What got you into muzzlleloading?

[Blake]

I cannot Remember why I love Muzzlleloading so much I think it is the whole Mountain Man lifestyle, I feel the same way about Bowhunting I shot a compound for a lot of years there just seem like something was missing so I switch to Traditional Bows and now I know what I was missing it's call Woodsmanship not gadgetry.

 

[Chowmif16]

For me, it was sitting in class at university next to a guy who told me all about muzzleloaders. I couldn't wait to finish school and start shooting (wasn't allowed to have guns at this particular institution.)
After graduation, I went to a gun store that I trusted and told the guy I wanted a muzzleloader and wanted to build it from a kit. He gave good advice and sold me a .54 T/C Hawken kit. I spent everyday for the next week building it. When it was done, it was the first muzzleloader I'd every held in my hands!
I went to the range on Saturday and followed the instructions in the book, practically shaking when I took the first shot. Can't stop now!
I had the fortune of meeting a BP custom gunsmith that day who passed on several good tips and invited me to a muzzleloader shoot the next day. Off I went, and did okay in the shoot, including splitting a playing card in half - lucky, lucky shot.
I've been hooked on everything BP since.

cheers,
Chowmi

 

[Strawstalker/NM]

I purchased my first BP rifle in 1975. I was a 50. cal, 18.5#, 38", hand made bench rifle. I bought it from a fellow who worked for me. He took me to a shoot up to fort Ti, upstate NY. - I am still hooked deep today. Strawstalker

 

[Bon Sauvage]

While Fess Parker was my personal hero it was the guys from the Hawaii Black Powder Shooters Association that got me hooked.

They were at the range most every Saturday and I could not believe the fun that they were having. I bought me a new TC Renegade in 50 caliber and joined them.

That was about 1984 or so.

 

[Denny/Oh]

I don't recall exactly what year it was maybe around 1959.

We used to rent a farm house just out of Farmers Retreat {just east of Friendship}. We used it for a base to hunt and fish and my uncle took us kids out of the "city" so we could not get in trouble.

We stopped there once {I think it was Labor Day}to see what was goin on. I was hooked. The smell, the smoke and the shootin is still in my memory.

Of course life got in the way for awhile but as soon as I could afford a cheap old .44 from spain I got goin again. It didn't last long before trading off.

I've built a few guns,repaired and modified many. I've really enjoyed hunting with muzzleloaders.

 

[8905c]

As a very young boy, I would go with my father to visit a friend of his. This was in the 1950's and I was very young the first I remember the muzzleloading rifles dad's friend had. All of his ml rifles were originals he picked up on his milk route. Dad's friend owned an old 1 ton truck, went around to farms in our rural Ohio area picking up their milk, taking it to the dairy. That is how he earned a living. Traveling to these farms at that time was a perfect setting to pick up old rifles and other antiques. Dad's friend was in the right place at the right time. I remember my dad saying his friend told him he gave between .50 cents to $2.00 dollars for the rifles.
He had many original rifles and they looked so long to me as a child. There were rifles hanging on the walls, in the corners, and in closets. Some had large brass patchboxes, which I thought were gold. My dad informed me they were brass, not gold.
In later years, someone broke into dad's friend's house and stole his old rifles. Those rifles always stuck in my mind. However, I was an adult before I got my first ml rifle - a T/C Hawken .45 kit. I still have that gun today.
I have other ml rifles that I shoot and enjoy, but I still have a lot of interest in old original ml rifles and will always remember the first originals I ever saw.
8905c

 

[eugenenine]

Around the late 80's or maybe 1990/1991 just before I graduated high school my grandfather gave me this old rifle with a hammer that didn't fit, cracked stock and something stuck in the barrel. I took it home and took it all apart and used Brasso to clean up the brass parts, cleaned and oiled all the rusty metal parts and was able to pull the ramrod from the barrel. I went off to college summer of 91 and in 95 got married and bought my first house and brought it home with me wrapped in a blanket. Always wanted to get it repaired and shootable again. So after last Christmas my son started wanting a BB gun (he's 6 now), seems some other boys at school had for Christmas. So we told him we would get him one at spring break if he did good in school. So as I'm in the gun store over spring break I asked them about muzzleloading and they said they didn't deal with any directly but knew a good gun smith who did so they could take it to him. A couple months later I have a nicely re-done and working muzzleloader and started buying supplies.

 

[cfmoviereplicas]

17 years ago I was given one as a birthday present for my 13th birthday. It was a way we could go hunting and beat modern gun hunts on federal land. I came to love it so much that I practically only hunt with a blackpowder even during modern gun hunts or sometimes I "may" use my wifes ted williams model 100 30-30 lever action.

 

[dbutch]

It was a deep interest in black powder guns...
17 yrs. old 1974...why did I listen to the guy behind the counter?.
First gun an H&R break-open 45 cal..POS!
Wasted my Gradutation money on it :cursing:Never did get it to shoot good.
It soured me.....Lost interest for 10 years..
Gun deer season was to easy with cf's
Built a T/C Renegade hunter kit in 54 cal.1982 Found out one shot works!
Shot factory guns until 3 months ago.
Hunt with bp for waterfowl,upland game and big game.
Lots of plinking in between.
Still able to use open sights but will migrate to front sight only smoothbore when the time comes.
The sky is the limit how deep you can dive into this Hobby.
This site and one other really answered a lot of the unknowns for me.
Thanks Claude! :thumbsup:
Also members here that have shared there experiences. :v

 

[rja72]

I was searching for a replacement for the shotgun my parents gave me to deer hunt with. I wanted to save it for one of my kids. I ended up buying a Cabela's Hawken and started hunting and target shooting with it.

Once i saw some of the beautiful guns people were shooting at matches and the guns on this forum, I was hooked.

I have a tennessee flintlock I am building now.

 

[hornetk4]

I'll have to admit the old Jeramia Johnson movie was the spark, that started me off with a TC Hawken in 50 cal as a kit at witch I quickly thru together so I could shoot it. Then I met an old guy in his late seventys he was a black powder shooter from when thats all anyone shot.He was sent home from the service after taking one of Hitlers torpedos in the boiler room of the submarine he was on. The blast burned off half of his fingers blowing out both ear drums, He still managed to build and shoot muzzle loaders and custom centerfires until this day. These days his pards push him around in an office chair so he can supervise others around the shop,as you can imagin a lot of guys want to hang with the old man on weekends. I hope to go see him soon before it's too late, i've been blessed to have known him since the early ninetys. I'll get off the soapbox now thanx all shoot safe an have fun.

 

[kopfjaeger]

Owned my first flintlock muzzleloader in the mid 1970's, it was a thompson center. In 1980 I joined the Army, after 8 years active duty and 4 more years in national guard modern weapons did not hold the same zeal with me anymore.

After getting out of the active Army in 1988 I got back into flintlock shooting, I love everything about 18th century small arms, I'm also a big fan of traditional archery.

 

[4given]

For me it was to get an early elk season before the woods are full of hunters and the game is spooked and wary. I am finding out it is a relaxing hobby 'because you can't be in a hurry to shoot them. It just takes time. Last weekend at the range my wife shot about 250 rounds of 22 lr through her Kimber 82G single shot target rifle and I managed to get off about 12 rounds through my .54 TC. :haha:

 

[bangfxr]

While stationed in Stuttgart West Germany 1985-1987 there was a shooting platz (place) near by and saw a feller in buckskins running commo wire out to thier registration tent. I went down and visited for the day and was asked to stay the night and get more of a feel for it.I was a guest in Crazy Ralphs large teepee and he had a bed roll I could use which I did and its been down hill after that weekend. I started as a buck skinner but soon stepped into the militia and CW living history and reenacting. I still get out and burn powder and buck-n-ball down range. So fellers keep yer chin ta the wind un yer powder dry.

 

[Mickc01]

1. The old Daniel Boone TV series (so hokey but gosh, I did love it).

2. The old Carolina mountain rifle that was handled down in my family and hung over the cloest door in my Grandfather's bedroom (and now it's mine ).

 

[MSW]

well, i'd love to have a story about a great grandfather's flintlock, or reaing a really cool book as a kid, or the classic grizzled old guy who mentored me when i was just learning how to shave, but (he says with a sheepish look) it was just a lark .. saw my first ML at Cumberland Knife & Gun on Bragg Blvd. one evening and thought, well it would make a cool wall hanger if nothing else, and havig a gun on display in my quarters would really pi$$ off my mother, who was coming to visit, and who thought Sarah Brady hung the moon [insert political polemic here].

So i bought it. Having done that, i felt morally obligated to make lead come out the front- after all, this is a gun and guns are supposed to shoot... so there i am at the private range, with all the stuff i'm supposed to have and everyone else is shooting the manly- man "black" rifles. So i load it up and prime the pan and make sure everything is cool and i look down the barrel and gently squeeze the trigger and




BOOM!!




and i'm thinking "wow- the silly thing actually works!" now, where have i had that feeling before? ... when the parachute opened on my first jump ...


there's a magic about flint which speaks to me as no other gun can. to non- shooters, if you have to ask the question, you probably wouldn't understand the answer.

OK - i'll climb back down from my soap box before i fall down and hurt myself ...

 

[Flintlock58]

A TC Renegade as an option to replace a single shot 12 ga. during WI shotgun area deer season back in 1975.

 

[ChrisPer]

Reading magazines like Guns and Ammo, and Phil Spangenberger's column in the 1970s; others in our Winchester Lever-Action Club got into it and I got interested. Only got back into it after a 25 year break a few years ago.

My first was a T/C Seneca .36, my second a CVA Hawken .50 cal.

 

[Sunkmanitu Tanka]

I already replied but now I think all of a sudden on the Grizzly Adams films and series,and films like 'walking thunder' ' Hearts of the west'... I wished they would show these kind of films again on TV but I guess most of these films are rated too old and tacky, and just suited for a very restricted audience... Then there are films like 'A man called horse', 'the return of a man called horse', 'Thunderhearth', 'Cheyenne Dog soldiers', and all the many films mentioned before

 

[Big Ol Gobbler]

I didn't start hunting and shooting until I was in my 30's. BP just seemed more like what hunting and shooting should be.... the process... the history. Its just cool. Now I'd like my first flinter.