Why did you buy your current muzzle loader?
 

It seems that some folks on here think such and such gun is only good because such and such shoots it in such and such competition each year.

Did you buy your current muzzle loader because its a brand used at a shooting competition or because it fit your build, fit your budget, fit the overall needs of a hunter?

Me personally, its always about fit. I've handled many muzzies that felt totally awkward when shoulder, sights didnt line up, working the action felt funky, even had one rifle which had a very curved trigger which caused you to work your hand into an uncomfortable position so you could squeeze it correctly.

Accuracy these days IMO isn't an issue with any of the current muzzle loader brands.

Trigger pull can vary as with any firearm.

Clean shooting? Ehhhh.... I like my inlines to shoot clean but when it comes to a flintlock of percussion, its something you have to live with. They all need to be cleaned so why complain? Put on a good movie or music that relaxes you and take your time.

It's a white,nothing more needs to be said.

Because of reputation and after that because of my personal experience shooting different brands . After tons of muzzleloaders and 35 years of shooting them i formed a personal preference that influences my buying .

I shoot more than one brand. I have shot a fair number of different rifles and have stayed with the ones I enjoy shooting the most.

Mine was an impulse purchase. I saw it on sale and since I did not own one ... it came home with me.

Why did you purchase your current muzzleloader? Shoulden't that be muzzleloaders? :s2: My current muzzleloader is actually a stable of about a dozen.

If you intend to mean the most recently purchased muzzleloader, the reason is because I can't seem to pass up a used muzzleloader at a good price and I like shooting different guns.

Yep, i got 4 different brands atm. I bought them because the way they shoot and i liked the quality. I like the fact that they are not imports and the vast majority of the money from their sales stayed here.

I don't care for unproven slogans.

I bought my last muzzleloader for a couple reasons. First, I was getting bored with most rifles. Second, I wanted the ability to hunt and shoot accurately at longer ranges. Third, I bought the rifle because of its reputation as a long range accurate hunting muzzleloader, its complete custom quality and reliability. Not because it was easier or harder. I found it does exactly as advertised.

I wanted one since I first saw one in the 70's. I believe it to be an exact copy of an 1830's gun, and that gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Oh wait! That's the woman next door that gives me the warm fuzzy feeling.

Probably a leaky bladder is whats giving you that feeling 😀

I like the guns I have for now. but there's always tomorrow and a new gun at a new price. need to see a head doctor about this.

I hear them depends itch once you go potty in them :s1:

Idaho made it's ML hunts round ball only for a couple years so I quit ML hunting. After that foolishness was over I decided that I was going to make a Far Speaker. Idaho opened the door for inlines and I wanted a rifle that not only competed with inlines but surpassed them in every way.
I bought a Green Mountain Barrel and found a donor TC stock. I added a Lyman peep so I could adjust the sight for the shot and a Globe front sight with a BPCR insert for extended range.
That was phase one. Phase two was to develop a conical bullet that was better than anything on the market. Both of those ideas were completed. Now all I have to do is sit back and enjoy the work I did years ago and shoot game. I have plenty other muzzleloader and a few of them inlines. But the Hot Rods were the start of something better in every way.

I have recently bought a CVA Optima, and a Wolf. IMHO CVA is now at the head of the pack. Great, accurate muzzleloaders, at a reasonable price. I was for years a T/C guy. Still own many T/C's. In fact my favorite muzzleloader is a T/C Firehawk, which I bought new in the mid 1990's. However, since T/C has been sold ( I won't mention the acquiring company) quality, and service has gone down hill. Very happy with my CVA muzzleloaders !

i bought my cva v2/lr to send home and leave there for a muzzy to shoot when i go home to hunt.

I have a couple. One is a TC Green Mt Carbine in 54 that was my first. Nice gun with open sights and wood stock and I use it mostly now to target shoot with round balls and light charges for the grand kids. My in line is a TC Black Diamond 50 cal with a wood stock and a Nikon scope. Nice gun, inexpensive but the urge to get something a bit more modern with a removable breach plug is probably on the horizon. Then again that gun suits me well and has taken lots of deer. Most of my BP shooting is hunting or sighting in so it serves the purpose. I would like to get a flinter to mess around with on the range.

Green Mountain Carbine ? I have 2 T/C White Mountain Carbines. Great roundball shooters. Bought them back in the 1990's. Are yours modified T/C's with Green Mountain barrels ?

I bought mine because Grouse said it was the best! :s3:

Omg, that was hilarious:cool2::cool2:

Must not be a CVA. :p

My first ml was a TC hawken I traded for. Unfortunately, I was pretty green & got a really bad barrel. That was replaced with a Green Mountain drop-in with a fast twist because I thought I wanted to use those plastic thingies. After shooting some heavy loads using that TC stock, I knew that wasn't what I wanted either. So, I decided it was time to build.
I used the GM barrel & all the metal parts off the hawken & used a cherry plank I had from my furniture building business. I figured if I was going to mess up my first build, I might as well use TC parts so it wouldn't be too costly a mistake. I based the stock design on a Boyd thumbhole I had put on my 30.06. Basically, the stock is thumbhole from the breech back & hawken from there forward. I was never concerned with pc/hc, so it looks good to me, especially if you stand back a few feet.
I needed more practice, so I scrounged up another set of hawken parts cause they were still relatively cheap & not too hard to find. Roundball was kind enough to sell me a TC new style flint lock & I bought an Oregon barrel, slow twist in .54 cal. The stock is similar to the first except it is a full stock. That build was never quite finished because I felt I 'needed' a real gun for moose hunting.
I was feeling more confident about my building skills, so I went all out. Rice TOW style jaeger swamped barrel in .58 cal. Chambers Late Ketland flint lock & Davis set trigger. Hooked breech & brass thimbles & trigger guard. The stock is from a curly maple plank my wholesaler had stashed away. It, also, is a thumbhole full stock finished with aqua fortis & tung oil.
Now that I am retired & getting my wife's honey do list (she wants me to build her some of my furniture, too) I'll get back to my #2 build & then figure out what to do with that 2nd Rice jaeger barrel I have stashed away
Paul

because i just love tc muzzleloaders

I had to go with "none of the above". An old friend at work got me started in 1975 with a traditional caplock. Thought that was really something. Didn't have alot to choose from back then around here. Caplock or flintlock were it. I've no interest at all in the in-lines that are offered today.

Nope I got it sometime in the late 80's or early 90's. It has been a while but from what I can remember it is a bit longer than the white mt carbine. I googled it and can only see info on the newer green mt drop in barrels and it was well before that time. Perhaps my memory is wrong and it is a New Englander. Being from the Green Mt State possibly had that on my mind. I remember I wanted something a little longer than the white Mt which was the most popular at that time.

I have two MLs. My first, I wanted to take advantage of the ML season in Virginia which generally coincides with the peak rut. A fair amount of research (this site and the other) and I settled on an Omega. I shouldered one at big box store, liked it, and started my search. Picked up an X7 from GunBroker, a carbine suited my hunting (mountains and heavy woods).

More recently I picked up a used Knight Disc Extreme, just because I already had the Lehigh breech plug. It's nice to have two MLs to shoot at the range in the summer.

Very happy with both. I won't ever buy another unless I find a used H&R Huntsman/Sidekick being sold out of a truck on the side of the road for a song. :wink:

Around 2002 I purchased the T/C Omega and sold my Pedersoli Rolling Block 54-cal inline, for it had the world's smallest trigger guard and I use two pair of gloves in Michigan winters.. The Omega was a technology leader at the time and I had the money back then to purchase their most loaded model.

In December 2014, Knight offered a Christmas-week sale on their normal price $349 Knight Vision for only $199. Absolutely no regrets on that no-brainer decision, for the break-action Vision's breech-area is significantly easier to clean than the fall-action Omega.

The worst decision of ML career (since 1992) was my decision to purchase the full-stock Traditions Shenandoah 14 years ago.

PEOPLE: Think twice.... make that three times, prior to selecting a full-stock over a half-stock. I normally enjoy cleaning my MLs, just as much as I shoot them. But I cuss like a two-bit whore every time I must clean that pinned full-stock ML, for the wood is not of craftsman variety and I choose to leave those two pins in.

What a PITA that ML is. But my wife absolutely loves it's brassy features / looks hanging on a wall, with a powder-horn hanging below the trigger.

Myself?....... I wish that had been my 2nd choice that year...... a CVA Mountain Rifle that Cabelas brought back for only one year of production from CVA. . Boy did I screw-up that choice between those two MLs. So excuse me while I kick myself in the pants for the 1003rd time.

My last muzzle loader purchase was an Omega Dream Season. It was a rifle i absolutely did not need. When shouldered it feels so very very good. It sat in the store for months, and months calling to me. It is a very good rifle to use whilst still hunting. Omega rifles are no longer being made. When hunting, the rifle doesn't need to be carried around whilst cocked, with a safety on. One cocks the rifle just before pulling the trigger.

Because i owned Omega rifles already, i knew i would like this one, if it shot straight, and it does.

I have 6 different brands not counting custom ML's. I bought all of mine simply because I love muzzleloaders. I hunt with all of my ML's and enjoy shooting and all aspects of these type firearms. I was 13 when I purchased my first ML which was a .45 cal Jukar "Junker". I paid $45 for it from my ginseng money. I was totally hooked even though my rifle wasn't top of the line; never the less I was smitten. I've now been muzzleloading for 37 years and lord willing I will be for another 37 years.

Question was simple.

Why did you buy your current muzzleloader?

As in......... the last one you bought.

Or....as in the one(s) you presently own. :D

The last one, well thats easy.

Its a 1-20 twist 45cal in SS and i had all the parts i needed to make it even better. A TH stock, target trigger and real Lehigh 209 conversion.

I still currently OWN the rest so i didn't see a need to limit my response to one rifle. I usually keep mine for well over one season. :D

I bought my last because it fit me well, was in great condition, was stainless and was cheap. It was a 2010 CVA Optima with a thumbhole stock for $140 at a pawn shop. A great gun that I really didn't need, I also have a stainless CVA Wolf and a Investarm Hawken.

i bought my last one because it was a whites sportsmans warehouse edition.it was unused and was only 150.00 . it shoots great and i can't pass up a good deal on a whites anyway.

I have owned lots of them wish I had several of them now

Because I could shoot .458 rifle bullets in its 1:26" twist. Or at least I think that was my last ML. Yep it's a Knight .52 cal.

Because it was a unfired Knight LRH with the tags on it for $180.

I got into the game because we have advantageous MZ hunting regs here in KS.

I have a bunch because you can buy and sell them without an FFL. I enjoy getting a used deal, cleaning it up, shooting and maybe keep it, maybe sell it.

The only one purchased at retail was the first, an Omega Z5 at Cabelas. Paid top dollar but still have it and it's probably be the best shooter of the bunch.

Last keeper i bought came in pieces from various sources. It's a .54 TC New Englander with walnut stock. Bought it because i wanted a .54 caliber conventional gun.

i have acquired other muzzleloaders since, but they all went away.

:eek: wow, that was a great deal! I'll give ya $250 for it :poke:

I don't ever seem to run into that type of deal. Where I live there are very few gun stores that ever have used ML's and if they do they want too much.

I've been through a progression of muzzleloaders, I started with a T/C Seneca in .45 that I wish I still had.

Then I bought a T/C White Mtn Carbine because I thought a .50 would be better. I struggled to find something that would shoot in it and the sights were so coarse that at anything over 50 yards, the front sight covered the front half of a deer.
I decided I'd either have to have something scoped or hunt where the deer were a lot bigger.....

I chose the former and bought a T/C Black Diamond in .45 and mounted a scope on it. I've still got that one, but I dont care for it. It's a chore to clean and it's an awkward design with a scope.


My next rifle was a Traditions Pursuit XLT. I love the way it carries, it's a breeze to clean and at 100 yards I can shoot 2ish inch groups without much effort. I've since bought 3 more of them that my daughters hunt with. We shoot 80 grains of BH209, CCI 209M primers and a 250 grain T/C Shockwave in a Harvester Crush Rib sabot. That combination is easy for the girls to load/relaod and is mild on their shoulders.

My latest purchase still hasn't arrived. I ordered a Pedersoli .54 Blue Ridge Mountain Rifle. I always liked the lines of those style rifles (PA long rifle, Blue Ridge, etc.) and I wanted a .54 cal round ball shooter. This is a 1:65 which should do well.