When and Why did you get started?

bought a TC .50 Hawken kit in the mid-late 70's when I was around 25. Killed my first buck with it that year. I grew up watching Daniel Boon & Davy Crockett and Swamp Fox on TV. Always thought I was born 150 yrs too late. I am 58

ravenousfishing said:

A recent thread got me thinking but I wanted to wait until it ran its course to post this. How long ago and at what age did you get into shooting Traditional Black Powder firearms and why?

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I was 12, 1973, can't remember now but someone gave me a much used 1858 Remington, I want to say was made by EMF, can't remember but the trigger (looked like cast white metal) broke after a Cylinders worth of shots and just left me wanting more.

In 1977 I had saved up enough to buy a Ruger Old Army and I was off and running. :thumbsup:

ravenousfishing said:

A recent thread got me thinking but I wanted to wait until it ran its course to post this. How long ago and at what age did you get into shooting Traditional Black Powder firearms and why?

Click to expand...

1. Three years ago (have over 30 years behind a gun)
2. Age 39
3. Why? Started out Purely as another option for hunting ( I REALLY like to hunt) and ML season offered a better draw opportunity then centerfire. Fortunately I found this forum and have learned to love the muzzleloader for what it is. (I sold that original inline bought for hunting and ended up with 7 caplocks due to the "education" and mentoring recieved here) I still love to hunt and anxiously await the opportunity to take to the field BUT I also love to shoot and am at the range as often as possible with powder and ball. I am learning to like to build; I have a couple "kits" under my belt and a Pecetonica fullstock Hawken on order. I guess that my old love affair with Jim Bridgers and Dannial Boone is being rekindled.

Six months ago and I initially got involved because I'd been away from shooting for some time and decided to get back into it. Canadian law allows one to buy and use flintlock long guns with no interference. This allowed me to avoid the lengthy and PITA licencing procedure.

Then I discovered I could even import flinters from the USA. Americans are very fortunate in the ease and selection in guns and ownership.

I bought a used Lyman Deerstalker from Gunworks in Oregon, superb people to do business with, and got started. Now I'm hooked and think all other forms of shooting are a little boring in comparison.

When i was a tyke, I'd trail along with my Dad and uncles into the farm auctions of eastern Berks county PA. Back in the early 1950's they could buy a long rifle for $20.00 and shoot it that afternoon. Then within months, there was the Mickey Mouse Club, with the adventures of Davy Crocket and everybody in the country was signing along with the theme song. At 5, I got a Davey Crockett toy gun set for Christmas, a pouch, Pop gun, fuzzy hat and fake powder horn. I was in heaven. (Still have the hat)

There were lots of Disney Movies involving muzzleloaders and 1600 &1700 era stories. Zorro, Johnny Tremain, Treasure Island, Kidnapped. Fess Parker found his way to the small screen again as Daniel Boone. In 1965 I was hunting with Dad and he made a special trip to meet a buddy of his at a restauraunt for lunch. The buddy was out deer hunting with a Flintlock, he just made. We walked out into the woods behind the business and shot the gun a few times. I was hooked. Just knew I had to have one. My last year of college, 1972, the muzzleloading boom had just started and I got a CVA flintlock Pistol kit. Dad and his buddy made me take my time and taught me tricks to make it even better than factory finished. Soon afterward, there was another CVA kit, then a Hawken, a long rifle, another pistol, a cap and ball, then another and anoth....

ravenousfishing said:

A recent thread got me thinking but I wanted to wait until it ran its course to post this. How long ago and at what age did you get into shooting Traditional Black Powder firearms and why?

Click to expand...

Circa 1965, I have 1966 Muzzleblasts Magazines.
Reading Zane Grey's "Spirit of the Border", "Betty Zane" and "The Last Trail" AND a Ted Trueblood article in the old "TRUE" magazine in which he shot a deer with an original 38 caliber ML rifle.

Dan

Scare Crow, Daniel Boone, Swamp Rat, etc were all big influences at a young age plus my father was an avid shooter and started us shooting guns as soon as we were old enough to hold them. BUT, I did not start into BLACK POWDER until a couple of years ago! Wow. I am hooked.

Good question. I always was enthused about various types of shooting and firearms, as my collection of modern stuff progressed, I started getting more into variety and seemed to gain more interest in older style guns, and finally bought a Lyman flintlock. I shot it some, but didn't know a whole lot about shooting them. My dad was shooting some of the shoots out his way, and around 05 or so we went to one of them during a visit out there. That pretty much got me hooked. During that trip he also took me out to see Pecatonica River shop. I always had a bit of a bug to want to build my own gun, so I ended up getting Lehigh parts from him. It took me a couple years to finally get it finished, mainly because I didn't have a decent place to work on it. So I ended up building a work shop out back, and finally got that done in 07.. I started shooting it, and getting the hang of it. Well, then I started to think about the shop I put together and the tools I bought for doing this project, and decided "well, I allready spent a bunch on this, so why not build another one :surrender: ) So now It is pretty much all I shoot, (I shot my centerfire stuff once last year) and I am just about finished with build#6 :grin:, and I am going to my first chunk gun match in two weeks :hatsoff:

bkovire said:

always wanted one, when i was about 11, my step dad and his dad took me out on their trail rides, down past draper ut, on horse back they would carry colt walkers, and i would be backing, what looked like to me as i recall this massive hand cannon, it was a colt walker as well, well to make a long story short, one got sold, the other two got put into the coffin with the owner of them, so years later, in the week i joined this forum, i got my own cap and ball smokers, if i new how much fun they are to shoot i would have had them long ago. :thumbsup:

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Uhhh, those things ARE massive hand cannons.

I always wanted to hunt and shoot but did not have much opportunity to do so while growing up. After the Marines I got married and bought a place in PA where I could hunt and shoot right out the back door and bought a .50 flint T/C Renegade to hunt PA's late ML deer season. That was 1986 and I was 25. I went through a couple different rifles and got my first "custom" in '94. I own and shoot and hunt with modern guns too, but lately I am shooting more and more back powder and patched round balls. I have two flintlocks and two percussion rifles and have a 20 bore flint on order--my first ML smoothbore :shake: For some reason my wife still puts up with me :idunno:

After years of shooting regular rifles I found myself getting bored drilling pie plates at 800yds. I was looking for something else when I seem to split into two different directions. Muzzleloaders and Specialty Handguns. For many years I would bounce between the two and after a while I just accepted that if I shoot a cartrige gun it's a handgun and if I shoot a rifle it's a ML. Granted my handguns still reach out to 800yds and smack pie plates, but it takes a bit more to do it

my dad when i was 6 or 7 i think, he would let me shoot his flintlock with pipsqueak charges, it didn't go off every time but just enough to get me hooked for life.

I got started in the early 80s with a Petersoli plains rifle.
I just liked the "coolness" of the gun. It wasent untill later that i became interested in the historical aspects and then later still that it became a hobby and way of life.
Now Its ALL i do. I need a life :shocked2:

Did a little BP shotgunning when I was a kid. Back in 1960 Navy
Arms started inporting C&B revolviers for the Civil War Centenal

I got one of the first Rem C&B's serial # was under 100 wish I still had that one.

Built my first Flintlock Rifle from A Dixie kit in 1963.

I'm not sure of the exact year [maybe one of the other NC guys remembers], but sometime in the early to mid 70's NC initiated an early muzzleloader deer season. I think it was 3 days for the first year or two and later became a full week. My Dad and I were HUNTERS and he bought a .50 TC Hawken percussion. Being a young married guy with two small boys, I could only buy a slightly used CVA .45 Kentucky. After Dad put the SMACKDOWN on a buck with a maxiball, I sold the CVA and bought my own Hawken. A little later a .36 Seneca was added for targets and squirrels. All three rifles always shot very well with both prb's and maxiballs. All three are low serial #'s and look and shoot like new. The owners manual for my Hawken is at my son's house [apparently he has permanantly borrowed that rifle] but the one for the Seneca is dated Dec.1, 1976. That was when TC would still sell breech-plug wrenches and I have one in both sizes. Initially we hunted with maxiballs, but after tiring of the recoil, I switched to prb's and never looked back. Dad is gone now, but he, my son, and I have killed several deer with these rifles and they hold a lot of special memories. These days I mostly use a custom .50 flintlock and I recently got my new 20 guage fowler that I intend to use for deer, squirrels, and rabbits. I shot it for the first time last week and it patterned #6 shot very well at 25 yds. Also, a patched .595 rb shows a lot of promise over 80grs. 3f. More tests to come. Todd Carpenter in Lincolnton, NC built this fowler and I couldn't be happier with it! Anyways, that's how and when I got started.

ravenousfishing said:

A recent thread got me thinking but I wanted to wait until it ran its course to post this. How long ago and at what age did you get into shooting Traditional Black Powder firearms and why?

Click to expand...

Watching Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett in the 60's when I was a wee lad plus getting interested in Civil War history in grade school sparked the interest. I was at the Mountain State Arts & Crafts Fair in WV in July of 1973 and 14 years old when I handled and shot my first ML, a mule ear. I also helped load and fire some coehorn mortars that day and met a real interesting bunch of fellers. Shortly thereafter, I joined that club and still belong to it. I also bought my first ML which was a cheap (not to me at the time) $69.00 Zouave rifle and got started in re-enacting.Getting into that hobby changed my life greatly because that's how I met my wife and we'll celebrate 25 years this October. So, black powder has had a very large bearing on my life.

In the 60's I watched Fess Parker. I had one of those toy longrifles made in Parris, TN but broke it throwing it at a bumble bee. My Dad got me a CVA colonial pistol kit in'72 when I was 13. Didn't get serious about it until 1982 when I bought a T/C Renegade 54 cal kit to deer hunt after moving to Illinois from Wisconsin. Progessed from there buying an 1860 Colt Army replica. Then started building, with a flintlock pistol('86), flintlock rifle('89) and flintlock fowler ('99). Now I mostly hunt and shoot, though I'd like

Although I had been fascinated with muzzleloaders because of TV Westerns, I never had a chance to actually shoot one until I was in college. A couple of friends took me out to shoot at a few cans, etc.

When I graduated, got a job and moved, I sought out a muzzleloading club. I didn't have a rifle but the landlord allowed me to use his Dixie .40 cal. rifle. I eventually purchased it. That was in 1975.

I still have the Dixie rifle even though I do not use it and I have continued to be a member of the muzzleloading club.

TexiKan

My interest has always been based on hunting and exploring different technologies that were available for hunting...and as the years added up and I got better at it I expanded hunting with different bolt/lever/pump/auto action rifles, then shotguns, then handguns, then a .50cal MK85 in '89...after 2 seasons of that and realizing it was about like using a Remington .30-06, I saw a guy with a T/C Hawken and got one in '91.

That was it...the whole challenge of hunting was totally rekindled and I started going backwards in technology using caplocks in different rifle calibers & smoothbore gauges for several years, then replaced them all with Flintlocks and shooting/hunting with traditional styled Flintlocks has become a complete year round hobby for the past 10 years now...hunting goals have been to try and hunt/take many of the kinds of game with a Flintlock that a typical settler might have done...so far, that's been deer, turkey, squirrel, dove, and crow...wouldn't trade taking a couple turkeys with a Flintlock for 100 with a Remington 1187 / .12ga.
:thumbsup: