Please don't shoot me

[Carbon 6]

I'll voice my opinion one more time before this topic gets locked.
I view scopes the same way I view muzzleloaders.
If they are of modern design, they belong on a modern muzzleloader not a traditional one. Traditional scopes are fine on traditional rifles.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

I am fine with a modern scope on a traditional muzzleloader. It allows easy buck or doe identification and allows the older to see what they are shooting at.

However I try to follow the rules of where I am.

 

[Carbon 6]

I am fine with a modern scope on a traditional muzzleloader. It allows easy buck or doe identification and allows the older to see what they are shooting at.

I am frightened by the prospect of a hunter that cannot see well enough to identify a deer at muzzleloader ranges. What's worse is they use that same scope to identify me, which means their crosshairs are on me.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I am frightened by the prospect of a hunter that cannot see well enough to identify a deer at muzzleloader ranges. What's worse is they use that same scope to identify me, which means their crosshairs are on me.

Agreed but what Mr. Blackburn was commenting on was confirming if the deer he saw had antlers or not, not what is that shape moving out there.

Believe it or not, about 40 years ago I saw some idiot in the woods during deer season with a rack tied to his head. I have always hoped he was the newby to that particular hunt club and had lost a bet, or that he died peaceful death at an old age without having had offspring.

LD

 

[Loyalist Dave]

The first documented telescopic rifle sight was invented between 1835 and 1840

NOPE
The first successful telescopic sight was developed between 1835 and 1840.

The earliest invention of the telescopic rifle sight that I know of was 1776, by Charles Wilson Peale who was also a famous artist. It had cross hairs and adjustments, but it didn't work because at the time they didn't have a way of installing enough parallax to allow the scope enough distance from the man's eye to prevent it from injuring the shooter during recoil.

CHARLES WILLSON PEALE’S “RIFFLE WITH A TELLESCOPE TO IT”

LD

 

[Grenadier1758]

I look at a modern telescopic sight on a muzzle loader in the same way I look at modern peep sights on a traditional muzzle loader. If it allows someone to successfully use his muzzle loader in a non historical shooting or hunting setting, then such use is acceptable.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

Agreed but what Mr. Blackburn was commenting on was confirming if the deer he saw had antlers or not, not what is that shape moving out there.

Believe it or not, about 40 years ago I saw some idiot in the woods during deer season with a rack tied to his head. I have always hoped he was the newby to that particular hunt club and had lost a bet, or that he died peaceful death at an old age without having had offspring.

LD

Thank you. I sometimes wonder how much sleep members of this forum get the night before replying.

There have been deer I passed up firing on because I could not discern antlers. All of my hunting has been done with open sights. There was one time that I thought the deer had antlers but I couldn't be sure. I had a clear shot, across a field, rifle rested on my knee while I was sitting down. The backdrop was all branches which look a lot like antlers. I held my fire. The deer ambled off over the hill and I heard a shot that seemed very close.

After that I said "I'm getting a scope" but that never happened.

The one time I took a scoped rifle into the woods (scouting) I fell and broke the scope. The 7 pointer I took the next day was with open sights.

 

[Carbon 6]

Agreed but what Mr. Blackburn was commenting on was confirming if the deer he saw had antlers or not, not what is that shape moving out there.

Believe it or not, about 40 years ago I saw some idiot in the woods during deer season with a rack tied to his head. I have always hoped he was the newby to that particular hunt club and had lost a bet, or that he died peaceful death at an old age without having had offspring.

LD

Historically speaking, it would have been more likely to have seen someone using a spyglass or monocular .

 

[tenngun]

My left eye is 20/200 very nearsighted. My right has normal vision, 20/25 now.
I can ID a deer at past ml range. But.... I couldn’t aim a rifle well at any range past twentyfive yards.
Glasses or contacts may all have some problems. I do well with glasses but contacts I had a hard time aligning my sights.

 

[Grenadier1758]

One final entry for this topic can be found here in Winslow Homer's Civil War paintings.

Here is his painting of a Union Sniper in a atree.

 

[Carbon 6]

One final entry for this topic can be found here in Winslow Homer's Civil War paintings.

Here is his painting of a Union Sniper in a atree.

View attachment 50697

Traditional rifle and traditional scope, representative of the very end of the muzzleloading era.