alleyyooper
I myself wonder how a fully rifled barrel can be called a shot gun?????????
I did not realize they could. If there is rifling they are a rifle. The closest you might get to it is a rifled musket, but even that technically has a twist in the bore as I understand it. And I do not think they are recommend to shoot actual shot. They might be loaded with buck and ball though.
I hunt with a smoothbore rifle. A smoothbore rifle is technically a shotgun because there is no twist or riflingin the bore. It gets the name rifle because of the fact they put a rifled type sights on it instead of a bead on the end and making the shooter use the sight plain of the barrel.
I also understand your concern over the use of optics. We are not allowed any magnification on our rifles during muzzle loader season. One of my rifles has a red dot but I feel comfortable with that to about 75 yards. Another has a peep sight which is a great aiming device out to 100 yards. The fiber optics make sighting also much easier but the plain of flat wide front sight I admit does give me some problems at long distances.