How did everyone get started in ML?

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In KS, my home state and hunting grounds we have an abundance of Whitetails and a good but declining supply of Mulies. You must apply for an any deer tag which you would get about every other year. You could always purchase a Whitetail tag.

After watching some dandy Mulies walk on Whitetail only years, I realized I could buy an any deer MZ tags over the counter every year. That was about 10 years ago when I figured it out and it's been a fun ride since then.
 
Thank you everybody for your responses. Darn interesting to read. I am located in central Florida. The Orlando area, more specifically Melbourne Florida. If anyone is in this area would love to possibly get together some time, I would love to learn the ropes from a salty dog about the joys of muzzleloading. Every bodies advice is wonderful and I enjoy hearing everyone's story. I find them fascinating. Thank you everyone for making a greenhorn as myself feel welcome.
 
Only knew of the T/C Hawken and CVA Mountaineer and kits in the late 70's. We'd go hunting before school and our shotguns mounted in the truck window while at school.
It wasn't until I got married and my wife's uncle took me to Friendship in 1990 - haven't missed a shoot in June/Sept since. Now, these guys have started this inline thing in May - have to make another trip.
The place is just unbelievable in today's world..
Just as an example: In a previous post about Friendship on this site, I showed photos of the covered firing line. In the photos you can see about a dozen rifles upright, some being shot some not. It's not uncommon for about 25 LRML to he on the line when it's busy, which isn't often it's full (there are probably 1500+ people on the grounds). Then you go to lunch downtown or to commercial row leaving your rifle and stuff - when you come back it's just like you left it an hour ago. Never have I heard of anyone missing anything. Not to mention the many originals LRML there that are worth $10K + each - no one even gives theft a second thought.
I hope I didn't just jinx Friendship!

ML68 - I'll meet you at Long Doggers next time I'm down...
 
52Bore said:
Only knew of the T/C Hawken and CVA Mountaineer and kits in the late 70's. We'd go hunting before school and our shotguns mounted in the truck window while at school....

H&R came out with their first, a muzzleloading shotgun in "70", then the .45 and .58 the next year. It was actually the first break open using a #11. That .58 was what a buddy bought and didn't want any more.

Those days of hunting to or from school are long past. Taking a firearm to school today would end you up in jail. We used to take a shotgun to school and as soon as school was over, 1/2 the teachers would go bird hunting with us. We still had pheasants in those days.........
 
First got hooked back in 57 or 58, was shooting my grand mothers Sharps and had to roll our own ammo, and "black" was easy to get, spent several years shooting flint and then percussion long rifles in 36 and 45, and along about 69 after I got back from the RVN, moved up to custom large bore, mostly 50-54-58 had a couple of 60 and 72 calibere, but had a chance to buy a second hand 8 bore and jumped on it, have sold that damn thing off three times and have bought it back each time, its the only under hammer I own, when the old man retired from the Navy they moved out to VA once again, home of my birth, and we spent a couple of years doing North and South type matches. Some day hope to have a nice inline, but would like to have one in 58 or 62 calibere. Now I mostly just shoot stumps and rocks , and some times slip off with a younger friend who just loves to bust hogs, some'en about a 900 grain round ball and 250 grain of black just makes you smile when you hear the wack :mrgreen:
 
My younger brother and hunting buddy got a muzzleloader for Christmas one year which started my curiosity with it. After a year or two I bought a TC Omega and hunted the muzzleloader season mainly to get more hunting in. Didn't get anything but it was fun. The next year ironically during the rifle season I was sitting in the best stand on my folks property in a dead calm morning, literally not a breath of air moved and a group of nice does came out about 70 yards away. I picked out the nicest one and shot. All I could see was white smoke rolling out the end of the barrel as I looked through the peep sight. After a second all I could see was all the deer running across the road along with a cloud of smoke hanging in the air and my though was crap I missed. Looking at the gravel road however there was a blood trail any fool (including this one) could follow and found her about 30 yards away. Totally hooked ever since!
 
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