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Snakebite

45 Cal.
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Just received my NMLRA membership renewal and am a little conflicted this time. I've had some issues with the talk about inlines being permitted. I know the thought of getting more members and all that, but just can't get away from the traditional aspects of shooting traditional muzzleloaders. The author of the hunting articles stated he didn't care about traditional muzzleloaders that he only wanted to be able to hunt more. Really put a burr under my saddle. And the last issue showed modern cartridge rifles in the article. ACK!!

I know it's only $40, but I'm just afraid they are getting away from what's important. I wrote a letter to the editor a while back expressing my views and that if they were going to allow inlines they should change their mission statement. Part of my letter was deleted too.

I might give it one more year, still thinking about it. Back in the 1990s I cancelled my membership after over 20 years for the same reason but then it seemed like they backed off, rejoined a few years back but seems like they are heading back in that direction.

Don't really know why I'm putting this out here, just kind of wondering if anyone else has a thought or comment, pro or con. Like I said, I know the reason is to build the membership, I understand that, but just seems like we're giving up something special to build the membership. Oh well.
:2
Snakebite
 
I let my membership lapse last year . . . I too am conflicted . . . I want to support NMLRA . . . I am not mad at them, I do plan on re-joining.

In fact, I would be OK with separate inline shooting events within the NMLRA . . . but what gets under my skin as a hunter is that under the name of muzzleloading we have opened up seasons to 21st century technology that is a whole lot closer to my Remington 700 deer rifle in .270 than it is my .62 smoothbore flintlock.

After years of hunting with centerfire and rimfire, I hunt now with BP for reasons that the inline hunters do not really embrace by virtue of their equipment . . . (if that makes sense).

I am not saying that taking a deer or bear or squirrel is not a respectful thing or not a difficult thing with a modern rifle, but when Muzzleblasts seems to have nothing but inline pics in their hunting section. . . It makes me pause, when the rest of the magazine is devoted to cap & ball, history and traditional rifles or pistols.

I know not everyone agrees with this, but the one thing that I believe can save and revive our sport is to only allow traditional muzzle loaders in a ML season. (I hunt in the MO firearms season with my Lyman GPR . . and I am sure there are guys who may only have an inline who hunt during the firearms season that way along with guys using a Winchester 94 30-30 ) . . . but I think a ML season should be either only traditional or there should be a traditional season in every state, even if it is just a weekend. That would revive our sport and the traditional ML firearms line.
 
I have a question for anyone to answer, is it the xyz..lines or the fact they seem to be ignoring traditional muzzles loaders in there shooting programs?
I have be involved with the NMLRA for almost 30 years and I have been a Field Rep for about 15, I to am conflicted. I can shoot in any most any match that is offered Friendship, Phoenix, or Territorial, but it seems to me that there are not very many matches for T/C, Lyman, or a nice custom guns without fancy sights. Do we just feel neglected?

Michael
 
I've been shooting sidelock muzzleloaders, both cap and flint since the 1970's. I've only been a member of the NMLRA for the last 3 years. After I joined I learned about the huge "issue" of inline muzzleloaders. Shooting casually all those years it never occurred to me that those rifles were such a big deal to some people. Prior to making my first trip to Friendship after hearing all the controversy about inlines...I was expecting to find that I was going to have to compete against hi-tech scoped inlines with the totally "old school" primitive flintlock I'm shooting these days.
IMAGINE my surprise when I found that wasn't the case, and in fact I could choose matches to compete with others using the same equipment I chose, while any inline competitors got to shoot theirs against others so equipped.
Hmmmmm....Soooo...what's the big deal..???
It's the National MUZZLELOADING Rifle Association. The inlines I saw loaded from the muzzle. They had their own matches. I never saw one of them on the primitive line.
I don't understand the angst.
A few years ago, I was told I would not be allowed to shoot my FLINTLOCK "hawken-style" rifle in the Florida state ML shoot because it has (GASP...!!!!) an adjustable rear sight...!!! Oh, the humanity..!!
I asked about taping over the adjustment screw, or otherwise sealing it from adjusting while competing and was told it wasn't welcome anywhere in competition on the grounds. Apparently that rear sight violated the sensibilities of the purists in the club that was putting on the shoot. OK...their club, their rules so I stay away. THAT certainly accomplishes a lot to grow our sport, dontcha think..??
 
I also was a member dropped out a few years ago as to the reasons you mentioned. It is just like most other things the mainstay follows the money. I bet if you did a survey there are way more stainless steel muzzle loader hunters than the purists. And so goes the cash flow for the organization, apparently it is like anything else times are a changing and so are the capitalist. It will not matter in the long run give the right folks the power one way or the other and we will all be back to hunting with sticks and rocks.
 
Well Don, putting the sarcasm aside in your post, my "angst" with inlines is the same as it is in this forum, something called traditional.

I read in the NMLRA's mission statement "The National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association exists to promote, support, nurture, and preserve NMLRA’s and our nation’s rich historical heritage in the sport of muzzleloading through recreational, educational, historical, and cultural venues such as match competition, hunting, gun making and safety, historical re-enactments, exhibits, museums, libraries, and other related programs" the "historical heritage". That means a lot to me and IMO inlines just don't fit in. That's just my though and everyone is certainly entitled to their own thought and feelings. Anyone can justify having inlines in that mission statement just as I can justify not having them. It just seems to me the "spirit" of the statement and the spirit of the NMLRA is traditional muzzleloaders. Maybe I'm wrong but those are my feelings.

I feel for you that you were not allowed to shoot because you had an adjustable sight, but if it's a primitive or e.g. pre-1840 type shoot, that's on them. I see it both ways.

Anyway, I'll probably join for one more year and see how it goes. I'll just skip over any articles that mention inlines.
 
Over the past few years our (NMLRA) numbers have dwindled while a whole lot of people have bought in-lines. Since for the most part the in-liners could have joined NMLRA and didn't I wonder what good it does to invite them. I don't see the in-liners at conservation club ranges or at impromptu ranges in the woods. However, we need the NMLRA even if we don't always agree with their positions. graybeard
 
My point exactly, I think more people stay away from club shoots and woods walks and such, because of rear sight rules and attitudes about them than because of inlines.

Michael
 
Our charter club has very open match rules - inlines ok to compete alongside traditional, just no glass sights or scopes. We have had very few inline long guns compete - one guy has an inline muzzleloading Glock type pistol. But that is about it. Everything else has been sidelock. We do have inline people sight-in for deer season with us sometimes. But they might be 3-4 shooters per year. My experience is that the inline-only shooters are not a distraction, but are not very active in the charter club compared to traditional shooters. A couple guys own both traditional and inlines, but they mostly shoot traditional sidelocks, albeit with aperture rear peep sights.
 
I just want to clarify my post with some different emphasis of what I said.

1) I have no problem with inline shooters . . . and would welcome them to Friendship or any other ML range.

2) I have no problem with inline shooters joining the NMLRA and would very much encourage it. (Though I personally find them much less fun, and more punishing, to shoot than my flintlock. . .yet much easier to master - one pellet or two? a shotgun primer, a saboted pistol bullet, and there you go with your Bushnell scope. .)

3) I have no problem with inline hunters.

Where I have a concern is # 3 and mixing inline with traditional hunters in a muzzleloading season. The decline of traditional ML's came with the advent of inline's for hunting. . and it caused manufacturers to discard or downsize the traditional lines.

Becky Waterman the past President of the NMLRA told me she has people come through Friendship and look at traditional ML's and say "those are pretty but I could never hunt with one" . . . and they go back home and hunt a deer in the ML season with what is much much more like my Remington 700 than my Lancaster Flintlock. This, in my view, totally misses the point, the challenge, the history and the beauty of hunting with a period muzzleloader. I think that mentality or reality has really hurt the overall ML sport across the board.

That's why I think one way to revive the sport at ranges and in the field is to make ML big game seasons ONLY for traditional ML's . . . and let the inline hunters hunt in the firearms season with the weekend warriors and their Wincher 94's or Slug guns. That may sound harsh, and I don't really mean it to be, but that's my suggestion.
 
Like when the biologists come up with the brilliant plan to introduce a foreign species into our local lands to combat X, this species always wipes out the indigenous ones.

Let the inlines have their own magazine and clubs, keep ours pure. They are a lazy man's muzzleloader.
 
It would be nice to think that if inline shooters came to our clubs that they would become interested in traditional rifles, but that doesn't seem to be happening . . . and if most shoot inlines just to hunt big game, why would they ?
 
Mac, I was relieved to find that New Mexico has a subcategory of muzzleloading hunts restricted to "traditional" rifles and smoothbores. I don't believe anyone can truthfully disagree that a man hunting with an open-sighted flintlock or percussion rifle shooting a patched round ball or conical is at a considerable ballistic disadvantage compared to one shooting a scoped inline loaded with pellets and a saboted, jacketed, polymer-tipped bullet. It's the need to "get close and shoot straight" dictated by the more primitive arm that is the "reason for the season."
 
Well said ! That's part of the mystique of the traditional ML rifle in hunting.
 
Mac1967 said:
It would be nice to think that if inline shooters came to our clubs that they would become interested in traditional rifles, but that doesn't seem to be happening . . . and if most shoot inlines just to hunt big game, why would they ?

I reckon that they already know about the clubs and the traditional rifles but have no interest in them. As they admit, the sole purpose is to extend their hunting season and they desire a weapon as close to a modern rifle as possible.
 
Well put Bill.
The "explosion" (play on words intended..!! :grin: ) in offerings of inline muzzleloading rifles and all the do-dads that go along with them is the result of entrepreneurs in private enterprise taking advantage of poorly written hunting regulations.
You gotta wonder how many of those new-fangled plastic stock, scoped, plastic sabot shooting, shotgun primed firearms would be on the market today if the regulations for the special "Muzzleloader season" many of us enjoy had been more carefully written to allow only traditional sidelock firearms shooting only patched roundballs.
Of course....you also have to wonder if a state tried to be that restrictive, would there be any "special muzzleloader season" at all in many states ?? Some possibly...but I doubt we would have the opportunities in most states we have now.
Didn't Pennsylvania have to cave in on their "Flintlock only" rules..?? I don't know...I'm asking. Seems like I heard that somewhere...too much pressure from people who wanted access to the state's game population found that rule to be too restrictive.
I see this is gettin pretty far off the topic of NMLRA renewal. I apologize and won't be offended if Administration edits my post. :hatsoff:
 
Our club sponsors black powder woods walks. Most of the shooters use traditional sidelocks with open sights. We have had some shooters with scoped inlines come to our shoots, but they usually do poorly because our shoots require the use of patched round balls only. Most in-lines do not shoot a PRB very well due to the fast twist barrels. Besides, most of the in-line shooters come with the guns they use for deer hunting, and they don't sight them in for PRB, so their scopes are way off. Even when shooting on the range against the scoped in-line shooters using their sabot jacketed bullet loads versus us traditional shooters using PRB we usually beat the pants off them at most ranges up to 100 yards. Most of the in-line shooters can't shoot off hand worth a darn, and the recoil from their hunting loads has them flinching so bad that some cannot hit the paper at 100 yards. You should hear the cursing when they see how well the traditional guns perform.
 
To all:

As you all know, we don't discuss modern in-line guns, sabots, bullets with plastic in/on them here on the forum.

As this topic is about all of these things, I am closing it.
 
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