End of an era?

[Confederate rifleman]

Just wondering if the recent boom, no pun intended, in straight case rounds being permitted in special regs states/ areas will severely impact the development, value and use of inline muzzleloaders.
Used inlines, never an easy sell in a retail setting, are going for a song around here. Most shops won't even buy them, especially if they don't use a 209 primer.
For those of us who appreciate the finer things, this may turn into a golden opportunity to pick up rifles we've always wanted, but maybe couldn't find or afford.
Thoughts?

 

[snapbang]

I have picked up some very nice (never been shot) MZs in auction.I have also purchased a couple that have a little abuse to them. But they all shoot. Not only purchased the gun but often come with bullets, powder, primers, and accessories. Great buys.

Edit. I have owned a Ruger 44 Carbine for well over 30 years. Its a wonderful deer killer but I prefer the MZ

 

[box_blaster]

Definitely food for thought. With all the silly decisions being made here in Indiana it's hard to say what'll happen unless you personally know a lobbyist haha. I love all guns & don't hate on anyone for using whatever equipment they choose but I'd happily take equipment restrictions akin to those of some western states if it meant a longer muzzy season.

 

[snapbang]

Michigan had a dedicated MZ season until a few years ago. Then in their infinite wisdom they decided to make all guns from firearm season legal for MZ season. So we dont have a MZ season anymore. I just use my MZ for all deer hunting except deer drives.

 

[ElDiablo]

You could certainly make the argument that some (many?) modern muzzleloaders are a step up from the straight-walled rounds in range and capability (aside from the only having one shot aspect).

And for all of us out west, several states are going more primitive not less during muzzy seasons.

 

[Confederate rifleman]

Good thoughts to chew on!
I do prefer my Firehawk to any breechloader. But my 760 .35 Remington is soooooo very sweet... I digress.
I could load her heavy. But never felt the need to go past .454 Cassul pistol levels in my Firehawk. My self imposed limit of 150 yards is due to trajectory, not power. My drop with 250 grain .45 XTPs @ 1650 fps is - 8 at 150 and -22 @ 200. Confirmed, not guessed. Off body holds result in a " Catch ya next time" from me. 300 grain XTPs @ 1600 fps drop about the same. Zero is 100 yards.
Now with Boop, the aforementioned 760 .35 Remington, out to 200 yards, somebody's gonna get a ride in the Subaru...

 

[ENCORE50A]

Michigan had a dedicated MZ season until a few years ago. Then in their infinite wisdom they decided to make all guns from firearm season legal for MZ season. So we dont have a MZ season anymore. I just use my MZ for all deer hunting except deer drives.

If more hunters would have taken more does, it .......... may ......... not have happened. Between that and all the small parcels of private property, there were to many deer.
I seen at least 500 carcasses on hit on the road going to Camp Atterbury in June.

 

[snapbang]

Not sure I understand Encore. If they want more does killed just open the season a week or 2 longer in January. Make the first 2 weeks of January a dedicated MZ season. As stated I dont understand. I do understand the deer population. I live on a main hwy and there were 5 carcasses in the 1/2 mile to the next road once you are out of my driveway. Yeah there are plenty of deer.

 

[ENCORE50A]

Not sure I understand Encore. If they want more does killed just open the season a week or 2 longer in January. Make the first 2 weeks of January a dedicated MZ season. As stated I dont understand. I do understand the deer population. I live on a main hwy and there were 5 carcasses in the 1/2 mile to the next road once you are out of my driveway. Yeah there are plenty of deer.

They tried for decades to get hunters to shoot more does, and all the younger guys got into that damn QDMA crap and stopped shooting does all together. Now I understand guys wanting big bucks, but there will NEVER be a 160" class buck behind every tree in Michigan.

If you go back 25 -40yrs ago, starting on September 1st, you could buy a doe permit a day right through Jan 1st for private land. That's over 120 doe permits every individual hunting private property could buy. If you had 3 people hunting, that 360 tags available to just those 3 hunters. And the hunters still didn't harvest enough does.
I can tell you that in 20yrs we took 600 whitetail off the farm. We donated deer to every place that would take them, even many at GM. It got so we had to stop with the harvest as there was no place to give them away to.

Now back to the rest of the story............ Muzzleloader hunters numbers started to rapidly decline here in MI. That meant even less deer were being harvested. Then someone got the bright idea that if they allowed the use of straight wall cartridges, more would continue to hunt. Thus......... BANG! BANG! BANG! started during the muzzleloader season. The 450 Bushmaster was the original main firearm, then others followed. It worked to a degree, more hunters continued to hunt into the muzzleloader season using straight walls. Harvest numbers did increase, but not enough. CWD down below and bTB in the north............. those things also contributed.

For the past 5 or so years up here, because of the increasing number of deer and the decreasing number of hunters, they have sharpshooters killing deer RIGHT NOW! They will be out tonight with spotlights shooting ANY........ ANY ...... whitetail they see in a given area, including fawns with spots. They took 90 whitetail, does, bucks and fawns two summers ago in the area west of M-65 and south of M-32. The meat was processed and given to food banks in Detroit.

Its all about numbers in our state. RAPIDLY decreasing hunter numbers and increasing whitetail numbers.

Quite frankly, if someone knew the right person in the Natural Resources Commission, it would likely be very easy to get them to legalize SML.

 

[smokepolehall]

They did away with Mo.'s ML season. Been like that for 7 or 8 years. They started calling it Alternitive season. I use n hunt with my ML's.

 

[bronko220002]

When I first started hunting almost 60 years ago in PA you could only take one deer a year...period. whether it be archery, rifle or late season archery. Even in 72 when the PGC started the primitive muzzleloader season you could still only shoot one deer a year. During that time it wasn't a rarity to see 20, 30 or more deer a day.
Then the onslaught started. Anterless tag allocations went up as well as the number of deer per year allowed.
The first few years of this and numbers drastically declined. There was also antler point restrictions put in place. Many did not like that idea but now over the past 10 or 12 years I've taken quite a bit of really nice buck. Not B&C class but respectful and a couple close. It seems now that the population has leveled out but this could also be due to lack of hunters.

 

[box_blaster]

Disease & poachers have been hard on them the past several years around these parts. Friends I have that live amidst thousands of acres of public land have also noticed a steady decrease in both deer & orange army numbers within this timeframe. Thankfully this year I've seen more deer & turkey of all sizes than in the past 3-4 years combined. Hopefully bureaucracy/insurance companies will leave well enough alone haha

 

[retrieverman]

They tried for decades to get hunters to shoot more does, and all the younger guys got into that damn QDMA crap and stopped shooting does all together. Now I understand guys wanting big bucks, but there will NEVER be a 160" class buck behind every tree in Michigan.

If you go back 25 -40yrs ago, starting on September 1st, you could buy a doe permit a day right through Jan 1st for private land. That's over 120 doe permits every individual hunting private property could buy. If you had 3 people hunting, that 360 tags available to just those 3 hunters. And the hunters still didn't harvest enough does.
I can tell you that in 20yrs we took 600 whitetail off the farm. We donated deer to every place that would take them, even many at GM. It got so we had to stop with the harvest as there was no place to give them away to.

Now back to the rest of the story............ Muzzleloader hunters numbers started to rapidly decline here in MI. That meant even less deer were being harvested. Then someone got the bright idea that if they allowed the use of straight wall cartridges, more would continue to hunt. Thus......... BANG! BANG! BANG! started during the muzzleloader season. The 450 Bushmaster was the original main firearm, then others followed. It worked to a degree, more hunters continued to hunt into the muzzleloader season using straight walls. Harvest numbers did increase, but not enough. CWD down below and bTB in the north............. those things also contributed.

For the past 5 or so years up here, because of the increasing number of deer and the decreasing number of hunters, they have sharpshooters killing deer RIGHT NOW! They will be out tonight with spotlights shooting ANY........ ANY ...... whitetail they see in a given area, including fawns with spots. They took 90 whitetail, does, bucks and fawns two summers ago in the area west of M-65 and south of M-32. The meat was processed and given to food banks in Detroit.

Its all about numbers in our state. RAPIDLY decreasing hunter numbers and increasing whitetail numbers.

Quite frankly, if someone knew the right person in the Natural Resources Commission, it would likely be very easy to get them to legalize SML.

QDMA does advocate shooting does. The whole obsession with killing monster buck was/is driven by hunting shows on TV.

 

[MrTom]

I remember when we could only take one deer per year and it had to be antlered. Does were by lottery. Then they expanded the doe by lottery throughout the state. Then they allowed bonus tags. Achers could always take either or, but the one deer and they were done. Lots of change since back then. I can take three with one being antlered where I hunt during the regular gun season, using my muzzies of course. And I can hunt the late muzzy season after the regular two seasons if I still have tags available. The zones around me have 5 deer limits.

Several years ago the dnr listened to a bunch of dicks [archery enthusiasts] that thought they should be able to take a trophy buck each year and they imposed antler point restrictions in some of the highest deer count areas of the state. Problems were already beginning to pop up because all these young, testostrone laced idiots refused to tag does and wanted nothing but big bucks. It took two years to get the deer herds in these deer rich areas to see the herd unbalanced between the males and females. Way too many males. Year three of this crap and guess what began showing up? CWD. They've had concentrated hunts ever since and guess which deer are showing up as the primary carriers? Bucks of a year or older. CWD has spread all thru SE Minnesota. The dnr won't fess up to creating the problem. Jackasses.

There's been a lobby advocating the straight wall cartridges here too. I'm so fed up with the dnr and their mismanagement of the deer here that I don't pay them much attention to what the heck they are doing. I've got my own private little mountain to hunt and generally will not have to put up with idiots during the season but as regulations become more liberal around me I see the carry over in shitheads that can't read signs and basically think they can go anywhere.

We entrust our natural resources to the government agencies, yet all they seem to get done is go against the wishes of the status quo and smile as they drive by in nice pick ups bought with money from under the table. And this is NOT just a Minnesota problem.

 

[ENCORE50A]

I remember when we could only take one deer per year and it had to be antlered. Does were by lottery. Then they expanded the doe by lottery throughout the state. Then they allowed bonus tags. Achers could always take either or, but the one deer and they were done. Lots of change since back then. I can take three with one being antlered where I hunt during the regular gun season, using my muzzies of course. And I can hunt the late muzzy season after the regular two seasons if I still have tags available. The zones around me have 5 deer limits.

Several years ago the dnr listened to a bunch of dicks [archery enthusiasts] that thought they should be able to take a trophy buck each year and they imposed antler point restrictions in some of the highest deer count areas of the state. Problems were already beginning to pop up because all these young, testostrone laced idiots refused to tag does and wanted nothing but big bucks. It took two years to get the deer herds in these deer rich areas to see the herd unbalanced between the males and females. Way too many males. Year three of this crap and guess what began showing up? CWD. They've had concentrated hunts ever since and guess which deer are showing up as the primary carriers? Bucks of a year or older. CWD has spread all thru SE Minnesota. The dnr won't fess up to creating the problem. Jackasses.

There's been a lobby advocating the straight wall cartridges here too. I'm so fed up with the dnr and their mismanagement of the deer here that I don't pay them much attention to what the heck they are doing. I've got my own private little mountain to hunt and generally will not have to put up with idiots during the season but as regulations become more liberal around me I see the carry over in shitheads that can't read signs and basically think they can go anywhere.

We entrust our natural resources to the government agencies, yet all they seem to get done is go against the wishes of the status quo and smile as they drive by in nice pick ups bought with money from under the table. And this is NOT just a Minnesota problem.

One deer a year and had to be antlered......... Michigan was the same back in the day. Only us old guys remember and recognize it. Just like the damn speed limits, which in MI use to be 65mph on every road that wasn't in a town, business area, or high residential area. Remember those days too?

I think the guy retired, finally, but Russ Mason used to be the director of the DNR here in MI. Same as bold above, they talked him and the State's Vet into forcing antler restrictions within the bTB area. He held 3 meetings within the area with locals and I made all three. All those "Let'em go, let'em" grow boys showed up and agreed with them, that we'd end up with MONSTER RECORD BUCKS in just 3 yrs. Not a single one did their homework. However, I had.

I was the only person in the entire meeting that had any paperwork to provide facts, not just the hope of monster record breaking bucks. I sat very close to up front, along side our local DNR officer Warren. When it came time for questions from hunters, my hand went up and remained up. They knew darn well not to ask anyone with a clipboard and wouldn't call on me. Finally, Warren, in uniform, spoke up and mentioned that I'd had my had up since the beginning of all the questions. They had no choice............

The Director of the DNR, Russ Mason, got his ask handed to him. He got so frustrated with my clipboard of FACTS and questions, he finally stated, "We don't know what to do, so we're going to try something to see if it works."

You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about bucks being the problem. However in our area with bTB, it started with yearling bucks. Those yearlings will be pushed from the area by mature bucks, hell that's easy to know, but the likely hood of those yearlings having bTB is rather high. So they leave an area where there may be a concentration of bTB and travel to another area that is bTB free, up to 20mi. Guess what happens then? Because there's an antler restriction, bTB increased insanely, which is exactly what I told Russ Mason would happen.
The rate of bTB increased so badly, that they finally were forced to stop antler point restrictions in the area. The damage was done. Now they're killing them in mass with sharpshooters at night.

I like some science. I like common sense better.

 

[mgmorden]

Here in SC we've never had a dedicated muzzleloader season. Best we have is certain public units that are restricted to muzzeloaders for certain periods before opening up to rifles, but during that same time there are other areas open to rifle hunting. It can work out well though as for those few weeks the muzzeloader unit has a lot less hunting pressure than the rest of the places.

We do have a dedicated archery period *on public land* - private land opens for everything well before public is open for anything (including archery). On the plus side though the rules for muzzleloaders and archery are pretty lax. Scopes are fine on either. For muzzeloaders inlines are fine and for archery crossbows are legal.

We've been slowly clamping down on the bag limits though. When I was younger SC had no annual limit on deer, and no tagging system. You could kill 2 per day from August 15 to Jan 1st. I remember my uncle having a "terrible year" when he'd "only" killed around 40 deer. More recently we've switched to a tag system. Everyone gets 3 buck tags (any buck) and 2 doe tags. You can then purchase 2 additional buck tags where it has to be at least 4 pts on one side, and 4 additional doe tags. So 11 tags total normally, though if you happen to draw a hunt for a lottery unit they issue you 3 more tags specific to that hunt (1 buck and 2 doe).

When I started looking at some out of state hunts the whole "1 tag per year" business - and particularly the concept of having years where you couldn't draw a tag - was very foreign.

 

[RobRed]

Here in SC we've never had a dedicated muzzleloader season. Best we have is certain public units that are restricted to muzzeloaders for certain periods before opening up to rifles, but during that same time there are other areas open to rifle hunting. It can work out well though as for those few weeks the muzzeloader unit has a lot less hunting pressure than the rest of the places.

We do have a dedicated archery period *on public land* - private land opens for everything well before public is open for anything (including archery). On the plus side though the rules for muzzleloaders and archery are pretty lax. Scopes are fine on either. For muzzeloaders inlines are fine and for archery crossbows are legal.

We've been slowly clamping down on the bag limits though. When I was younger SC had no annual limit on deer, and no tagging system. You could kill 2 per day from August 15 to Jan 1st. I remember my uncle having a "terrible year" when he'd "only" killed around 40 deer. More recently we've switched to a tag system. Everyone gets 3 buck tags (any buck) and 2 doe tags. You can then purchase 2 additional buck tags where it has to be at least 4 pts on one side, and 4 additional doe tags. So 11 tags total normally, though if you happen to draw a hunt for a lottery unit they issue you 3 more tags specific to that hunt (1 buck and 2 doe).

When I started looking at some out of state hunts the whole "1 tag per year" business - and particularly the concept of having years where you couldn't draw a tag - was very foreign.

40 deer holy smokes! I’m kinda burnt out after only processing 2-3 deer in a season

 

[smokepolehall]

Yeah i remember back some years ago late 70's we could take a deer a day either sex. Starting in Archery Oct. 1st till last day of Jan. You could take 120 deer.

 

[birdog]

I believe straight wall is a good replacement for a shotgun slug. With straight wall you get rid of the weakest link in the shotgun slug...Sorry, I couldn't resist.

 

[RobRed]

I believe straight wall is a good replacement for a shotgun slug. With straight wall you get rid of the weakest link in the shotgun slug...Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Plus have you seen the price of sabot shotgun slugs lately?? At least straight wall is easily reloadable.