Traditional...Becoming the past?

[Gil Martin]

I went to the local Wal-Mart today to partake of their advertised "muzzleloading items sale". After roaming around the sporting goods area a few times, I flagged down a store employee. I asked for directions to the muzzleloading supplies, especially patches for round ball. He walked me over to an area that I had passed a few times. There were five (5) ,count them, pegs for muzzleloading stuff. All that remained were a few small packages of T/C nipples, a bushing pin and a jag for a ramrod. Last time I waste my efforts there. All the best...
Gil

[rattus58]

Traditional Rifles ARE a thing of the past. Many of the inlines and such are a thing of the present and someday they too will become a thing of the past.

From my perspective, the muzzleloader one chooses to hunt with is a personal choice. I hunt with every one of my muzzleloaders, whether musketoon, zoave, Big Bore, New Englander, White Mountain Carbine, Hawken , volunteer, UFA 50 stainless, Super 91 ..451 Stainless, Super91 .410 Blue(teflon), Elite 98 .504 Stainless, T-Bolt .451 Stainless, T-Bolt .410 Stainless -Teflon, T-bolt .451 STainless-Teflon . None have scopes. None shoots sabots. All shoot cast lead with homemade lubes. The only thing commercial about he loads is the powder, the percussion, and the wad I shoot.

The argument about muzzleloading today not being muzzleloading smacks of two things to me. One is intolerance for progress of OTHERS. Remember, NO ONE makes you SHOOT AN INLINE. You can shoot whatever you want to in the forest.

Two. People shoot what they are exposed to. So WHOSE FAULT IS THAT?







This is how we expose kids to muzzleloading. What do you do? Who exposes the walmar types to other choices? Do you? I am a traditionalist straight through, but I sure do get tired of hearing of how the season was made to be something it was not or whatever... It is what it is. WE CHOOSE to be who we want to be in the forest.

400 yard shots? Don't be rediculous, these long shots have been made since the day guns were borne. I know a bonafide 600 yard elk stoppage with a .451 double rifle with a Lyman cast bullet on top of 100 grains of 2F black Powder. This was in my mind a most unethical shot.. but a lucky one and dropped the animal. A purist behind the trigger. So please, lets not blame the gun. My volunteer is easily a 300 yard gun. Its a natural 200 yard gun as it sits, in fact. The Zoave ... or indeed, ANY of the rifled muskets are 150 to 200 yard guns if one took the time to practice these shots. But for me, I like to see how close I can get to game. Can I get to 35 yards? That is my game. Have I taken long shots... yes. Have I ever lost game to a long shot? Yes. That is why I don't take them anymore. Wounding the game is NOT WORTH THE SHOT. That loss made me sick to my stomach and I looked for that doe for the rest of the day and tore up my tag... after all, I had drawn blood.

There is a gentleman here who says he USED to get upset with the inline crowd but doesn't anymore because her recognizes that we are part of the same community. AMEN to that. If you get to know more people who are shooting inlines, get to know them and shoot and hunt along side them with YOUR CAP LOCKS AND ROCK LOCKS. Expose them.

Whoever said it is easier shooting an inline over a caplock of ANY kind or cleaning one, has NOT SHOT AN INLINE very much. The older the gun the easier it is to load and to care for, in my opinion based upon practice and observation. Shooting a big lead conical is clearly easier to tune than is shooting sabots and pellets. But they have to be exposed.

We are all in the same encampment. We don't need to be divided. We need to be tolerant and willing to invest into our sports.

Much Aloha,

[quigleysharps4570]

Nice pics Rattus.

[rattus58]

Hi QuigleySharps ..

Thanks... its fun working with kids, the rewards are manifold. Some day I'll get them into black powder cartridge guns too.. won't that be a blast ... but I gotta git me one first...

Aloha..

[quigleysharps4570]

Yessir...the lessons you are teaching them, they'll never forget. Or you either for that matter. Bet they'd really get a kick out of those cartidge guns. It's also like stepping back in time behind one of them too. Guess us blackpowder fans are some of the luckiest folks in the world huh?

[rattus58]

Hi Quigley...

One thing I have been able to benefit by are the kids themselves. Kids love shooting, whether a slingshot, a bow, a muzzleloader, a 22 ... you name it, they are drawn to the sport in any form.

The fact that black powder is a hands on sport, makes it more fun for them. We have had kids stay to shoot all day with the muzzleloaders, just as they would with a 22. They hit a can with a muzzleloader, and sometimes they get a huge eruption of dirt and grass along with it ... and they just love it.

One thing we like to do with the kids, is to have them go on an "easter bullet" hunt ... that is, look for the spent bullet in the ground after thay shoot. We use maybe 30 grains of powder with the real young kids and so the bullets don't get very deformed when shot into the ground, nor when it goes through the target and usually if you send them out to about 50 or 60 yards looking for spend lead, they will come back with a handful of them. Great fun for all actually.

Aloha..

[MaIIIa]

I've been interested in your many comments on this thread since it started about a month ago; I guess it's about time to make my input.

Last August I helped out at the NRA's Youth Hunter Education Challenge (YHEC) muzzleloader event. It was my first time at this and I was quite surprised to see that almost all of the YHEC teams used inlines. I could count on one hand and have fingers left over the teams that used caplocks and I don't recall any using flintlocks. It is sad (at least to me) that whoever makes the decision about what teams shoot opt for the inlines. I suppose shooting the inlines gives teams an edge in the competition and, boy, are some of those teams super competitive - too much so, in my opinion.

It is true that, as Rattus58 says, "People shoot what they are exposed to. So WHOSE FAULT IS THAT?" So these young shooters who compete at YHEC are being exposed to inlines, not traditional muzzleloaders. Good or bad - that is opinion; in my opinion, it is unfortunate. Perhaps YHEC needs two ML events, one for inlines and one for tradionals.

As for exposing new shooters and what am I doing? I am ML instructor for NYS Becoming an Outdoor Women course and have the women shoot both flintlock and percussion rifles. I also am the organizer for our local Women on Target day and the women there shoot flintlock and percussion. I bring along an inline to give them a "complete" exposure to muzzleloading but in my experience, they look at the inline, then opt for the traditionals when time to shoot. One woman's comment sort of sums it up - "That inline looks just like the .22 rifles we were shooting; why bother?" The women I have taught really like the process of loading and shooting the traditional ML's and enjoy the historical aspect of them. They are intrigued by hang fires and flashes in the pan and all the other good stuft that just don't happen with inlines!

I've done some ML instruction with kids and they are really are turned on by the historical rifles "like Davy Crokett used". I haven't ever had them look for spent lead but I have had them search the ground for spent patches. We look at the burn patterns, then they take them home for souveniers - you would think they had found gold. Yes, we need to do more with the kids to expose them to the traditional guns! That's were we can get the next generation of traditional black powder shooters.

MaIIIa

[rattus58]

Hi MaIIIa ...

I have to completely agree with you that it really is a shame that we go about this backwards sometimes. I really do appreciate that you introduce new shooters to flintlocks and caplocks. Round here, though, no-one knows of Davey Crockett ...

I love old black powder guns, even though I sell the best of the inlines (my opinion anyway). I prefer to take kids shooting with a caplock over an inline for a host of reasons, not the least of which is the visual effect of the sidelock.

An introduction to muzzleloading is fostered sometimes by giving people a taste of the old days. Short stories of hunting or battle with the flintlock or caplock that you can pass out or pictures of period correct dress and caplocks and flintlocks as you talk about muzzleloading goes a long way in conjuring up the "proper" mindset.

Companies like Thompson Center are big in donating rifles to Hunter Education programs. They like to push their current products, but, you can ask for caplocks or flintlocks too.

As for accuracy when competing, this is really moot in the long run, but important in the short run. It takes the proper gun to be accurate. Long barreled guns are very very accurate and show up extremely well against the inline. This is with 40 caliber to 58 caliber (my exposure). The longer the barrel the better the shooter.

Big bullets or small, do extremely well out to maybe even 100 yards, but will out shoot many, if not all, inlines even to 50 yards. This I have seen too often to not give proper credit to the old time ball slingers.

You are to be congratulated for being involved. Heck if each of us on these threads would just get involved, we would do a great service to our sport.

Much Aloha,

Tom

[Adam Helmer]

rattus58 & MaIIIa,

Good chat about the smokepoles we know and love. I help out each August for Tioga County Youth Field Day and work the BP site. We run through about 150 kids ages 8 to 16 in groups of 30. We shoot .50 caliber ball at balloons on a target frame about 30 yards away. We had flintlocks one year, caplocks the next year and Black Diamond inlines last year. I noticed greater kid interest in the flinters and caplocks compared to the black synthetic stock on the inline.

I helped on the BP site at my local gun club last September when we had about 50 women come to the station where we had all three arms mentioned above. Lots of women never shot any firearm although their husbands owned and shot muzzleloaders. I found that people wary about guns in general were intrigued by old guns. The geometry of the flintlock was a popular discussion item.

Rattus makes a good point about relating some history of the arms during the shooting session. I tell the shooters that "this is like the guns of the Revolution" or "this is type of arm used by the old Mountain Men." Finally, I agree that we all need to share our expertise and powder and ball with new shooters, both young and old.

Adam

[rattus58]

Hi Adam .... Aint it fun though to teach someone about muzzleloading. You mentioned people being fearful of a gun. I have found tht if you go through the steps of teaching people how to measure, pour, load, prime/cap and shoot, that they lose their fear of guns and have a jolly good time of it...

Aloha..