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tnlonghunter

40 Cal.
Joined
Aug 10, 2005
Messages
783
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514
Location
Maryland
I was recently asked what about muzzleloaders appeals to me. I replied that there are lots of reasons, including the history, etc. One of the biggest reasons is the warmth and gracefulness of well shaped wood; the way the lines reach out and embrace the hardware. So, think about what rifles you cherish most. What about them grabs you?
 
I would have to say it's the science/art.

Like any other intricate and precise mechanism, there is not only correct form, but also an intrinsic understanding of the device.

Sometimes it's not enough to align the flint perfectly, prime the pan correctly, etc. There is an art or feel to this instrument.

It is learning this system and intuition that I like best.


That and lots of booms and smoke!!! :grin: :grin:

Legion
 
:v for me personaly I grew up watching Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone visa vie Fess Parker on T V so I guess in this way I identified with the time period. Also over the years I have grown to enjoy the sound of a blackpowder gun.
And too each game animal that I have taken has been in muzzleloader range.I also like the balance and feel of certain muzzlaoding rifles over a modern gun. Allso since I don't believe in the spray and pray method of taking game a muzzloader fits my style of hunting.
 
tnlonghunter said:
I was recently asked what about muzzleloaders appeals to me. I replied that there are lots of reasons, including the history, etc. One of the biggest reasons is the warmth and gracefulness of well shaped wood; the way the lines reach out and embrace the hardware. So, think about what rifles you cherish most. What about them grabs you?

To learn / master the technology & challenges that faced the early settlers in being successful hunters...using Flintlocks, real black powder, real flints, patched round balls, etc
 
I like to collect poetry and I ran across a poem that hit a chord within me:

Long and smooth and brown and brass,
With lines and inlays flickering past.
A deadly keen harmonious mass,
Mutely speaks of glories past.

Barrel dark and lean and old,
With age and stories strongly told.
Blood and dust within each fold,
By master's hand created bold.

Wood of Maple dyed and stained,
Compassed 'bout with fancy grain.
With character supremely plain,
It's duty done, a princely reign.

Lock of beauty, gracefull curves,
Crafted cock of swirls and swerves.
Althrough the years it faithfully serves,
Fine tuned springs its steely nerves.

Long and smooth and brown and brass,
With lines and inlays flickering past.
A deadly keen, harmonious mass,
My strongest link to glories past.
 
I grew up with Davy Crockett and Danial Boone and always had a mild intrest. I had hunted and competed with smokeless arms quite a bit and enjoyed it. I was losing satisfaction with hitting an animal at +300 yards.

When I graduated college, my grandmother got me a CVA Colonial pistol kit. That was 1976 and there was a lot of intrest in all things historical. I then started picking up rifles and pistols and then graduating to building my own.

Hunting took on a new dimension when you have to slide up to within 70-100 yards to make a clean kill. It got fun again.

Putting five shots into an inch or an inch and a half offhand with a flintlock is much more satisfying than throwing hole on hole with a scoped .22. The skill level required to do that is higher.

As far as just general ethetics go, the muzzleloaders have that hands down. Those guns just have a soul that modern arms do not. They look and feel different from modern arms. Each one feels different and has its own personality. That's probably why I never got into inlines. They have the same cookie cutter feel that modern rifles do.
 
Some very good comments and poetry about the beauty of historical firearms have been posted. There's a mystique to muzzleoading that's hard to quantify. Shooting blackpowder, well, it's an "experience". It involves all the senses. The flash, boom, and smoke, an almost magical link to the past. One senses a kinship with our forefathers when handling, shooting and hunting with muzzleloaders.
 
I have always liked history, especially the F&I war period. I guess using my trade gun, and dressing in the clothes of the time just helps me feel a bit more connected to that era.
 
My reason to get involved was centred around increasing the challenge for turkey hunting, which I LOVE. Once I saw a friend shoot a bird with his Brown Bess, I was so intrigued by it I just had to go to BP. Just the click/hiss/boom sound and big cloud of smoke was really exciting. Once I held a BP fiream of my own and fired it, I was instantly drawn in by the feeling that I was reliving history in some way. Now that I'm the proud owner of a flint smoothbore myself, I love how such a long gun can be so graceful. Wearing my shooting bag and carrying that gun allows me to slip away from reality in some magical way and feel like I am really in the past. I guess I have always harbored an interest in hoistory, and touching that gun/smelling the smoke really "sparked" something in me (pun intended).

Now, if I could just find a way to dress PC for my hunting trips, without my friends seeing me and having me committed... :rotf:
 
Legion said:
Good prose--- Who from, if I might inquire? Legion

The author never identified himself but simply signed the work "Smokey".

Actually, I thought it looked familiar and I went searching through some of the publications that I am unable to throw away. (Much to the consternation of my wife)

I have every issue of the BUCKSKIN REPORT and BLACKPOWDER REPORT published by John Baird. In the BUCKSKIN REPORT there were a number of poems written by "Smokey". There is nothing to identify him there either.

One note that I did pick up is attached to one of his poems by Baird. It had to do with the death of a lone trapper out on the plains. Baird said he read it to an NMLRA assemblage.

I was one of the original members of NAPR (now defunct) and I can tell you that NAPR and AMM were a pretty dedicated lot back then. Authenticity was the goal but the rot that sets in from commercial sales at rendezvous drove many of us out.

However, the point is that many men made their own rifles (for the sake of authenticity), used them to hunt with (with no 'back-up' firearm), practically lived the lifestyle and honored their creations with more than names. As many of the dedicated buckskinners here know, the attachment to a particular rifle cannot be put into words that others can understand.
 
History, the smell, the ability to hand make accessories, the slower pace (yes, I can shoot my 1911 as slow as my percusion guns, but it is difficult).

And the friends I have who love to shoot muzzleloaders.
 
tnlonghunter said:
I was recently asked what about muzzleloaders appeals to me. I replied that there are lots of reasons, including the history, etc. One of the biggest reasons is the warmth and gracefulness of well shaped wood; the way the lines reach out and embrace the hardware. So, think about what rifles you cherish most. What about them grabs you?

Besides the aesthetics of warm wood and the beauty and fit of a fine rifle, it's the thought of the days when you could ride without running into fences or lawyers.(NO offense intended) When you could run buffalo and roam free with no one to tell you when or how to do. I guess the freedoms that the old rifles represent is what draws me.
 
For me it is the idea of making my own load, putting it in the barrel, one component at a time, ramming it home, and successfully igniting what I have loaded. I like the idea of being able to alter my powder charges, using different powders, projectiles, lubes, patches, wads, etc. For ignition, #11 caps, musket caps, or flints? It's up to me! Also, and this is big, when hunting, making that first shot count, being really sure I'm going to hit where I need to. These are the reasons I'm into muzzleloading in a big way.
 
It's the ability to create a different muzzleloader every time I make one....it's being different, espeacially when i shoot one in amongst a crowd with modern guns.....it's the satisfaction in knowing that I have that one shot....it's the different avenues of study,ie: horn making, pouches, leather work, knowing how to knap a flint.


It's all these things for me....plus I get to meet really interesting people who are caught up in the stuff. I have found, all in all, that 99% of these people are good honest folk. Who can beat that?
 
I think that over the years it has been the connection with history and the chance to feel a bit of what our ancectors did on a daily basis, and this begat a deeper interest in the history(correct version) after finding so much myth being taken as fact and now it is this cyber continuation of the latter that has started to cause a dwindling of interest.
 
The public land I hunt you see so few deer I figured I may as well be usin a flintlock if I ain't goin to see anything anyway. Might as well make it more sport'n and I been carryin my flintlock since XMAS and ain't seen nothin. Got one more day of the season..might just go barehanded tomorrow...at least then I'll probably see a big buck.
 
How to explain such deep feelings? The graceful lines of a southern mountain rifle compared to an AR-15 or AK-47? Getting up early morning after a night of swapping tales and friendship, the different aromas from the woodfires and others starting breakfast. The sulfer cloud drifting from the front of your rifle and another candle "snuffed" out by an accurate shot. Somehow a steak just tastes different when cooked over a bed of coals. The different colors and somewhat mystic shifting or those colors and shapes in a campfire.
 
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