[cayugad]

Wisconsin passed a new regulation for muzzleloading season. We used to NOT be able to use magnification of any kind. Now they decided that magnified scopes are legal. What is you views on muzzleloaders in a Muzzle Loader season not a primitive season... and the use of scopes. What is your good and bad views?

 

[broom_jm]

I think fish and game departments need to make it easier and less confusing for hunters to get out there and be successful. Complex and restrictive regulations keep too many would-be hunters out of the woods. I think we need fewer "types" of seasons and as few restrictions as possible, while maintaining safety. I'm glad to see WI allowing scopes on muzzle-loaders because many hunters are getting older and really benefit from the improved accuracy telescopic sights help you obtain.

I would like to see a single, continuous bow season, a general firearms season, a ML season, and possibly youth seasons. That's it.

 

[tacklebury]

I think iron sights are the way to go at least for me. I don't use scopes on any of my guns except sometimes for grouping targets on ladders. For muzzle loaders, my understanding is more states are allowing it due to wounding of animals. A lot of people start off with scopes now and decide to try muzzle loading and then have issues with using sights. I started with sights and still prefer them typically. In that standpoint I think it is good that it's available if it keeps animals from being wounded. Michigan used to have a lot of stupid laws on what the gun had to be styled like, percussion cap only, etc. They have loosened up a bit and found that it really hasn't changed the number of deer being taken. Basically now the one law remaining is it cannot be smokeless powder and must be loaded from the muzzle. That's my 2cp anyway.

 

[alsask]

I would think allowing scopes would increase the number of wounded due to the fact it would be pretty easy to score 250 to 300 yard hits with a scope and a drop compensator. By then most muzzleloaders are starting to run out of steam. They might as well drop the primative weapon thing all together.

 

[cayugad]

Wisconsin has no primitive season. We have a muzzleloading season. When people talk primitive seasons, I think of roundball and flintlocks.

As for the wounded, I think if hunters believe they can throw a scope on an inline and it will just shoot 200 yards with no practice, they are in for an eye opener. There might well indeed be more wounded animals at first.

The reason Wisconsin finally decided on a scope is (IMO) money. Our Department of Resources really made a mess of our deer herds. What once was an abundant healthy herd has all changed. They handed out doe tags like they were Halloween candy, and hunters being what they are, slaughtered the herd for them. Now in some places the deer are gone. And the last few years, license sales have plummeted. So I think this is a way to get more people in the woods, sell more license and even more deer killed.

We have a CWD problem in the southern end of the State. The DNR felt the way to solve it was to wipe out the herd. And then let the deer start all over. Well their plans have not worked. The herd is shot off, but the disease is still there.

There was a lot of hunters that wanted scopes. They felt it would make for better shot placement and less wounded animals. I think there will be some nuts out there taking 200 and further shots, but without practice, your right.. wounded animals.

 

[tacklebury]

I know there are those that preach the 200 yard is ok and you might be right on too many trying that. Dunno, but at sane distances, I know a lot of older guys who just cannot acquire a good sight image any more and quite a few hunting newbs that have never used them. I use primarily iron sights regardless of the type of firearm. The one exception is on my "long range" squirrel bolt .22. lol 8) Lets me crack heads out to about 100 yards or so.

 

[Old Grump]

I don't have a 200 yard sightline in my woods and I put on an aperture sight a few years ago so I could get on target at 100 yards my most likely longest shot. Even a 2.5X scope would help me a lot. I really don't think you are going to have that many 200 yard shooters and you might get some kills now where at 40-60 yards some BP guys are getting bad hits and losing the deer.

The last buck I shot was a spike and I was going to pass it up till I realized that one of the front forelegs was just dangling by a thread of hide. The only other hunter in the woods was a flintlock shooter and he was the only other guy besides me who had shot that day. He tried but after walking the woods back and forth for a couple of hours he gave up and left. Not more than half an hour after he left the woods that buck jumped my fence and came right towards my stand. Just guessing but maybe a sighting tube or a scope might have got him closer to a heart lung shot instead of a leg hit.

 

[Bird Dog II]

I have taken the scope off my in-line for now. I actually think I will use a Hawken if I do muzzle load hunt. Mostly I just bowhunt after rifle in MO. I disagree a bit with wounded deer and scopes though. I know for me the inline shoots like a rifle and I would be more deadly and precise with the scope. That depends largely on your eyesight I guess.

 

[zb338]

The old grump is just about always right. Some of the
older guys could really use a scope. Maybe they would
kill one deer instead of wounding lots of them to die
later.

Zeke

 

[SFT]

Nope, muzzleloaders shouldn't have modern scopes. The whole point is to stay within the limitations of the weapon itself, up close and personal within 100 yards using a lead projectile, not to modernize it into a 300 yard sniper rifle. You are trying to kill a deer quickly and humanly, not take an enemy soldier out of the battle, dead, wounded or otherwise. If there's going to be a primative season then IMO no inlines, no sabots, no plastic stocks, period. If not then just call it the muzzleloader season and allow anything including single shot cartridge guns that are somewhat based on firearms that might have existed prior to 1899. Slaughter the herd with anything close to a muzzleloader, manage the herd with a primative weapons season. That's my opinion on the matter.

 

[Old Grump]

Civil war sniper rifle

 

[cayugad]

Many people think muzzleloaders and they think short range weapons. Well that might be true from a musket standpoint, but is far from accurate when we speak of rifled muzzleloaders. Some history, during the Revolutionary was, rifles muzzleloaders were used by Americans against the British.

Col George Hanger, a British officer, became very interested in the American rifle after he witnessed his bugler's horse shot out fromunder him at a distance, which he measured several times himself, of"full 400 yards", and he learned all he could of the weapon. Hewrites:

"I have many times asked the American backwoodsman what was the most their best marksmen could do; they have constantly told me that an expert marksman, provided he can draw good & true sight, can hit the head of a man at 200 yards."

Quotations from M.L. Brown's, FIREARMS IN COLONIAL AMERICA

200 yard head shots with open sight and roundball... pretty impressive. We all know what the Sharp Shooters in the Civil War were able to pull off. Many of them with tang sights and some with the tube scope sights. The Gibbs, Whitworth rifle was another excellent rifle..

The Whitworth rifle was the instrument of one of the most remembered acts of black powder sniping. On May 9, 1864, during the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse, Union General John Sedgwick was chiding some of his troops for lying down in a ditch to avoid Confederate snipers at a range of around 800 to 1000 yards. So the story goes - the general allowed that they 'couldn't hit an elephant at this range'. Sgt. E. R Grace of the 4th Georgia Infantry scored a head shot a few moments later, with his Whitworth rifle. As a result, the Union attack was delayed, and General Robert E. Lee won the battle.

So we can not really over look the range of the muzzleloader. A well made rifle in skilled hands was more then able to make long distance shots which we speak of today. The scope on the other hand does allow the shooter a clear sight picture, an accurate aim point, and because of magnification a more true image at greater distances. It will be interesting to see how the application of the magnified scope works out for Wisconsin. Although I will probably hunt with my Lyman Trade Rifle flintlock with the primitive sights on it.

 

[alsask]

Muzzleloaders can be very accurate. Estimating range and knowing the resultant drop is my biggest problem. With my Lyman .54 zeroed at 100 yards conicals drop a bit over 2 feet at 200 yards!

A person has to admire the abilities of those Civil war snipers. After reading this thread I am tempted to try out the patched round ball at 200 yards to see how much they drop.

 

[22 MAG]

If I couldn't use a scope I couldn't hunt. Here in IL you can use a scope. Firearm season 7 days and a muzzloader only season 3 days. During the FIREARM SEASON you can use shotgun with slugs, hand gun or ml'er. During ml'er season its only ml'er. Then there are 6 more days late in the year that you can hunt does only and use your unused tags. Any of the 3 firearms are ok to use.

22 MAG, AKA..........HAWGSLAYER

 

[cayugad]

Muzzleloaders can be very accurate. Estimating range and knowing the resultant drop is my biggest problem. With my Lyman .54 zeroed at 100 yards conicals drop a bit over 2 feet at 200 yards!

A person has to admire the abilities of those Civil war snipers. After reading this thread I am tempted to try out the patched round ball at 200 yards to see how much they drop.

Something I should not admit but.. one winter a group of us were shooting traditional muzzleloaders. At the normal ranges we were fine of course. Then one of the guy's kid came out and offered to snow shoe a black 5 gallon pail out to a hill side about 200 yards away and we would see if we could hit it. So, long story short... four of us shot numerous roundball at that black (old tar bucket) pail out there. Not one of us hit it. And the surprise is, not only were we shooting too low, but because of what I did not feel much of a wind, we were over a foot to the right. So think of how much those old shooters knew of wind drift, and bullet drop.

We finally hit the bucket but were aiming what I felt a ridiculous amount over the pail and then of course to the side of it. I would hate to guess how many shots were fired at that pail to finally put a couple holes in it. And to this day, I still think it was pure luck that it was even hit.

 

[Huntdaddy1]

I'm all for using a scope during ML season. They help gather light in early AM/PM situations and really help pinpoint a specific target area of the animal in which to aim. Also any firearm can be stretched to it's limits and beyond whether it be a ML or HPR. Range limitations need to be realized by the individual shooters themselves.
I only mount low-power fixed scopes on ML'S to remove any temptation of a shot that may be "Too" long for the rifle......or me. HD1

 

[Shyoldman]

HI Guys! First post here for me!

I am 58 yrs old, had a 5 way bypass 3 yrs ago, lost 65% of my vision. That being said I was a purist about BP , only cap and ball(or FL) and no scopes. Now I have little vision, and with out the scope allowance Ne has since last year I would be done hunting because I can no longer find the open sights.
Oh Well , we all change as our own situations change!

 

[Jakeway]

I used to be a percusion, patched round ball woth open sights kind of guy, even when the state openned up ML to practically anything you can stuff down the front. All the guns I used were either built from kits or built from parts I purchased. It really brought something special to a kill, when you used a rifle you spent hours putting together and finishing.

After I started needing bifocals and trifocals is got darn near impossible to use iron sights anymore. About three years years ago I switched to an inline with scope. It has it's own pleasures, but it certainly isn't primitive or particularly special like it used to be before inlines were invented. Yet without the current regulations, I couldn't have spent those hours hunting.

This is the last time I took my percussion hunting:

 

[broom_jm]

That looks like a beautiful memory, Jake...and like so many of your pictures, some truly exceptional photography! Are you a professional picture-taker, or something? You've posted at least 3 or 4 shots on here that are remarkable.

(Why does it says "Hosted Free at REALTREE.com" ? )

 

[cayugad]

Very nice picture there... I am starting to have the same problems with open sights and my glasses. I have already decided to cut back my shooting range to 75 yards with the open sight rifles. But the other day with a scoped inline I was shooting good groups at 100 yards. It was nice to see what I was shooting at clearly for a change.

Its not that I can not see, but at 100 yards. a lot of targets just disappear in the sight picture. Even with a 6 o'clock hold. Cross hairs just give me a better aiming point.