzzleloaders are traditional-ish…my CVA, Thompson Center. Pedersoli firearms…are my traditional-ish guns. The rest or my muzzleloaders are handmade, and solidly historical.
Plastic stocks are a huge turn-off…fiber optic sites, there’s a couple guys in the club that have started using them. I don’t fault them, couple years from now I may be there with ‘em…eyes are getting a bit worse each year.
I’ll have scopes on my modern guns, they’re out of place on muzzleloaders. I remember back in the day when Toby Bridges started putting scopes on his side lock muzzleloaders…gomer.
My ramrods are all wooden, and one of my range rods is steel…
I got into this hobby/sport because of a deep appreciation for our collective history. Our ancestors lived such hard and interesting lives…what they saw and experienced was tremendous.
Rock Home Isle
54 Cal.
Lia Thomas is a transgender, that is competing in womens swimming, beating everyone and setting new records. As a male, he was ranked around 462-ish…as a woman…ranked numeral uno. So yeah…fun date.
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Stykbow
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I don’t worry about HC/PC. Likewise, I don’t give a rats tail what anyone else is shooting. I went back to traditional ML’s to add some challenge back to deer hunting. I definitely don’t look like an old time mountain man when I’m hunting, but I’m having a heck of a good time.
user 49399
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This is my squirrel and turkey gun.
Blacksmoke
32 Cal
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yes
yes
yes
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plus.....I couldn't care less what others think is best for them. none my business. But even more importantly is that what anyone else thinks of what I accept or ascribe to is even less important. In every hobby......from cars to guns to guitars to horseback riding there is always that certain "elitist snob" group that is critical of others for something that they consider below their hallowed perfect purist ideology. sometimes it's so overwhelming that the common folk just move on to another site with more moderation and less drama. I like all kinds of muzzleloaders and would never think to call anyones passion or hobby "junk". But of course "one man's junk is another man's treasure". Best advice I can pass on is you do you, let them do them.
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
plus.....I couldn't care less what others think is best for them. none my business. But even more importantly is that what anyone else thinks of what I accept or ascribe to is even less important. In every hobby......from cars to guns to guitars to horseback riding there is always that certain "elitist snob" group that is critical of others for something that they consider below their hallowed perfect purist ideology. sometimes it's so overwhelming that the common folk just move on to another site with more moderation and less drama. I like all kinds of muzzleloaders and would never think to call anyones passion or hobby "junk". But of course "one man's junk is another man's treasure". Best advice I can pass on is you do you, let them do them.
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I think we're all doing it our own way and that's cool. The common theme is we're passionate about black powder and our traditional muzzleloaders! 
Perhaps we are the most historically correct when we say "I'm doing it my way and not concerned with what anybody else says..."
doubleset
50 Cal.
I wish. But there seems to be a committed and zealous minority that hankers for a degree of regimentation that goes beyond the original motivation for this site and the forum rules.I think we're all doing it our own way and that's cool. The common theme is we're passionate about black powder and our traditional muzzleloaders!
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I can understand the enthusiast clubs and events where you are judged on your gear in a sort of competition to be historically correct. But that one story posted about the feller who got booted from a hunting club lease for carrying a rifle they thought was too modern but was really old?? Sounds kind of like a shooting version of a nerdy Star Wars convention that take themselves a little too seriously. 
Thomas.bill92
40 Cal
I use a delrin rod because I don't have any retailers around me where I can hand select a nice hickory rod and I am tired of getting crappy ones on the internet. I also have a synthetic stock flintlock (boo hiss I know) I don't really like it either but hindsight is 20/20 and I was young and it was cheap when I got it. I don't do any historical shoots and I don't really care what the squirrels at my backwoods range have to say about my ramrod.
I'm a traditional muzzleloader shooter because I got into it many years ago trying to see if I could get my ancestor's rifle to shoot. Nope, so I built my own so I could maybe see what our forerunners dealt with both in hunting and in shooting matches. I still do the same. I don't care what the modern muzzleloaders shoot as long as they don't try to force themselves into our traditional matches. That's what they did with our traditional hunting. They found a way subvert the idea of traditional hunting to take advantage of the rules so they could get in more hunting with their long range sabot shooting scope sighted plastic stocked "muzzleloaders" using bolt action Remingtons and huge charges of smokeless powder. That's why I really don't like modern muzzleloaders.
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doubleset
50 Cal.
Yeah, they don't get a vote here either -- but they're really fat from all the birdseed they pilfer from the ground under my wife's bird feeders.
Well said, thank you.
Subvert or pervert the idea, all the same.
doubleset
50 Cal.
They're not likely to, are they? I'd guess they're in it entirely for more hunting opportunity -- and not match shooting.
I'm not sure you should blame the modern muzzleloaders and their owners/users for this. I'd be more inclined to point a finger at state wildlife departments (with some finger-pointing left over, of course, for the manufacturers). Think of all the extra license fees that states get from the increase in hunting during "muzzle loading season" because of allowing the modern guns to be used. And of course that sells the guns as well. Some of the seasons are for "black powder" (or some weird twist on that), and so allow things like breach loading pellet-propelled guns. Follow the money.The Crisco Kid said:
But the same has happened (and earlier) in archery as well. Relatively few people hunt with a recurve or longbow variant now, compared to compounds (or crossbows). And almost no one hunts bare bow. When I returned to archery a few years ago, I discovered that I'd moved from the "traditional" category into the "primitive" category. Now primitive -- that does make you feel old.
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