What keeps you interested?

[Dwight Rutherford]

I'll fess up, in addition to all of the reasons previously stated, the satisfaction I get at the range shooting at 75 and 100 yards and getting better groups than the guys with semiauto black guns equipped with mega power scopes. Its a challenge to appear cool.

 

[Black Hand]

The learning of new skills and refinement of old skills. The excitement I see when I get to share my experience, knowledge and years of accumulated stuff with kids.

 

[TFoley]

Unlike most of you, I have a total lack of any connection with muzzleloading, having spent most of my life in places where those who shoot are either looked at as simply odd to downright untrustworthy - a rather odd point of view when you realise that, as shooters, we are more investigated and referee'd than any other sport in history.

So my deep and abiding love of shooting smelly old guns comes from the early 1970s, when I bought my first muzzle-loader, the perennially popular Parker-Hale Musketoon that I still have. Gun laws hereabouts being what they are, I still have only a Musketoon and a couple of revolvers, as well as two Sniders [sorry].

Although I enjoy shooting them, and do so a LOT, I get my greatest kick from letting other folks shoot them and watching their reactions as they do so. Remember that here in yUK less than one person in a hundred has ever [legally] even TOUCHED a real firearm of any kind, and seeing the look of amazed delight on touching off a Ruger Old Army or Walker or Musketoon is worth every cent in your pocket.

This coming Saturday I'm going to a local gun store with a guy who has just gotten his Firearm Certificate, on which are the magic words 'Permission to acquire and possess - 1 x .36cal BP handgun, 1 x .44cal BP handgun.

A real red-letter day for him, and a kick in the teeth for all the anti-gunners in his congregation. Yup, he's a priest.

He joked that the sulphur smell would no doubt be a pressager to the brimstone he expects to be inhaling post mortem, having been a bit of a wild card in his youth.

tac

 

[Zonie]

Gotta love it tac. :grin:

In case he doesn't know, don't forget to remind him that many a worthy men of the cloth have thoroughly enjoyed firearms.

Take for example, Rev. Alexander John Forsyth of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland who did so much to improve his hunting with a shotgun.

He is credited with inventing the percussion ignition system.

 

[azmntman]

In 1996 I was going to Chicago and detoured my trip to stop at Dixie Gun Works, very disappointed.

The interesting things were roped off so you could not get to stuff and is was very hard to get waited on. Total waste of time for me.

Betting those clerks have since been replaced and service "might" be better :idunno: The again probably not considering the downgrade of most service in the good ol USA :cursing:

So was that the disappointment, lack of service? or was it that you couldn't access the purrty stuff? Or like myself, the fact I had more stuff than they (bass pro) did?

 

[meanmike8665]

Yeah, my wife shoots her muzzleloading pistols very well. We have had on more once when a shooter left talking to himself watching her shoot better one handed a twenty-five yards than they did off the bench.

Michael

 

[FishDFly]

So was that the disappointment, lack of service? or was it that you couldn't access the purrty stuff? Or like myself, the fact I had more stuff than they (bass pro) did?

All of the above.

I always wanted to go there and it was a total disappoint.

 

[FishDFly]

Yeah, my wife shoots her muzzleloading pistols very well. We have had on more once when a shooter left talking to himself watching her shoot better one handed a twenty-five yards than they did off the bench.

Michael

His wife shoots very well, I shot next to her in Phoenix, I shot at the bottom of my normal scores. The lady can shoot.

 

[coloradoclyde]

So was that the disappointment, lack of service? or was it that you couldn't access the purrty stuff? Or like myself, the fact I had more stuff than they (bass pro) did?

All of the above.

I always wanted to go there and it was a total disappoint.

How was Chicago?.... :hmm:

 

[mr.flintlock]

my fascination with muzzle loading rifles began in the 1950s and 60s when I watched Fess Parker play the roles of Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone. I watched as they loaded their rifles from powder horn and shoved the ball down the barrel with the ramrod. As a young adult, I never lost interest in these ancient firearms. In 1970, I sent off to Dixie Gun Works for a plinker percussion rifle kit in 32 caliber. Took me six months to build it. Ended up shooting #1 buckshot in it. In 1976 I built a C.V.A. .45 caliber Kentucky Rifle kit. In the fall of 1976, I killed a nice 7 point buck with it. Through the years, the more that I hunted with muzzle loader, the better I liked it. This is my 20th year to hunt exclusively with flintlock rifles. I will be 69 years old in one month. I guess I am what some people consider eccentric. I hunt with my flintlock. I don't have a cell phone and I still pull my deer out of the woods by hand. I like the historic aspect of muzzle loading rifles and have a healthy respect for the way our forefathers did things.

 

[Spikebuck]

Muzzleloaders are neat, aesthetically pleasing and a blast to shoot. Each muzzleloader takes on its own "individuality" given by it's owner. It offers a personal challenge and opportunity for growth, not paralleled by other guns. They are simplistic yet functional works of elegant art and engineering.

I saw this post when first put up, but have been thinking about it and reading other's responses. But I think Clyde hit closest to my feelings on this. Just like beautiful traditional bows, the simplicity and beauty is a huge attractor for me. Since I started hunting on my own over 40 years ago, I have always wanted to do it the hard way. Other than some squirrel hunting as a teen with a .22, I've not used modern firearms. I can sit and just admire the beauty of fine bows or traditional guns, and that makes me want to use them all the more.

 

[sidelock]

I started hunting about the age of 12 with smokeless powder guns, but I have from very early age been interested in black powder guns. When in HS I had a friend who was building BP pistols and making his own BP. Around 1965 I was spring turkey hunting in the mountains of VA and ran into a hunter with a flintlock hunting in old timey skins, bag, etc. I was fascinated and began to read about what was available about BP hunting. I reasoned that about 99% of my hunting kills were one shot, so a caplock would not be a handycap. Soon TC came out with their BP guns and I bought a .50 cap buster kit. I ordered and built one and that has been my gun of choice ever since. I have killed I guess 50 deer, a bunch of turkeys, lots and lots of squirrels (for practice), groundhogs (even at 100 yd.)and other stuff with that rifle. My favorite!!!!!!

 

[Larry Pletcher]

Good Morning and Happy Thanksgiving,
My interest in this hobby is primarily with the flintlock. I started with percussion, but it wasn't long until I owned a flint gun. From about 1980 on flintlocks were the draw for me.

Being a teacher added another tie, and that dealt with finding the ability to test, time, and study the locks and the whole ignition system. A favorite teacher, when asked a question, said, "How can we design an experiment to find the answer?" Apply that to flintlocks and you have what trips my trigger.

In the mid 1980s I met Gary Brumfield, who pushed me to time flintlocks and write up a report. The result was a combination of 18th century locks, 20th century science, and mentor from Colonial Williamsburg.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

A favorite teacher, when asked a question, said, "How can we design an experiment to find the answer?" Apply that to flintlocks and you have what trips my trigger.

And we (collectively) are forever grateful for your research, tests and videos of the flintlock ignition process and timing!

Pletch ... the original myth buster! Hip - hip - hooray!