Its an interesting perspective there txhunter58. As you might be aware, Wisconsin finally made legal the use of magnification on scopes. I was never really for this or against it. Where I hunt it made little difference.
Now in the southern end of the State if I were hunting the corn fields of the farms down there, a scope would be a real advantage. And this is only because the shots are much longer. Scopes are also a great advantage to the hunter with poor eye sight. I do believe scopes, if used properly are a great thing. But the key word is IF. And we all know there are a lot of hunters that do not care IF they use them properly.
Examples: Hunter with good shooting skills, and knowledge of the limitations of his rifle. Also the willingness to practice. With open sights, shoots out to 125 yards and no further. With a scope he might PRACTICE and well take shots to 175 maybe even further. I see posts all of the time of forum members shooting 200 yards.
If the muzzleloaders are not scoped, they are pretty equal as far as effective range. The inline shooting sabots might have an edge, but again, you can not kill what you can not hit.
Now lets look at the other side of the coin... I too see the threat of the inexperienced hunter causing some problems here. Lets say he's new to the sport. He sees a chance for an extra week at deer camp with his buddies, away from the wife, and maybe score a deer. He takes off running to a store, purchasing a... lets say, Accura with a 3-9x40 scope. He tried a powerbelt in it with 100 grains of powder. At 100 yards he is dead on. He shoots say a 3 inch group and says that's good enough. Now he hunts the cornfields and hay fields and sees deer all day at 185, 200 yds, etc. How many of them do you think he will take a shot at? Probably all of them. How many will he wound? Well he might get lucky and kill the first one, or he might punch holes in a bunch of them, but never recover them.
I think our DNR allowed scopes for a couple reasons...
1. sagging sales of license... Our DNR allowed the deer herds to be shot off in many areas. And local hunters stopped buying license in some areas. Believe me, it was noticed. I personally am not going to hunt my area this year. And might not deer hunt at all do to low herd numbers. In some areas it is that bad. I talked to several locals that never saw a deer the entire deer season. Before all the doe tags were given away for several years, it was common to see 20 or more a day. Now the DNR have been called on the carpet by the State Legislature for their herd management practices. I think this is an appeasement to the hunters.
2. CWD.. the DNR believes the only way to eradicate this disease is kill all the deer in the state and let the herd start fresh. Their philosophy is flawed, their practices have not works for years now, CWD spread instead of went into check. In some areas, hunters refuse to hunt deer because of their fear of the disease. The DNR's excuse.. hunters did not kill enough deer. So the solution ... kill more deer. They need more hunters in the woods. So if we allow scopes, maybe the hunters that would not brave the cold with the open sight muzzleloader, now will.
3. Pressure from hunter groups. I know there was a gathering of people that wanted scopes for muzzleloaders. I never was one of them, and they had some valid points. Poor eye sights. Less wounded deer (we will see about that). Will I use a scoped muzzleloader... sure. Why not. I am not going to change my hunting style, but I will be sure of some real accurate shots.
Many years ago, when I hunted with muzzleloader... it was me and my buddy George out wandering the woods. We seldom even saw another hunter. We spent a lot of time tracking deer in the snow, or trying to ambush them at bedding areas. Even did a little baiting from time to time, but most of all just enjoyed being out in the fresh air in the winter.
Today, Muzzle loading is big business. Stores, Restaurants, Gas stations, Sporting Good Stores, Motels, Guides, you name it.. all there to take a piece of the pie. The more hunters in an area the more money flows in an area. So I really feel this scope issue was a money maker, license sales gimmick, local economy stimulation, and herd management scam to put more bodies in the woods.