- Joined
- Jan 1, 2010
- Messages
- 26
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Born and rasied in Traverse City, MI, shot my Dad's civil war musket and his reproduction Pennsylvania rifle at targets. But that was all of 50 years ago.
I retired to PA after 35 years of Aerospace engineering in Southern CA. I love Pennsylvania! I bought a gunsafe and it filled up. I told my wife "they do that". She couldn't complain, she had 7 rifles of her own.
Between ground hogs, coyotes (12 month open season with no limit), fox, and deer, there is something to hunt here 12 months of the year.
It took a while - we had a house to design and build, got back to deer hunting after a 40 year hiatus, and discovered I could extend my deer hunting season by a total of 16 days if I were to get a flintlock. An inline would only extend it 3 days but a modern flintlock can be used during the regular muzzleloader season (3 days of which I can hunt with a centerfire as a senior). On the heels of that discovery I decided that while I'd fired a flintlock muzzle loader a lot in my youth, I'd never hunted with one and admitted to myself I don't "know" much of anything about them in general and even less about modern ones. When I looked in stores, what I saw in the store was "not" my Dad's Southgate reproduction Pennsylvania rifle but a new animal that looks pretty good to me.
So here I am. Mind wide open, looking to learn all I can about modern flintlocks in particular, and other modern muzzleloaders in general. I figure that if I start learning now, buy a rifle this spring after I've had a chance to know enough to do a rational job of choosing one, and practice over the summer (I average 36 range trips a year with my rifles), I should be in good shape (know the rifle like the back of my hand) and know the limitations well enough to enjoy hunting with it.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Fitch
I retired to PA after 35 years of Aerospace engineering in Southern CA. I love Pennsylvania! I bought a gunsafe and it filled up. I told my wife "they do that". She couldn't complain, she had 7 rifles of her own.
Between ground hogs, coyotes (12 month open season with no limit), fox, and deer, there is something to hunt here 12 months of the year.
It took a while - we had a house to design and build, got back to deer hunting after a 40 year hiatus, and discovered I could extend my deer hunting season by a total of 16 days if I were to get a flintlock. An inline would only extend it 3 days but a modern flintlock can be used during the regular muzzleloader season (3 days of which I can hunt with a centerfire as a senior). On the heels of that discovery I decided that while I'd fired a flintlock muzzle loader a lot in my youth, I'd never hunted with one and admitted to myself I don't "know" much of anything about them in general and even less about modern ones. When I looked in stores, what I saw in the store was "not" my Dad's Southgate reproduction Pennsylvania rifle but a new animal that looks pretty good to me.
So here I am. Mind wide open, looking to learn all I can about modern flintlocks in particular, and other modern muzzleloaders in general. I figure that if I start learning now, buy a rifle this spring after I've had a chance to know enough to do a rational job of choosing one, and practice over the summer (I average 36 range trips a year with my rifles), I should be in good shape (know the rifle like the back of my hand) and know the limitations well enough to enjoy hunting with it.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Fitch
