I'm interested in muzzleloaders, black powder and early American history. I shoot a muzzle loader and use lead balls and black powder. I don't just dress and camp funny, I try to do it the way I believe it was done in the 17th and 18th century. I clean my muzzle loader with hot water and grease it up afterwards with the lard of one critter or another using a tow worm and linen tow. My guns have shot well and lasted me some 30 years now.
If I shot an 'inline' using pyrodex, shotgun primers and sabots, cleaned my gun with water pump flush or lube and dressed in chrome tan golden buckskins and had enough reservation bead work hanging off me to drown a small pack mule would I be a buckskinn'in, muzzle loading, mountain man of old? Maybe, Maybe not. The question might better be, why bother. After all that, it would be a lot simpler to get me a modern gun even a late 19th century cartridge rifle and pistol and be done with it.
If you (this is a rhetorical question) are interested in muzzleloaders and the mountain man era or long hunter era and have gone to the trouble of doing your shooting with muzzleloaders then why do you want to try to make the sport as much like modern shooting as possible. Why try to reinvent the way things were done in those olden days that we revere and cherish so highly. Why not just concentrate on rediscovering the old ways and relearn how the old-timers (of a previous century) did things and got along quit well without the local NAPA store. And most of all, if you (rhetorical again) have cause to influence someone just getting started in this game, why not steer them towards the old ways right from the start. Help them get a leg up on this game so they don't have to unlearn bad habits or information and don't have a bunch of gear they wish they could get rid of but can't afford to let go for nothing.
Some would say that I don't accept those that don't have a 'Chambers' rifle and dress in brain tan from head to toe. Your not listening! Not everyone that came to the mountains had a gun much less a truly fine gun. and most did not come dressed in leather. Most wore home spun and carried an old musket or were issued one by their sponsor if they merited one. What is being suggested is that if it is worth doing, then it really is worth doing right. And we should be encouraging newcomers to do it right (authentic) or we are not doing our part to preserve the sport of Buckskinnig/Muzzle Loading. Go the convenient easy path and some day it will not be muzzle loading any more, it will be just a funny way to shoot invented in the mid to late 20th century by a bunch of strange people dressed in funny nondescript clothing.
I hope this does not offend anyone but rather causes some hard thinking on what we are all about. This is supposed to be a history list/discussion and when I contribute in the vein of making do, like my suggestion recently to put some brass grommets in a tarp and treat it with a commercial waterproofing, I am not doing right by those who tune in to learn the way it was done in the old days am I. What are you all doing to further our understanding of the ways of our forefathers?
I remain Your Most Obedient Servant (Humble too)
Capt. Roger Lahti (ret)
ITWHEELER@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 98-06-12 15:28:27 EDT, you write:<< MtMan-List: Patch Lube / BP Cleaner >>
with all this fuss about period stuff i wounder if this is the right thing to
use being there are so many purists among us maby urin is better it was easly
transported an was period corect. they used back then as an anti foweling
cleaning agent.
purests out there. got any great comments and words of wisdom????????