June Fir,Fish,Game - Bridgers trashed traditional & PRB

[roundball]

June edition of Fur, Fish, and Game...Bridgers article puts down traditional and the PRB...recommends the modern techno crap as nausem...this is my letter to the magazine just now:
==============================================
The June issue of Fur, Fish & Game carries an article about muzzleloading which essentially portrays traditional forms of hunting with the patched round ball in a traditional style muzzleloader as an ineffective projectile for taking game. Instead, you recommend the latest and greatest modern high tech, high performance, long range, scope sighted, technological wonder-rifles using sealed weather proof ignitions, modern jacketed bullets, modern powder, modern primers for ignition, boasting centerfire ballistics and 200 yard shots.

The facts are that muzzleloading seasons were originally established by and for dedicated traditional muzzleloading enthusiasts who wanted to preserve a part of our American heritage...and a major way to do that was through special muzzleloading seasons that would continue to attract and encourage hunters to learn and master the ways of our forefathers muzzleloading equipment and hunting skills, and in so doing help keep the tradition alive.

And remember that powerful, scope sighted centerfire rifles were specifically excluded from these traditional muzzleloading seasons for obvious reasons. The equipment now being recommended by your magazine flies in the face of that tradition, and logic.

It is particularly disturbing to see that Fur, Fish & Game has lost sight of that special part of our heritage and now endorses the latest and greatest modern high tech, high performance, long range, scope sighted, technological wonder-rifles using sealed weather proof ignitions, modern jacketed bullets, modern powder, modern primers for ignition, boasting centerfire ballistics and 200 yard shots.

These high tech rifles are only referred to as "muzzleloaders" simply because they happen to load through the muzzle....all other forms of association to what is traditionally meant by the term "muzzleloading" are non-existent.

IMO, it is also disingenuous for a magazine to consider itself as being grounded in time honored traditional values of hunting, fishing, and trapping...yet endorse and publish muzzleloading articles such as this one in the June issue.

If new people are now running Fur, Fish, and Game and they simply don't know any better, I suggest they pause and reflect on the fact that the "patched round ball" has been completely effective in Flintlocks, later caplocks, across all the centuries since it was invented, right to the present and still going strong.

A .50cal lead ball through a deer's "boiler room" at 100 yards is still 100% as lethal today as it was 400 years ago...nothing has changed that.
I and many hunting acquaintances, do all our deer hunting with patched round balls.
I and they fill multiple deer tags that way every year at a variety of distances, most of which are beyond your articles suggested distance limitation.
Most of my deer have been taken with .45 & .50 caliber patched round balls in caplocks and Flintlocks.

Furthermore, I have never lost a deer using a patched round ball and resent the implications by your magazine that they are an inferior and ineffective projectile.

I cannot in good conscience renew a subscription to a magazine that endorses and promotes the kind of muzzleloading article you ran this month, which puts down a time honored, proven, effective form of early American traditional muzzleloading hunting equipment.

Sincerely,