Well lets see. PA started their primitive season in 1974 I believe. And I was shooting a ML about 2 or 3 years before that. Probably about 1971 - so 37 years. My rifle was a T/C Hawken 50 cal flinter. Bullets were patch and ball.
I remember a group of about 6 or 7 of us would go out on Sunday with our MLs. One of the games we used to play was to take plastic soup spoons and a box. Slide the handles of the spoons into the box edge and shoot the spoons offhand at 50 yds. But you had to shoot them in order (i.e. left to right). This game gave me a lot of respect for the accuracy of a quality ML with the correct load.