What got you into muzzlleloading?

[Stumpkiller]

Two J.F. Cooper books I read back in the mid 70's:

The Last of the Mohicans and The Deerslayer.

 

[jethro224]

Back in High School I had a buddy whose dad had a Hawken type rifle hung over the fireplace. One day we took it out and shot it. I thought it was way cool!

Several years went by and I saw a CVA Frontier .50 advertised for cheap and bought it. By then my buddy had moved away and I didn't know the first thing about ML rifles so it just sat in the gun cabinet.

Back then Illinois made us choose one or the other of "Firearm" or "Muzzleloading Rifle Only" for the first lottery for deer permits. A buddy from Michigan was talking to me one day and we got to discussing deer hunting. I mentioned that I was using a recurve for archery season and a single shot H&R 12ga for shotgun season. He said "Well, you're coming along but now we gotta get you shooting blackpowder". That got me thinking and I started to try and get a ML tag, but I always chose firearm first and would apply for any leftover MLing tags just in case I could get another 3 days of deer hunting.

Finally Illinois decided we could apply for BOTH types of tags in the first lottery so I did AND GOT BOTH KINDS! Now I HAD to learn how to shoot the Frontier! Tags come out in mid-July. By August I had rounded up all the supplies I thought I needed and was doing some shooting.

By September I was hooked bad. Bought a Crocket .32 for squirrels and a .54 GPR flintlock. Switched to real blackpowder. Decided to tote the muzzleloader even during the "Firearm" season.

Now look what happened; I done sold off most of my CF guns, own a whole stack of BP guns, drive around all over the dang place just so I can dress funny, sleep under a tarp and burn powder, got ANOTHER custom flintlock(smoothbore) coming that I can't hardly wait for, my boss thinks I'm a nut, I pick up "sparky looking" rocks and carry them home, there's NOTHING in the hunting dept. at Walmart that I can use but there IS in the fabric dept. ,... :surrender:
I love this stuff! :grin:

 

[Rogue River]

The challege of only having one shot!

 

Well when I first saw an underhammer, I was hooked. It was so simple that I could make one in my garage. Yup, I'm hooked. Now have a pile of them, all home-made.

Paul

 

[GreyWhiskers]

I don't remember my first shot from a ML. But I remember buying my dad a cheap pistol kit when I was in high school and finishing it for him. I bought a TC Hawken kit when I was going to trade school in Denver. Have been shooting ML ever since. GW

 

[Sunkmanitu Tanka]

As a kid I read all stories and history books I could get about the west. On top of that I loved films like 'Drums along the Mohawk' and everything with Fess Paker in it. That was the fifties and sixties... In the seventies a brother in law bought some percussion guns. I accompanied him a few times to the gun club and was hooked. After a few years I stopped till about 7 years ago.... It was 2006 however before I started with a flintlock.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

Randy, You're the first person, other than myself, who has read, remembered, treasured and absorbed The Bears of Blue River. I read it back in the 1950s and reread it at least once more. It got me interested in flintlocks though it would be a few years later before I got my first one. Kid's book or not, I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in flintlocks and early American history. Many great books are a bit foggy in my memory but TBOBR feels as fresh as it ever did. Thanks for bringing up that fine read.

Hanshi, Randy,
I taught Indiana History to fourth graders here in Indiana for many years. Our fourth grade teachers read "Bears of Blue River" to our classes. Those were good times. It gave me a chance to teach a bunch of kids how to start flint/steel fires, among many other things.


Regards,
Pletch

 

[Geraldo]

Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man!

That probably started it, but in 7th grade a teacher loaned me a copy of Eckert's "The Frontiersman" and that sealed the deal.

 

[GBG]

Watched Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett as a little kid. Read about Revolutionary War longrifles in grade school, and heard about reproduction MLs in middle school.

Asked my grandfather about them and he told of originals still being used when he was a boy. I wanted to know how these old guns shot so well, and how people built them with hand tools so long ago.

Finally found a DGW catalog, ordered a CVA longrifle kit with mold and hunted thru jr. and high school with it till I left home. Got started again ~10 years later when my youngest brother found the rifle and wanted to learn how to shoot.

 

[Jblk]

I think it was the fact that you could make a rifle go off with a piece of flint.I still have a lock that I made out of scrap steel thats about the right size for a cannon, but it worked.My first rifle came from Dixie gun works as a kit in flint.The squirrel population suffered alot of cruel and unusual punishment with me and that flintlock, but it greatly improved when I converted it to purcussion.When I discovered just how accurate and effective the old rifle could be I was definately a convert.

 

[Eric Krewson]

No lofty pursuit here. In a bucks only hunting world(early 70s) the state of Alabama held their first either sex M/L only hunt on the local management area. We all hustled to the nearest gun store to pick up a BP rifle. In my case it was a H&R Huntsman that I actually killed a deer with.

The H&R was followed by a succession of TC percussion guns, then TC flint guns and lastly by my current hand crafted flintlock rifles and smooth bores, some made by other folk, some I made myself.

 

[jdkerstetter]

That probably started it, but in 7th grade a teacher loaned me a copy of Eckert's "The Frontiersman" and that sealed the deal.

Wow! I grew up in Ohio and my school had a great Jr. High History teacher named Terry Lewis. He taught most of our year on Ohio History out of The Frontiersmen....hooked me hard, he did.

Turns out I grew up about 30 minutes from Bellefontaine, Ohio where Allan Eckert is from.

Enjoy, J.D.

 

[ken.clements]

Now look what happened; I done sold off most of my CF guns, own a whole stack of BP guns, drive around all over the dang place just so I can dress funny, sleep under a tarp and burn powder, got ANOTHER custom flintlock(smoothbore) coming that I can't hardly wait for, my boss thinks I'm a nut, I pick up "sparky looking" rocks and carry them home, there's NOTHING in the hunting dept. at Walmart that I can use but there IS in the fabric dept. ,... :surrender:
I love this stuff! :grin:

now that. is just perfekt :hatsoff:
I just heard on saturday...."whats in this box that the postman gave to me? If its another one of your d&%$ guns you are gonna be in trouble"
well...I'm in trouble... :redface: :grin:

 

[MJMarkey]

My first interest in muzzleloading probably was influenced by the "King of the Wild Frontier" series on Disney. But I was too young to shoot.

I really got interested about 1974 with the upcoming Bicentennial I bought my first flintlock rifle from Dixie Gun Works. Since then it's history. Been with flintlocks all these years.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

I was a crockett and boone fan as a youngster, and as a juvenile my dad and I deer hunted with an oldster name of 'Doc' Owen (not a doctor at all, he was a muleskinner I suppose you could say that owned a really large mule and wagon and went around plowing gardens and pulling tree stumps, clearing lots and such I don't know how he got the handle) the feller carried a SXS 12ga percussion bp shotgun and always got a deer or 2.
around '78 I traded for a CVA hawken .50 pistol kit and put it together (still shoot it some) and that got the ball rollong.
I've taken several whitetails with my .50 rifles on doe day. and lucked into a couple of bucks also. the deer w/horns don't taste any better than the ones w/out.

 

[Otter]

My gramma and the rest of the "older" family members always said they/we were related to Daniel Boone, but never really said or knew what that connection was. I always did feel that I was born at least 150 years too late. I was drawn to the early Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone TV shows because of that, I guess. While in college, I practically wore out the Dixie Gun Works catalogs, but couldn't afford the offerings they had. Then, in the late 80s/early 90s, one of my mother's cousins did extensive genealogy research into the Callaway lineage and found that one of our ancestors, Flanders Callaway, did indeed marry Jemima Boone, Daniel's daughter. So, I am related, albeit by marriage only, to Ol Dan'l. Another ancestor, Richard Callaway was D. Boone's "right hand man" on the journey through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. His son, James, and grandson, Flanders, also made the trip.

I didn't get my first ML until I was about 40 years old, but I've made up for the delay quite nicely.

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

I just remembered prior to Fess Parker my 6th grade class made a road trip down 1-85 to King's Mountain National Military Park. Fess Parker was icing on the cake.

 

[mikemeteor]

What first sparked your interest in muzzleloading firearms?

Here in Pennsylvania, it's a chance to get in the deer woods and not feel like you're in a war zone.
Once I started building 'em, it turns out that's dang near as much fun as hunting with 'em.

 

[hanshi]

Pletch, I'd bet a teacher couldn't get away with reading a book to the class that spoke of those evil, ahem, guns nowadays.

 

[Rifleman1776]

In late 1969 I took a small cannon to Barney at Barney's Cannons, now known as South Bend Ordinance for evaluation. At the time we lived outside of Chicago but were preparing to move to Indiana an open a business. Talking with Barney he mentioned we would be near Friendship. "What's that?", I asked. He explained. During a trip preparatory to the move we attended one of the shoots at Friendship. I was hooked. I had always liked guns and hunted but had never seen anything like the Friendship spectacle or the people. Did I say I was hooked? I was hooked.